Wesley Clark Quotes
The Pentagon is always going to be the last to want to intervene. It is up to the civilians to tell us what they want to do and we’ll figure out how to do it.
Wesley Clark, U. S. General and NATO Commander, Candidate for the Democratic Presidential Nomination, Comment on the military’s reluctance to intervene in the 1994 Genocide in Rwanda, Quoted in The Atlantic Monthly September 2001
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
3 years later he led America on a huge invasion and nation building project in Iraq. It turned out that had he listened to his own advice and not flip-flopped, the huge cost of the Iraq War might have been avoided.
There is frequently a disagreement between the military and civilian leaders just as there are disagreements among most political personnel. Hawks, and people who have had experience in the military tend to think that military advice on military matters should be determinative with the President and Congress. Others tend to believe that military advice should be considered, but if it were always adhered to, there would be no point in having civilian control over the military. See {639667} for an example of when military leadership advice prevailed and it was a mistake.
Russia is not the only nation who believed this. There were and are some politicians and military officers in almost every country who believe this. However, for the last few centuries, this has rarely been the view held by the majority of the politicians and military in most nations. And even fewer where the leadership accepted this posiitin. Russia, was one of those counties that did hold this few and kade it policy was in the 2nd decade of 2016,
Greek invaders were marching on Istanbul
See {633152} for more of the reasoning for this point. “Neocon” is a shortened form of “neoconservative”. At the time the neoconservatives were advocating use of military intervention in the Middle East. Munich was the German city in which British Prime Minister notoriously tried to appease Hitler and the Nazis. This led to WWII and has become the historical icon for appeasement of a powerful tyrant and the cost of such.
On military or foreign policy matters his view was that presidents ought not to rule anything in or out so that he/she can keep all the options open and not reduce future flexibility.
Wesley Kanne Clark, Sr. is a retired general of the United States Army. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. He later graduated from the Command and General Staff College with a master's degree in military science. He spent 34 years in the U.S. Army, receiving many military decorations, several honorary knighthoods, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
