Conflict Purpose Quotes

The question is, where do you draw the line between someone trying to thwart the other person because they want to thwart something they don’t agree with, as opposed to just wanting to thwart him. When the struggle is an end, not just a means to an end.

Peace demands more, not less, from a people. Peace lacks the clarity of purpose and the cadence of war. War is scripted: peace is improvisation.

Why can't God just defeat the devil and get rid of evil? It's the same reason the comic book character can't get rid of his nemesis; then there's no story.

Well, he keeps saying that, and as defense secretary, of course he has to think of a lot of potential enemies. I do not think it's a wise course to articulate this or to base our policy on it. And I do not see under modern circumstances what we would be fighting about.

Frank Capra made a series of films during World War II called 'Why We Fight' that explored America's reasons for entering the war. Today, with our troops engaged in Iraq and elsewhere for reasons far less clear, I think it's crucial to ask the questions: 'Why are we doing what we are doing? What is it doing to others? And what is it doing to us?'

We say that we care about the war, but we don't even really know what we're fighting for.

The political object is the goal, war is the means of reaching it, and the means can never be considered in isolation from their purposes.

There's no reason for me to come and fight for fun. I don't do that. That's not what I do.

A warrior lives on his wars, whether offensive or defensive. And he suffers a collapse if he finds that his warring capacity is unwanted.

I think that Vietnam, many of us who served in Vietnam thought that was very wasteful, and to what end? To what end? What were we really there for? What were we really fighting for?