Ulrich Beck Quotes

The American people need to tell their member of Congress that we need a strong defense to protect us and to prevent wars. We can't get away with simply leading from behind and gutting our defenses.

A major power can afford a military debacle only when it looks like a political victory.

There is no battle space the U.S. Military cannot access. They said we couldn't do Afghanistan. We did it with ease. They said we couldn't do Iraq. We did it with 150 combat casualties in six weeks. We did it so fast we weren't prepared for their collapse. There is nobody we can't take down. The question is, what do you do with the power?

Power alone is respected and ... in order to gain peace, the United States has no alternative but to wield it

Very near the heart of all foreign affairs is the relationship between policy and military power.

No American President should ever take any option off the table.

You just hope that we haven't soured an entire generation on the necessity, from time to time, of using force because Iraq has been such a debacle. That would be tragic because Iran is a grave threat.

Your message is stupid. Iraq is not afraid of you or anyone else when it has a right to claim. What you warned about is not on Iraq's agenda. Iraq is vital and powerful. It is not an opportunistic country. Your administration has not learned from the past.

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.

Enemies are necessary for the wheels of the U.S. military machine to turn.

Mistakes, after all, are endemic to foreign and military policy given the unpredictability of events and the difficulty of securing reliable information in a place like Iraq.

I believe the military should be wary of diplomacy until war is declared; then the State Department should keep its nose out and let the military do whatever is necessary to win.

I used to have a little saying I used when people said, 'What are your priorities?' I'd give them a bit of government alphabet soup. I'd say 'CTCPROW: Counterterrorism, counterproliferation, rest of the world.'

I knew it to be very doubtful whether the Cabinet, Parliament, and the country would take this view on the outbreak of war, and through the whole of this week I had in view the probable contingency that we should not decide at the critical moment to support France.

The United States is going to defend itself under any circumstances.

If there is one great power, and the great power has taken upon itself the right to preempt and is choosing for itself when and in what circumstances it's going to do that, obviously it leads people in the rest of the world to wonder how far this doctrine extends.

It is hard as an American to support the failure of American military operations in Iraq. Such failure will bring with it the death and wounding of many American service members, and many more Iraqis.

As the Chief of the Defence Staff says, you don't defend on the goal line. Defending the interests of the U.K. means tackling threats early and at source, and that means intervening overseas.

Experience teaches us that it is much easier to prevent an enemy from posting themselves than it is to dislodge them after they have got possession.

What a country calls its vital... interests are not things that help its people live, but things that help it make war.

I do not believe that diplomacy equals weakness…. If you are going to use force you better make sure that it is effective.

Russia has been too weak, and the weak get beaten.

Diplomacy without military capability is nothing more than prayer.

As long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable.

I believe in peace through strength. I would prefer to rely on the military rather than diplomats to protect our homes.