Isoroku Yamamoto Quotes

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.

It can’t be any other than madness to commence hostilities before we have established resources on a sure plan for certain and effectual military supplies. Men in that case will not be wanting.

Our military plans for everything.

By 'intelligence' we mean every sort of information about the enemy and his country - the basis, in short, of our own plans and operations.

The North Koreans or Chinese may have a million men in uniform but it's about how you perform.

I submit that those who run the American military at the top, and those whose boots are on the ground and who run the machinery and equipment, are sending a signal: You asked us to do something. Give us some time and we will solve the problems and we will do it.

The military mind always imagines that the next war will be on the same lines as the last.

The U.S. public is more likely to sour on a conflict when it sees the military losing blood, not treasure. So to keep up our staying power, our skill in hunting and killing our foes has to be matched by our care in concealing and protecting our troops. Three particularly obvious requirements are body armor, mine-resistant vehicles, and telescopic and night sights for every weapon. But these things are expensive for a military that has historically been enamored of big-ticket items such as fighter planes, ships and missiles.

It takes more than a trained army … it takes an institutionalized army.

There has never been a military commander in history who didn’t want more men for a longer time …

… you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have at a later time.

We must ensure that our troops are ready when called upon, that they are fully capable of fighting, and that they must win every war

We haven’t done strategic military analysis in so long that most of our analysts don’t know how to do it any more..

All of the military services - land, sea, and air - spend a great deal of time awake. This is a direct result of the high tempo of operations we conduct while forward deployed well outside our national borders.

There is not a military commander alive today who is genetically predisposed to say that he has enough ISR and assets, and particularly not in the Central Command theater.

One of the first things I learned in the Marine Corps is that any military mission has to be defined as precisely as you can possibly define it, and then you size the force and equipment force to accomplish that mission without fail.

Instead of measuring military readiness in terms of overall size and numbers, we must focus on metrics of capability, particularly in technology, and positioning.

I have every confidence in the ultimate success of our joint cause; but success in modern war requires something more than courage and a willingness to die: it requires careful preparation.

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.

To make war all you need is intelligence. But to win you need talent and material.

We should make sure that we are never sending our troops into harm's way unless they're sent with a clear strategy to win, and learning lessons of the past to ensure that best path forward with what lies ahead.

Military arrangement, and movements in consequence, like the mechanism of a clock, will be imperfectand disordered by the want of a part.

We have two companies of Marines running rampant all over the northern half of this island, and three Army regiments pinned down in the southwestern corner, doing nothing. What the hell is going on?

Now that you're Secretary of War, what kind of an army do you think we ought to have?

How are you, G.I. Joe? It seems to me that most of you are poorly informed about the going of the war, to say nothing about a correct explanation of your presence over here. Nothing is more confused than to be ordered into a war to die.