Global Military Presence Quotes

Well, it's a problem in general with the American military. If you are the biggest and the strongest military power in the world, you have this natural reluctance to learn the quirky ways of the natives in faraway lands.

America's entire war on terror is an exercise in imperialism. This may come as a shock to Americans, who don't like to think of their country as an empire. But what else can you call America's legions of soldiers, spooks and special forces straddling the globe?

If we don't stop extending our troops all around the world in nation-building missions, we're going to have a serious problem coming down the road.

Having therefore no foreign establishments, either colonial or military, the ships of war of the United States, in war, will be like land birds, unable to fly far from their own shores. To provide resting places for them, where they can coal and repair, would be one of the first duties of a government proposing to itself the development of the power of the nation at sea.

The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe-straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment toward us.

The United States is not overdeployed or overextended with deployments in 150 countries on any given year. On any given week we have about 65 deployments.

It's pretty clear we have enough Guard people in the United States, but are they capable of handling our oversees commitments as well? We need to figure out how that impacts our ability in Iraq.

I always ask two questions: How many countries have military bases in the United States? And in how many countries does the United States not have military bases?

America cannot afford to defend Saudi Arabia, Japan, Germany, South Korea, and many other places.

The idea of defending, as integral parts of our Empire, countries 10,000 miles off, like Australia, which neither pay a shilling to our revenue... nor afford us any exclusive trade... is about as quixotic a specimen of national folly as was ever exhibited.

The fact that our largest presence in the world is our massive military is going to dictate how we engage with the world.

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.