Michael Hastings Quotes

Clearly the American military has been a force for good for the United States. There's a reason we have a standing military. But there's something to be said for having a much smaller military because then we wouldn't be tempted to get involved in things we shouldn't be getting involved in.

We give the military money, it ought to be to kick rears, break things, and come home.

We had eight years of Barack Obama depleting our military, ignoring a lot of the threats around the world.

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.

The fight against drug trafficking is a false pretext for the United States to install military bases.

Our military and the strength of our military and the strengthening of our military is a number one priority for the Trump administration.

The Obama presidency has seen the U.S. military's elite tactical forces increasingly used in an attempt to achieve strategic goals. But with Special Operations missions kept under tight wraps, Americans have little understanding of where their troops are deployed, what exactly they are doing, or what the consequences might be down the road.

Judge candidly what a wretched figure the American empire will exhibit in the eye of other nations, without a power to array and support a military force for its own protection.

Americans have no idea of the extent of their government's mischief... the number of military strikes we have made unprovoked, against other countries, since 1947 is more than 250.

I think a submarine is a very worthwhile weapon. I believe we can defend ourselves with submarines and all our troops back at home. This whole idea that we have to be in 130 countries and 900 bases... is an old-fashioned idea.

Our military is trained to kill our enemies in foreign lands, not to do civilian law enforcement within our country.

I would be very careful about using our troops as nation builders. I believe the role of the military is to fight and win war and therefore prevent war from happening in the first place

Now that Washington once again has a tangible adversary -- variously described as ‘freedom-hating terrorists,’ ‘Salafist jihadis,’ or ‘Islamofascists’ -- U.S. leaders have convinced the American public that foreign policy is an ‘us-versus-them’ contact sport in which the primary tactics are military and coercive

America’s military bases around the world are centers of stability in unstable regions.

Any future Defense Secretary who advises the President to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should have his head examined.

The Government of the United States has always maintained that it would not intervene forcibly in the domestic affairs of the Central and South American Republics, and particularly of the island republics in the Caribbean Sea. Nevertheless, both the preceding national Administration and the present have felt no difficulty in using the army and navy of the United States for armed intervention in the affairs of some of those republics; and neither of the two great political parties in the United States has thus far shown any disposition to make an issue with either Administration on this subject.

As the name of the agency suggests, 'Department of Defense,' the defense refers to the United States of America - not the defense of South Korea, not the defense of Ukraine, not the defense of Syria or Germany.

Reasonable people can disagree about the authorities the NSA should have, when it's appropriate for the CIA to use drone strikes, and how assertive U.S. foreign policy and intelligence should be.

The No. 1 purpose of the federal government is national defense.

As a soldier and combat veteran, I believe American military forces should only be used in the defense and furtherance of our nation's vital interests.

The idea that the United States is going to win the war in Iraq is just plain wrong.

I think that [Obama] sees the military actually as something that is more dangerous to the world. I think that he looks at the United States military and sees it as a threatening application around the world than actually as a useful tool.

Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II

I agree with the president [Barack Obama]. I've said myself, we will not send American combat troops back to either Syria or Iraq - that is off the table.

If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then, I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden. We will crush al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority.