Wesley Clark Quotes

War is a serious game in which a man risks his reputation, his troops, and his country. A sensible man will search himself to know whether or not he is fitted for the trade.

Nothing matures a military force quicker than actual military operations.

The army is under orders to defend every place.

The British soldier can stand up to anything except the British War Office.

You do have to change things as warfare changes.

You don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on.

I worked for the troops my entire time in the United States Armed Forces because we know in the United States Armed Forces that it's not the generals and the colonels that win battles, it's the soldiers: it's the people at the front, the mechanics with their wrenches, the drivers moving the logistics back in the rear.

I'm not going to risk our precious military resources on an ineffective, unproductive mission.

One of the first things I learned in the Marine Corps is that any military mission has to be defined as precisely as you can possibly define it, and then you size the force and equipment force to accomplish that mission without fail.

If there were 10,000 U.S. forces ashore [in Lebanon], authorized to move about, there would be less risk to American lives than there is with an immobile force of 1,300.

To win by strategy is no less the role of a general than to win by arms.

As a fighter pilot I know from my own experiences how decisive surprise and luck can be for success, which in the long run comes only to the one who combines daring with cool thinking.

Every decision in government is so important, especially when it comes to the military where thousands of people can lose their lives.

If we read history with an open mind, we cannot fail to conclude that, among all the military virtues, the energetic conduct of war has always contributed most to glory and success.

A commander in chief ought to say to himself several times a day: If the enemy should appear on my front, on my right, on my left, what would I do? And if the question finds him uncertain, he is not well placed, he is not as he should be, and he should remedy it.

Whenever armed forces . . . are used, the idea of combat must be present. . . . The end for which a soldier is recruited, clothed, armed, and trained, the whole object of his sleeping, eating, drinking, and marching is simply that he should fight at the right place and the right time.

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.

Our poetry emulates the recent progress in military strategy: Our army's strength is the foot soldiers.

Warfare is the father of all good things, it is also the father of good prose!

If the art of war were nothing but the art of avoiding risks, glory would become the prey of mediocre minds.... I have made all the calculations; fate will do the rest.

A good soldier, whether he leads a platoon or an army, is expected to look backward as well as forward; but he must think only forward.

Every combat is the bloody and destructive measuring of the strength of forces, physical and moral; whoever at the close has the greatest amount of both left is the conqueror.

I'm not a military man. I wish I were, then maybe I could give some advice.

A warrior lives on his wars, whether offensive or defensive. And he suffers a collapse if he finds that his warring capacity is unwanted.

Any clever person can make plans for winning a war if he has no responsibility for carrying them out.