Yaroslav Trofimov Quotes

If we engage in a conflict that we know this is a threat to America, we should make it so one-sided that it gets over very quickly.

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.

You needn't kill everyone to complete the job... We instituted Civil Affairs, which provides development for 70% of the population while we kill 30%..

Military decisions are much more difficult and more often wrong than civilian decisions.

You want to win the wars you fight. That’s why you have to pick your wars carefully.

Contrary to what some believe, taking all reasonable and feasible precautions to protect civilians - and mitigating the resulting anger when we harm them - does not need to impede military operations.

There is no question but that when one is engaged militarily that there are going to be unintended loss of life.

Israel does not target civilians. It targets the terrorists.

According to U.S. strategy, if you never see the other, his destruction will be more acceptableso that when Iraqi soldiers surrendered, sooner than expected, it was as if they emerged from a dream, a flash-back, a lost epoch--an epoch when the enemy still had a body and was still "like us.

War in our time is always indiscriminate, a war against innocents, a war against children.

A general must be shot or befriended - but never hurt.

The rules of engagement are so lax that soldiers are shooting and killing Iraqis under mere suspicion, and tragedies are everyday. There are road killings, killings on the road when someone is trying to pass a convoy and they get shot. Or if a roadside bomb goes off, the soldiers just start shooting in all directions.

As the excited passions of hostile people are of themselves a powerful enemy, both the general and his government should use their best efforts to allay them.

It is better to learn war early from friends, than late from enemies.

We have contingency plans for war, but none for peace.

The president made clear when he was a candidate for this office and when he took this office, that unfortunately prior to his taking office, because of the focus on Iraq, and the U.S. efforts there, that the original war, if you will, in Afghanistan had been neglected, the strategy there was unclear, and that it was not properly resourced.

To win a war is as disasterous as to lose one.

There is a tendency in any conflict, especially in a democracy, to fight the enemy you can, not the enemy you should.

I think the core problem is much closer to recognizing where force is of value, where it is useful, and to distinguish that from situations in which war is not useful or is indeed counterproductive.

Bush and his commanders in the war on terrorism are willing to waste non-terrorists to kill terrorists. Right or wrong, that is not caring about the dignity of every life.

In war, the policy of least exertion always risks being paid for dearly.

I don't think we [the USA] need more troops. I think we need to be less worried about civilian casualties.

I don't know all the facts on Iraq, but I think we should work closely with the Americans.

In war, while everything is simple, even the simplest thing is difficult. Difficulties accumulate and produce frictions which no one can comprehend who has not seen war.

I had said from the start that I thought Iraq was a mistake, that we should have stayed focused on Afghanistan. I think it was the right decision because the Taliban at that point had gotten a lot of momentum before I'd gotten into office, partly because we hadn't been paying attention as much as we needed to to Afghanistan.