James F. Amos Quotes
The Marine Corps has to ask itself, 'What does our nation need from its premier crisis response force?' We are America's shock troops in war and peace. I know it sounds corny, but it's not.
Amos, James F. "Remarks at the Brookings Institution." Brookings Institution, 12 June 2012.
1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley. Though members of the same Conservative Party, Churchill was a major opponent of Baldwin’s peace and “appeasement” efforts and publicly castigated Prime Minister Baldwin. Yet Baldwin, if he could not stave off war, wanted his critic to serve as Prime Minister if war was inevitable. Churchill never had much respect for Baldwin. See {626930}.
What he does not consider is that a large number of Americans don’t want their government having grand strategies if there is no threat to the United States or no critical national interest. For them crises and threats are all that should occupy our foreign affairs.
He later provided a copy to Hezekiah Niles, February 5, 1819 which is the source of the quotation since Henry never mentioned it.
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}.
While Northern industry was one of the major factors of the Union winning the Civil War, it took some time to ramp up civilian-controlled production. This historical experience, and that of WWI (soldiers had to drill with brooms for rifles) were two of the major influences on President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to begin to produce arms and ammunition before we were actually at war. Preparedness has been an American policy ever since with even the Republicans who castigated FDR as a warmonger for spending money on the military in peacetime became the preparedness hawks and moved to the opposite end of the political spectrum on defense spending,
“There” referred to the new American Colonies. He was advocating mobilizing the poor and destitute of England and sending them to America to provide manpower for a needed workforce and to be soldiers in the event of wars. The poor have historically been used indiscriminately for military manpower needs until Post WWII America where the military technology began to require minimum standards of intelligence and literacy. With the all volunteer military and higher standards, the majority of the military in America has been from the lower socioeconomic classes.
James F. "Jim" Amos is a retired United States Marine Corps four-star general who served as the 35th Commandant of the Marine Corps. As a naval aviator, Amos commanded the 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing during the Iraq War in 2003 and 2006. He served as the 31st Assistant Commandant of the Marine Corps from 2008 to 2010, and was the first Marine Corps aviator to serve as commandant.
