Colin Powell Quotes

I think there has to be greater heed paid by the Security Council members to military advice.

We will be drawing down some troops. If the president wants to try to turn that into the beginning of a success, he actually, I think, has some opportunity.

Perhaps we have acted too hastily. … it may have been unwise for us to send an army into Smyrna, but now that the army is there, it would be more unwise to withdraw it -- to do so would admit military failure and court political defeat.

Military force is not the first option, but it is there if needed.

War is best left to the Generals. I believe in letting the military authorities manage the army. If they manage it badly, we shall make a bad matter worse by tampering and interfering.

You have to make sure you know why you are going to war and then use decisive force to end it as soon as possible.

Responding to terrorism inevitably implies military consequences. This may shock some people, but these groups must also be dealt with on a military footing. I won't use the word 'combat' to avoid being painted as a crusader.

I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps.

A general must be shot or befriended - but never hurt.

It must be thoroughly understood that the lost land will never be won back by solemn appeals to the God, nor by hopes in any League of Nations, but only by the force of arms.

[The conversation with John McCain] is not about being a pacifist or- suggesting that you can never have a military solution to things. It's just that, it appears that this is not the smart way to fight this threat.

It is a damned sight easier to start wars than to end them. This truth has been stated for as long and as often as it has been ignored. High time and thank God, we are at least moving toward de-escalation in Vietnam. The road to extrication will be long, painful, bitter. But it must be trod. We are so bogged down in Vietnam that we cannot respond effectively anywhere else in the world to a military power play except through atomic bombardment.

If you don’t have a good idea of what to do next after using military force, then don’t use it in the first place.

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.

We should not fight wars without a clearly defined end state... when you go to war, it can't be a half-step.

Having served in the military, I know that militaries can stop a problem, but they can't fix a problem.

During my years in the Navy and in the White House, I was involved in assessing how a war with Iran would go. In summary: It would be ugly.

Our troops shouldn't be mired in taking land for the Afghan military, providing force protection and fighting a permanent insurgency.

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.

I've served in 25 nations. I've seen where people don't trust their government. We're there. In the military, the last option is to send in the SEALs.

Wars of necessity are essentially unavoidable. They involve the most important national interests, a lack of promising alternatives to the use of force, and a certain and considerable price to be paid if the status quo is allowed to stand. Examples include World War II and the Korean War.

Militarism is the most energy-intensive, entropic activity of humans, since it converts stored energy and materials directly into waste and destruction without any useful intervening fulfillment of basic human needs. Ironically, the net effect of military, as opposed to civilian, expenditures is to increase unemployment and inflation.

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said any assumption that the US would not use force against North Korea would be a mistake. Such bellicosity frightens liberals. The left's reaction to nutty despots is: he might hit me, so I'll be nice. Rumsfeld's idea is: He'll hit me? Maybe I'll hit him. The beauty of that approach cannot be denied.

We need, from time to time, to use military force or all of the resources at our command in order to defend the nation and defend our friends. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy. I think there are probably some who actually believe, if we just go talk nice to these folks, everything is going to be OK. I don't think the world works that way.

I think, broadly speaking, the US military's role - US military activism in various parts of the Islamic world over the past several decades has been counterproductive.