George C. Wallace Quotes

No nation, no matter how destitute, likes to be told how much military "security" to buy.

Any great power—especially a great one suddenly deprived of its traditional adversary—faces the perennial dilemma of showing a reasonable return on its costly military investments.

You really can’t blame the military for wanting to go to war [in Iraq]. They’ve got all these new toys and they want to know whether they work or not.

The West as a whole in the early 1990s become obsessed with a 'peace dividend' that would be spent over and over again on any number of soft-hearted and sometimes soft-headed causes. Politicians forget that the only real peace dividend is peace.

Armaments; extremely useful for fighting wars, a deadweight in any civil economy.

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.

We need to stop spending money on those weapons systems that do not advance national security.

India, Pakistan, China, Singapore and South Korea are heavily investing in nuclear arms. Since 21st century is the century of Asia, Asian countries should be the first ones to drop this arms race.

The people of the United States must be awakened to a realization of their weakness in the matter of defense against hostile aircraft and they must be convinced that, if adequate protection is to be provided, they must spend money for the purpose.

In peace and war it's always money.

The distinction between preparations made with the intention of going to war and preparations against attack is it true distinction, clear and definite than the mind of those who build up armaments. But it is a distinction that is not obvious or certain to others. The moral is obvious: it is that that armaments lead inevitably to war.

There is no better constraint on the leader of a developing country than telling him that he has to pay cash for his weapons.

How much do we really need for the defense of the United States of America? Only the defense to defend its shores? Well I suppose that the maximum for the defense of our shores is one billion dollars. So the rest of our defense budget relates to what we regard as our responsibilities as a world power.

When the guns of war become a national obsession, social needs inevitably suffer.

There is only one way safely and legitimately to reduce the cost of national security, and that is to reduce the need for it.

Wars cost money.

Americans will cheerfully forgo the luxury of new automobiles in order to assure adequate mechanized equipment for defense.

Shall we be defenseless America, a weak and harmless nation, or shall we be defensive America, the fear and dread of all nations?

There is a rank due to the United States among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness. If we desire to avoid insult, we must be able to repel it; if we desire to secure the peace, one of the most powerful instruments of our rising prosperity, it must be known that we are at all times ready for war.

Foreign policy debates are frequently segregated from domestic policy ones, so commentators who propose increasing the defense budget or sending more foreign aid are seldom asked to explain which domestic programs they’d cut or which taxes they’d raise, in order to find the money.

If you don't fund the State Department fully, then I need to buy more ammunition ultimately. So I think it's a cost-benefit ratio. The more that we put into the State Department's diplomacy, hopefully the less we have to put into a military budget as we deal with the outcome of an apparent American withdrawal from the international scene.

You're not hearing people like Madeleine Albright argue that the budget of the State Department should be as large as the Defense Department. The Pentagon is going to be larger by its nature. It's going to have more people.

Whenever people in Washington complain about spending cuts, they mean spending cuts that would affect defense contractors. They want to massively increase spending cuts everywhere else in the budget.

I cannot but say a word and look my disapproval when I hear that my country is spending millions for war and war engines-more, I have heard, than twice as much as the entire public school system costs the nation.

Military history shows air action only cannot achieve the goal of defeating an enemy.