Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes
Morale is the greatest single factor in successful wars.
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1890-1969, 34th President of the United States (Republican, KS), Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, Quoted in The New York Post, June 23, 1945
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
See Napoleon Bonaparte for a similar view.
There is a , romantic American myth about the Militiamen in Colonial and Revolutionary America—the citizen soldiers who would leave their farms and rise to the military necessity of the day. However, not only were the militia very hard to muster to duty, but most actually didn’t own or have experience with firearms, and the prevailing opinion of knowledgeable military leaders from George Washington on down was that the militia were not very good soldiers. See {613015}, {613016}, {613022}, {613027}, {621987}, {621988}, {613030}, {613033}, & {613056}
He had wanted more troops for the Afghan War than President Obama would approve. The Republican members of the Congress tried to make the difference a major issue of a President not supporting his commanders. The General made this brilliant response.
Much of the Chinese military had been distracted from military readiness in favor of political, economic, and ceremonial, activity along with extensive economic corruption. The People’s Liberation Army is a major political force in China which made this a very noteworthy chastisement. Leading Generals were with him however. See {632518}.
During the Civil War, General Joseph Hooker castigated the President and called for a dictator to assume power:
Clark had commanded the American and NATO forces in the Serbian War where all the military and political objectives were accomplished with heavy losses to the Serbian’s and none to the allied side—what many think was the most successful war in American History. Like Eisenhower in WWII one great challenge was the political and strategic one of keeping the coalition of all the allied governments working together. His perspective had been like Eisenhower and other officers in history was much wider and geopolitical than most military officers.
Critics claim that this way he could appear that troops were well trained and display that to the press and the Congress while being able to avoid serious fighting. He never did have a grand review far away from Washington which could not be well attended.
Shortly thereafter, Ma Hongkui, and his soldiers ran for their lives and barely escaped to Taiwan as the Communists took over all of the Chinese mainland.
If a military loses a war, it has shown to be insufficient quality; if it wins, the evaluation is good. With all the talk about what makes for an effective and quality military, as the General states, it is war that is the final arbitrator. So ideally we never want to really know how good our military is.
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower GCB OM GCS CCLH KC NPk was an American military officer and statesman who served as the 34th president of the United States from 1953 to 1961. During World War II, he became a five-star general in the Army and served as Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. He was responsible for planning and supervising the invasion of North Africa in Operation Torch in 1942–43 and the successful invasion of Normandy in 1944–45 from the Western Front.
