Ann F. Lewis Quotes

I’ve worked as a leader for many years and I’ve always trained myself to be prepared for the worst.

It is axiomatic in politics that the earlier one addresses a problem, the more the alternatives and the easier the solutions.

Analysts can choose the problems that they want to study whereas the statesman’s problems are imposed on him.

Blunders are an inescapable feature of war, because choice in military affairs lies generally between the bad and the worse.

General Petraeus is not a miracle worker. He can not be successful unless the president creates greater confidence within his own team about the decisions which the president has himself made.

Are the things that now, in retrospect, with what I've seen happen to my company, would I have done some things differently? I think - I think we all would do - we would do a number of things differently.

As the First World War made painfully clear, when politicians and generals lead nations into war, they almost invariably assume swift victory, and have a remarkably enduring tendency not to foresee problems that, in hindsight, seem obvious.

My job is to give the president and secretary of defense military advice before they know they need it.

Mistakes, after all, are endemic to foreign and military policy given the unpredictability of events and the difficulty of securing reliable information in a place like Iraq.

Politicians, like generals, have a tendency to fight the last war.

I used to have a little saying I used when people said, 'What are your priorities?' I'd give them a bit of government alphabet soup. I'd say 'CTCPROW: Counterterrorism, counterproliferation, rest of the world.'

Politics is like football ... Sometimes you have to punt.

As not infrequently happens in the affairs of war, it is easier to point out mistakes after they are committed, than to see and avoid them amid the difficulties and dangers by which the military commander is at the moment surrounded.

One mediocre general is better than two good ones.

As Secretary of Defense I have to be cautious and prudent.

A great politician has to bother himself less with means than with goals.

Statecraft, as these cases convincingly illustrate, is demanding and often exhausting work. There are risks, and success is not guaranteed. It requires major governmental and political resources and the same kind of hourly, year-round planning and execution as the conduct of a military campaign.

War room

The President has full responsibility, which cannot be shared, for military decisions in a world in which the difference between safety and cataclysm can be a matter of hours or even minutes.

What he's really talking about - and I'm speaking for Mike Flynn, not Donald Trump - is that he's saying, essentially, we have to have options. We have to have a lot of options. And, frankly, we do. We do have a lot of options.

A businessman can be as military as any politician.

A president has an inescapable responsibility to provide direction: What are we trying to achieve? What are we trying to prevent? Why? To do that, he has to both analyze and reflect.

No politician has a 50-year horizon.

I understand that fans think short-term, and there's nothing wrong with that. You live or you die in the short term. But I believe in our system, and when you do that, you don't make knee-jerk decisions.

Being a Navy SEAL and sniper taught me all about risk management. Take away all the risk variables under your control and reduce it to an acceptable level. The same fundamentals apply in business.