Long-Term Conflict Quotes

We not ought to fight them at all, unless we are determined to fight them forever.

The war against Islamic extremism will be long. They are in it for the long haul, which means that we have to be also.

The reality is, it will be a significant conflict going for many, many months, if not longer. Saddam Hussein is not a fool. He hasn't been sitting there waiting to get shot for 13 years.

My parents only had one argument in 45 years. It lasted 43 years.

World War III was the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union. Like the Cold War, this "world war" against militant Islam is, in fact, global;... will involve a mixture of violent and nonviolent efforts;... will require mobilization of skill, expertise and resources, if not of vast numbers of soldiers;... may go on for a long time; and... has ideological roots. Afghanistan is just one front in World War IV.

The open-ended nature of the struggle against it means that the war on terrorism, unlike conventional wars, cannot be viewed as a passing emergency. That fact has important implications for the debate about how much liberty we should give up so the government can fight terrorism more effectively. Since there’s now way of knowing when the war is over – no territory to occupy, no surrender to accept – any sacrifices we make are likely to be permanent.

Iraq and Afghanistan will, over time, become stable. But the War on Terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan have had success in standing up their own governments.

… in the decade since the end of the Cold War until September 11th, the US security establishment - the political class, the CIA, the people who fought the Cold War - had no real enemy to focus on. True, they had Saddam Hussein for a while, and they might have had a minor enemy here, another one there. But there was no real worldwide threat similar to that of the Cold War. Well, now it seems that they have one again. What this means is that the United States is going to be in this for quite some time. I have feeling that it is going to go on for ten or 15 years.

The Iranians don't intimidate! They're like the Vietnamese and the Iraqis. You want to start a war with them? They'll still be fighting in fifty years!

My point was simply that the war on global terrorism is going to be a long one, and we need to adapt as our enemy adapts.

Most wars are not won in a single battle.

You can't settle a 50-year conflict in 52 weeks.

The war against radical Salafi-Jihadism has been going on for several decades already and it will span many more and the U.S. must be preparing mentally for it.

All in all this is a difficult political struggle which will go on for years, in which our people won't die anymore; I'm not sure how much we will be able to win, but I'm certain that we won't loose anything that we have now.

Far more serious and lasting than any of the …[other] grievances are the feelings which Germans entertain and will continue to entertain as to the justice of their present frontiers. They may have to submit indefinitely, time may heal their wounds, but it will be a long time.… It would be folly to expect acquiescence of the heart at least in any near future.

Look, Iraq and Iran would fight for years and years and years, it went on forever. They were almost identical strengths, and the line would never move, right? Then they would go home and rest for ten years and then they would start fighting and they'd rest, that was it. We knocked out one of those two pegs, and so now Iran is taking over.

In the short term, it would not have made it possible to resume relations, because in the Chinese mind, the humiliation of China started with the annexation of Taiwan by Japan. If the United States had suddenly declared Taiwan as a separate state - for which we would have had no support among other nations - the consequences would have been giving up our relationship with China and committing ourselves to a long-term conflict with China.

Military and absolutist regimes are undoubtedly well fitted to get the jump on an unsuspecting or unprepared enemy; but the history of modern warfare proves that they cannot win over representative governments in the long run, provided that people behind those governments have the heart to sustain initial punishment, and both the will and the resources to fight back.