Quotes about Military Success

Sun Tzu

The general who wins the battle makes many calculations in his temple before the battle is fought. The general who loses makes but few calculations beforehand.

Tammy Bruce

There should be victory in war—not management.

Ever since the end of WWII, no major war has been fought where there has been a classic victory where one nation is conquered by another and there is a surrender. Many of the wars have been fought against non-state actors or our war aim is a regime change or the establishment of a more friendly government. We have no desire to occupy the countries generally, and there is often no one “in charge” of the enemy who can even surrender. Bruce was referring to the Iraq War and the Afghanistan War. In each case, despite the lack of a surrender document, it can be said that America won both of these wars initially and then had great trouble with the occupation, the nation building, and keeping the peace. In Iraq and Afghanistan we suffered almost no casualties in the initial invasions. The occupation and “peace” is where we suffered almost all of our casualties.

Napoleon Bonaparte

In war, the moral is to the physical as three is to one.

Abraham Lincoln

Only those generals who gain successes can set up dictators. What I now ask of you is military success, and I will risk the dictatorship.

During the Civil War, General Joseph Hooker castigated the President and called for a dictator to assume power:

Tom Peters

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.

Sun Tzu

What enables the wise sovereign and the good general to strike and conquer, and achieve things beyond the reach of ordinary men, is foreknowledge.

Sun Tzu

Victory usually goes to the army who has better trained officers and men.

Vladimir Lenin

Victory in war depends on the morale of the masses which are shedding their blood on the battlefield.

Vladimir Lenin

Alexander Suvorov

One cannot think that blind bravery gives victory over the enemy.

Kenneth Clark

All great civilizations, in their early stages, are based on success in war.

John Linder

The U.S. Forces are winning in Iraq. It is to be hoped that they will win at home also.

Sun Tzu

Now the reason the enlightened prince and the wise general conquer the enemy whenever they move and their achievements surpass those of ordinary men is foreknowledge.

C. P. Scott

I am strongly of the opinion that the war ought not to have taken place and that we ought not to have become parties to it, but once in it the whole future of our nation is at stake and we have no choice but do the utmost we can to secure success.

Like many Americans who thought it bad policy to go to war in Iraq in the early 21st century and then became ardent military supporters to win the war rather than lose, Scott maintained that victory in WWI was crucial even though he had opposed entry into the war.

Mao Zedong

An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.

Walter Reuther

England's battles, it used to be said, were won on the playing fields of Eaton.... America’s battles can be won on the assembly lines of Detroit.

The automobile assembly lines of Detroit, had been planned to be converted to factories to produce a huge supply of planes, tanks, trucks and guns which were instrumental in winning the Second World War.

Douglas MacArthur

War's very object is victory, not prolonged indecision. In war there is no substitute for victory.

Charles William Eliot

Military success against autocratic governments and their selfish and cruel policies of conquest became the one object of the whole people, no matter at what cost.