Military Transformation Quotes

The force that we went to war with after 9-11 was a force designed for the Cold War. We have much different needs today.

I think my biggest achievement was being part of a team of outstanding, entrepreneurial military leaders and civilians who helped change the way in which America fights by transforming a global special operations task force - Task Force 714 - that I commanded.

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military.

To get an Army that's already fighting a war to change in stride to a total different military strategy on the ground - and to get everybody on the same page - was accomplished by the sheer force of Dave Petraeus' will.

Our nation must manage significant national security challenges over the next several years. We are already facing a potential conflict with Iraq, new challenges on the Korean peninsula, and key decisions in the president's plans to transform the military.

We've proven to be quite flexible and adept in the way that we've changed what was the original pattern of air activities into something that's now very focused on the battlefield.

If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery [gunpowder] with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind.

We are fortunate to have witnessed this remarkable event which is but a foretaste of a complete revolution in warfare.

The miracle of Grenada is how quickly the Cuban workers beat their plowshares into Soviet AK-47s.

An army that fought and won a war decisively finds it even more difficult to undergo change.

We need to transform our military forces by focusing on force posture, not force structure.

The Red Army is like a furnace in which all captured soldiers are melted down and transformed the moment they come over.

The progress of manufactures and commerce insensibly collects a large multitude within the walls of a city: but these citizens are no longer soldiers; and the arts which adorn and improve the state of civil society, corrupt the habits of the military life.