Norman Schwarzkopf Quotes

From a military point of view it was a complete success

If I had one more division like this First Marine Division I could win this war.

Developing a strategy, leading the world, funding it to make sure that we have a military that's second to none, and doing the job and making sure that we destroy ISIS there. That's how you keep America safe.

So the important thing in a military operation is victory, not persistence.

It's perfectly natural to desire more troops when engaged in a military operation facing serious obstacles, and the more troops you have, probably, the [lower the] risk of causalities.

They are still trying to bomb with artillery and rocket-propelled grenades to hit the Republican Guard who are controlling Saddam International Airport.

We all know why [the generals] are so critical of the defense secretary. They're being defensive because they weren't able to implement his brilliant plan [on screen: Operation 'Greet Us As Liberators']. It was so simple: Go in with 100,000 troops, topple the regime, everybody loves us, and we leave by Easter 2003. These ex-military men have their right to their opinions, that's fine. They just shouldn't voice them during a war [on screen: 'Loose Lips Sink Approval Ratings']

If we look at the Gulf War, the same is also true. Indeed, my work on the logistics of perception and the Gulf War was so accurate that I was even asked to discuss it with high-ranking French military officers. They asked me: 'how is it that you wrote that book in 1984 and now it's happening for real?' My answer was: 'the problem is not mine but yours: you have not been doing your job properly!'

I served on the Armed Services Committee for 18 years and we must lead, or the job won't get done, unfortunately, for our country.

I think Donald Trump is very alarmed and distressed over what Obama has done to the United States military and the perception of our standing and strength in the world.

Accomplishing this missile rebuild and our military retooling will be a 50-state effort. Every state in the union will be able to take part in rebuilding our military and developing technologies of tomorrow. In other words, the workers and the jobs will take place throughout the United States.

There will be boots on the ground if there's to be any hope of success in the strategy.

If you look at the current Mosul campaign against ISIL, for example the few thousand troops that we have there to support that effort allows the Iraqi military to move forward in an effective way.

In this war, which was total in every sense of the word, we have seen many great changes in military science. It seems to me that not the least of these was the development of psychological warfare as a specific and effective weapon.

So it's not a matter of the military lying to the press, but it's the job of the military to deny the press any information that will provide aid and comfort to the enemy.

Some day there is going to be a man sitting in my present chair who has not been raised in the military services and who will have little understanding of where slashes in their estimates can be made with little or no damage. If that should happen while we still have the state of tension that now exists in the world, I shudder to think of what could happen in this country

Any military force should be dictated by the vital national security interests of the United States. And if and when we use force, we should use overwhelming force for a clearly stated objective. And then when we're done, we should get the heck out.

Who could not be moved by the sight of that poor, demoralized rabble, outwitted, outflanked, outmanoeuvered by the U.S. military? Yet, given time, I think the press will bounce back.

Artillery is the god of war.

ISIS have to be defeated. They have to be defeated militarily. How are we going to do that if we continue to weaken our military?

The hardest thing of all for a soldier is to retreat.

In making tactical dispositions, the highest pitch you can attain is to conceal them.

To have good soldiers, a nation must always be at war.

There has never been a military operation remotely approaching the scale and the complexity of D-Day. It involved 176,000 troops, more than 12,000 airplanes, almost 10,000 ships, boats, landing craft, frigates, sloops, and other special combat vessels--all involved in a surprise attack on the heavily fortified north coast of France, to secure a beachhead in the heart of enemy-held territory so that the march to Germany and victory could begin. It was daring, risky, confusing, bloody, and ultimately glorious [p.25]

General James Mattis is a storied and much-respected military leader.