Dwight D. Eisenhower Quotes

Logistics is the ball and chain of armored warfare.

Logistics comprises the means and arrangements which work out the plans of strategy and tactics. Strategy decides where to act; logistics brings the troops to this point.

The battle is fought and decided by the quartermasters, long before the shooting begins.

There is nothing more common than to find considerations of supply affecting the strategic lines of a campaign and a war.

Leaders win through logistics. Vision, sure. Strategy, yes. But when you go to war, you need to have both toilet paper and bullets at the right place at the right time. In other words, you must win through superior logistics.

If there is a war to be fought, we don’t consider cost one of the factors in deciding whether or not to fight.

It has been said by a certain general, that the first object in the establishment of an army ought to be making provision for the belly, that being the basis and foundation of all operations.

The Imperial Service could win a war without coffee, but would prefer not to have to.

War means fighting. The business of the soldier is to fight. Armies are not called out to dig trenches, to throw up breastworks, to live in camps, but to find the enemy and strike him; to invade his country, and do him all possible damage in the shortest possible time. This will involve great destruction of life and property while it lasts; but such a war will of necessity be of brief continuance, and so would be an economy of life and property in the end.

For WAR, consisteth not in Battle only, or the act of fighting; but in a tract of time, wherein the Will to content by Battle is sufficiently known.... So the nature of War, consisteth not in actual fighting; but in the known disposition thereto, during all the time there is no assurance to the contrary. All other time is PEACE.

As I said back in 1984, the idea of logistics is not only about oil, about ammunitions and supplies but also about images.

War is a generality, so are the inevitabilities of war, including death.

The fact is that as soon as they reach Baghdad gates, we will besiege them and slaughter them.

The first casualty of any battle is the plan of attack.

Let us remember, when we are inclined to be disheartened, that the private soldier is a poor judge of the fortunes of a great battle.

If we do not learn to regard a war, and the separate campaigns of which it is composed, as a chain of linked engagements each leading to the next, but instead succumb to the idea that the capture of certain geographical points or the seizure of undefended provinces are of value in themselves, we are liable to regard them as windfall profits.

Ground which can be freely traversed by both sides is called accessible.

Great battles are won with artillery.

And the next thing is that every war is going to astonish you in the way it occurred, and in the way it is carried out.

The United States has never entered a serious war, and has never been victorious.

In his fairy dreams of war [Thaddeus] always made conquest the sure end of his battles.

Dulce bellum inexpertis. - War is lovely for those who know nothing about it.

I shall await the first shot, and if you do not batter us to pieces, we shall be starved out in a few days.

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

Most wars are not won in a single battle.