War Purpose Quotes

I lived in a bubble: my whole entire military career where I thought that everything was perfect. And I thought that every time we went overseas and we fought for this country, we were doing it because we were trying to get other people a sliver of the greatness that we have here in the United States of America.

Conscription would amount to the sacrifice of nine-tenths of our moral case in this war. It would not only amount to an admission—wholly unjustified—that the heart of the country is not in the war…. It will change the basis of our participation. It will no longer be the war of the British people; it will be the war of the British governing classes.

The true objective of war is peace.

War is an episode, a crisis, a fever the purpose of which is to rid the body of fever. So the purpose of a war is to end the war.

The pinning on of stars reaches its full cynical significance when sanctified valor and bereaved families are used to lend dignity to wars stupidly fought. The courageous and their families are drawn into a circular trap. The sacrificed soldier was valorous under the orders of a commander who has rewarded his effort. The battle was therefore worth fighting. Courage made it worthwhile. The basic rule of war - that it is fought to be won --- has been forgotten.

Are wars anything but the means whereby a nation is nourished, whereby it is strengthened, whereby it is buttressed?

War should never be thought of as something autonomous, but always as an instrument of policy.

I think that our weakness is understanding that when we go to war, we go to war to win.

We shall certainly not drift into war, but go to war if we do, because we intend it and have a purpose we mean to accomplish.

War's Legitimate Object Is More Perfect Peace.

However desirable the maintenance of ex-territorial rights hitherto enjoyed might be, it was obvious that the public opinion of this country would not countenance a war for the purpose of maintaining them.

War should be the politics of last resort. And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.

Our purpose in Vietnam is to prevent the success of aggression. It is not conquest, it is not empire, it is not foreign bases, it is not domination. It is, simply put, just to prevent the forceful conquest of South Vietnam by North Vietnam.

Taxes were not raised to carry on wars, but that wars were raised to carry on taxes.

I know this country well enough to know that it can’t sustain a conflict if people do not believe in the purposes.

The purpose of war is to support your government's decisions by force.

If you read any sort of, like, military general autobiographies or biographies, most of them never wanted to fight, you know? It's necessary. War is necessary.

Was not the issue this: whether mankind should be divided between those who command and those who serve; between those who use others at their will and those who must submit; whether the measure of a man's power to shape his own destiny should be the force at his disposal? Our nation was founded upon an answer to those questions, and we have fought this war to make good that answer.

This war is not waged ... for any purpose of conquest or subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing ... established institutions [referring to slavery] ... but to defend … the Constitution and to preserve the Union.

A war for a great principle ennobles a nation.

Americans tended to think of war as something that had to be done from time to time, for a particular purpose or goal. They fought not for the sake of fighting but for the sake of winning.

To get home you had to end the war. To end the war was the reason you fought it. The only reason.

The object of defense is preservation; and since it is easier to hold ground than to take it, defense is easier than attack. But defense has a passive purpose: preservation; and attack a positive one: conquest.... If defense is the stronger form of war, yet has a negative object, it follows that it should be used only so long as weakness compels, and be abandoned as soon as we are strong enough to pursue a positive object.

Wars without military objectives have a tendency to go on forever.

The military is a machine of war. Not a law enforcement agency.