Joseph R. Biden Jr. Quotes

A nation's ability to fight a modern war is as good as its technological ability.

Today, we are not likely to need to organize local militias for our defense now we have something called the Pentagon.

To keep providing our soldiers, sailors and Marines with 21st-century firepower, Picatinny needs 21st-century laboratories and research and development facilities.

It wasn't until about a year, year and a half in where I began to realize that the Pentagon and our national-security apparatus and the CIA were all getting too comfortable with the technology as a tool to fight terrorism, and not being mindful enough about how that technology is being used and the dangers of a form of warfare that is so detached from what is actually happening on the ground. And so we initiated this big process to try to get it in a box.

Some typewriters in Whitehall, in the Pentagon, killed more civilians than our little A4 could have ever hoped to.

Our military has been so badly depleted. Who would think the United States is raiding plane graveyards to pick up parts and equipment? That means they're being held together by a shoestring. Other countries have brand-new stuff they have bought from us. It's insane.

A nation with a strong defence industry will not only be more secure. It will also reap rich economic benefits - it can boost investment, expand manufacturing, support enterprise, raise the technology level and increase economic growth in the country.

This fear factor, this war driver is a very strong one and it's been with the species ever since the beginning and it motivated the Great Wall of China. War can be aggressive or defensive, right? So it motivated the Great Wall of China. Our space program was reactive to Russia.

So she [Hillary Clinton] wouldn't intentionally put the nation at risk. She wouldn't intentionally traffic in top secret stuff. And besides, not all this stuff we deal with is that classified anyway. So here's the president [Barack Obama], very powerful, intimidating guy, [James] Comey works for him, the president's been out there saying he didn't think Hillary did anything wrong.

Air power is new to all our countries. It brings advantages to some and weakens others; it calls for readjustment everywhere.

Give government the weapons to fight your enemy and it will use them against you.

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.

The question that we, as a society, have to ask is, are our collective rights worth a small relative advantage in our ability to spy on other countries and foreign citizens? I have my opinion about that, but we all collectively have to come to our opinion about it.

More warnings issued by all branches of the government today that another terrorist attack is imminent. We're not sure when, we're not sure where, just that it is coming. Who is attacking us now, the cable company?

An insular country, subject to fogs, and with a powerful middle class, requires grave statesmen.

Bush has done more to create passions for what they call terror than any other Administration in this nation's history. I get rather afraid when the most powerful man in the world talks to, and gets answers back from, God.

When contemplating a shield that would protect America for incoming missiles, Democrats suddenly became hardheaded fiscal conservatives. For the first time in recorded history, liberals were concerned about the cost and usefulness of a government program. These people believe federally funded art therapy for the homeless will pay for itself. That you can take to the bank. But a shield to repel incoming nuclear missiles from American soil they said, was too expensive and wouldn't work.

We're going to make our military so strong, so powerful. That nobody, nobody, is going to mess with us, that, I can tell you. We're going to take care of our vets. They are forgotten people. They've been the forgotten people. And we're taking care of our vets.

Isn't a policy of conventional weapons, with the terrible bombs raining down, with the missiles, with the aircraft, with the submarines, with the torpedoes, with the tanks, with chemical weapons - isn't that based on the possibility of threat?

I will make certain that our military is the best in the world in both cyber offense and defense and in every other way, by the way. Every other way.

We were once told that the aeroplane had "abolished frontiers"; actually it is only since the aeroplane became a serious weapon that frontiers have become definitely impassable.

The United States is sending its most powerful drone to Libya. That’s a long trip for Joe Biden.

We have put over £2bn in the last three years into counter-terrorism and we are developing the electronic border surveillance and identity cards

With almost no time to decide, they [your loved ones] gave the entire country an incalculable gift. They saved the capitol from attack. They saved God knows how many lives. They saved the terrorists from claiming the symbolic victory of smashing the center of American government. And they did it as citizens. They allowed us to survive as a country that could fight terror and still maintain liberty and still welcome people from all over the world from every religion and race and culture as long as they shared our values, because ­ordinary people given no time at all to decide did the right thing.

I believe we should work and want to have the most powerful military, but hope we never have to use it. I strongly believe the military should know they are 100 percent supported by the commander in chief.