Jenny Shipley Quotes

When decisions on nuclear power stations and runways are delayed and the government dilly-dallies, people think they aren't important.

The most important thing you need to know about the Pentagon is that it is not in charge of today's wars but rather tomorrow's wars.

Neither Johnson nor his party nor the government as a whole were willing to raise, train, equip, and then send Vietnam sufficient manpower to do the job.

Today, the US spends less on defense as a percentage of our economy than we did at any time since he Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. For the world's only superpower, that is an invitation to very serious trouble.

Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

Any great power—especially a great one suddenly deprived of its traditional adversary—faces the perennial dilemma of showing a reasonable return on its costly military investments.

How much do we really need for the defense of the United States of America? Only the defense to defend its shores? Well I suppose that the maximum for the defense of our shores is one billion dollars. So the rest of our defense budget relates to what we regard as our responsibilities as a world power.

It’s not the plans, it’s the people. I think we should have Defense Department people.

It is necessarily requisite to the peoples defense, that they be fore-armed. Now to be fore-armed is to be furnished with Soldiers, Armies, Ships, Forts and Monies, before the danger be instant; for the listing of Soldiers, and taking up of Arms after a blow is given, is too late at least, if not impossible.

It is not how much you spend on defense as much as how you spend it.

I'm not going to risk our precious military resources on an ineffective, unproductive mission.

The military budget must reflect the threats we face, rather than the budget defining those threats.

We made a clear commitment to NATO's two percent goal. I know that we can't get there from one day to the next, but I'm just as clear on the fact that we must get there in the end.

The bottom line, addressing defense spending cuts with a meat ax like sequestration will damage defense readiness for decades to come.

The National Defense Strategy remains our guiding document, and everything we do should support its stated objectives.

Every decision in government is so important, especially when it comes to the military where thousands of people can lose their lives.

We've got to strengthen our military long-term. We don't know what the world is going to throw at us down the road.

The two-war strategy was a product of the cold war, when we had to have the ability to fight the Russians on the plains of Europe and fight the Chinese on the Korean peninsula at the same time. That costs an awful lot of money.

Hostile armies may face each other for years, striving for the victory which is decided in a single day. This being so, to remain in ignorance of the enemy's condition simply because one grudges the outlay of a hundred ounces of silver in honors and emoluments, is the height of inhumanity.

The Pentagon needs precious resources to build the strength of America, and we can't say, 'this is really important to this community, and it's really not vital to the national security, but we ought to do it anyway.' So, I think we have to have a discipline on this

If we know that the enemy is open to attack, but are unaware that our own men are not in a condition to attack, we have gone only halfway towards victory.

We can't be fighting the last war. We have to be preparing to fight the new war.

The only hope of a short war is to prepare for a long one.

The biggest budget is the military budget. For what? We're fighting two wars in very small countries that have no nuclear weapons, that have no capabilities to destroy anything. They probably couldn't even get to America.

Barack Obama's a terrible commander-in-chief. He is gutting our military. It's not an exaggeration.