Military Priorities Quotes

Political considerations can be taken into account only as long as they do not make demands that are militarily improper or impossible.

Whenever we get involved in a war, the White House seems to have 3 priorities: We cannot appear to be losing; we must appear to be winning; we must look like we know what we are doing.

In the light of the actual fighting that is now in progress, we have reached the point where the military considerations clearly outweigh the fiscal considerations.

We can always find money for what the military wants.

For some reason, the military seems more afraid of gay people than they are against terrorists, but they're very brave with the terrorists... If the terrorists ever got a hold of this information, they'd get a platoon of lesbians to chase us out of Baghdad.

I think the most important thing that comes out of the meeting between Churchill and Roosevelt in early 1942 is a commitment on Roosevelt's part to fight Europe first. To struggle first against Germany and put Japan and the Pacific as a secondary theatre in the conflict. And this is what Churchill was after.

If civilians are going to be killed, I would rather have them be their civilians than our civilians.

Our national-security strategy must drive our military budget, rather than the budget setting our strategy.

Our military structure and tactics have been designed more to protect the service interest than the national interest.

Defense is not like other discretionary spending.

We know that priorities are amiss in the world when a man gets a military medal of honor for killing another man and a dishonorable discharge for loving one.

The Pentagon budget, like all government spending, is an expression of priorities.

We have multiple challenges competing for finite resources—–and grotesque uncertainty with regard to the military budget.

Damn it all, the business of an army is to win the way, not quibble around with a lot of cheap buying. Hell and Marih! We weren't trying to keep a set of books, we were trying to win a war.

I am firmly against the kind of logrolling which would subject our defense program to narrowly sectional or selfish pulling or hauling. But I am growing pretty hot under the collar about the way my state of West Virginia is being shortchanged by the Army, Navy and Air Force.

The other problem is that the priority of many soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan is operational security: not getting killed. Now that is a very valid priority, but it has to be balanced against many other priorities, especially not killing too many locals in the process.

Because the resources available to the U. S. military will be increasingly limited, the objectives must be too.