John McCain Quotes

Our modern states are preparing for war without even knowing the future enemy.

Whenever we get involved in a war, the White House seems to have 3 priorities: We cannot appear to be losing; we must appear to be winning; we must look like we know what we are doing.

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.

Domestic policy can only defeat us; foreign policy can kill us.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

In time of peace prepare for war.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.

When we walk everyday on the razor-edge of danger, a peace-loving people do not want a trigger-happy President in the White House.

In peace, as a wise man, he should make suitable preparation for war.

There is no area where experience matters more than in war and diplomacy.

A certain degree of preparation for war ... affords also the best security for the continuance of peace.

Any idea that you can have a league for security is nuts, and all people who favor it are potential murderers… as long as man is man, there will be war and the only way to avoid trouble is to have the best army and navy, which we now have.

The Mutual Security Act was intended not to fight a war but to prevent a war.

If this phrase of “the balance of power” is to be always an argument for war, the pretext for war will never be wanting …

President-elect Trump wants to win them if you're going to be involved in a war. I don't think he wants to be involved in war, but when we are, he wants to win.

Preparation for war is a constant stimulus to suspicion and ill will.

You could argue that war is always an irrational act, and yet many states enter into military conflict out of rational calculation or national interest or the stability or longevity of their regime.

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.'

Warfare is an utterly stupid method of settling differences of interest between different nations.

Pat Roberts and I both feel very strongly that when we get to Iran, that we can't make the same mistakes. We have to ask the questions, the hard questions before, not afterwards, and get the right intelligence.

Our country has never started a war. Our sole objective is deterrence, the strength and capability it takes to prevent war.

We ought to nuke North Korea right about now just to give the world a warning.

In matters of war, we undermine presidential credibility at our nation’s peril.

I could have been very popular if I had launched a military attack on Iran but I chose patience.

To be a great president you have to have a war. All the great presidents had their wars.