Underestimating one's enemy was a classic tactical mistake --- one that was usually born out of stupidity or arrogance or both. (Harry Smith)
The worst mistake Ronald Reagan ever made was to accept George W. Bush as his running mate.
The Vietnam War was not clearly a wrong war, but it was clear that it was stupid.
[Vietnam was] the wrong war in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Indeed, the big U.S. error after 9/11 was to treat Pakistan as if it were an ally. With an ally, it is possible to assume a large degree of policy overlap. With Pakistan, no such assumption can be made.
When it came to the Vietnam War, Mr. McNamara was an early advocate of escalation but came to realize the flaws in the American approach earlier than many of his colleagues. Yet in public, he continued to defend the war.
Take like, say, Obama, he's called "liberal" and he's praised for his "principled objection to the Iraq war". What was his "principled objection"? He says it was a "strategic blunder," like Nazi generals after Stalingrad.
The remarkable failure in our time of political and military prediction. It is curious to reflect that out of al the ‘experts’ of all the schools, there was not a single one who was able to foresee so likely an event as the Russo-German Pact of 1939
We made a great mistake in the beginning of our struggle, and I fear, in spite of all we can do, it will prove to be a fatal mistake. We appointed all our worst generals to command our armies, and all our best generals to edit the newspapers
All attempts to appease the Nazis between 1934 and 1939 through various agreements and pacts were morally unacceptable and politically senseless, harmful and dangerous.
A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.
Clinton appears to be the sole holdout in the Obama administration in understanding the catastrophe caused by its foreign policy in Libya.
Well, we all make mistakes, and I've made some; getting involved in a price-cutting campaign in Scotland when the biggest slump in advertising history was just around the corner was a mistake.
We have misunderstood, misread, misplanned and mismanaged our honorable intentions in Iraq with an arrogant self-delusion reminiscent of Vietnam.
To a degree, the West is reaping what it sowed from a major strategic blunder in the aftermath of 9/11 - the entire concept of a war on technique, that is, terrorism. Defining the enemy when fighting a concept was impossible.
Destroying Iraq was the greatest strategic blunder this country has made in its history. Unless we change course, there's every reason to believe the Iraq War will end up changing the United States more than it will ever change Iraq.
Never was a person more mortified than I was at this time, to see so fair an opportunity to push a victory; Detroit lost for want of a few men.
History is littered with wars which everybody knew would never happen.
In essence, the tragedy of the Warsaw Rising resulted from a systemic breakdown of the Grand Alliance.
It doesn't require much for misfortune to strike in the King's Gambit - one incautious move, and Black can be on the edge of the abyss.
Had we taken all of Iraq, we would have been like a dinosaur in the tar pit - we would still be there, and we, not the United Nations, would be bearing the costs of that occupation.
The costly unilateralism of the younger Bush presidency led to a decade of war in the Middle East and the derailment of American foreign policy at large.
When a general, unable to estimate the enemy's strength, allows an inferior force to engage a larger one, or hurls a weak detachment against a powerful one, and neglects to place picked soldiers in the front rank, the result must be rout.
The historic lesson is that it was a strategic failure to go into Iraq. History will not be and should not be kind with that decision.
The most stirring battle-poem in English is about a brigade of cavalry which charged in the wrong direction.
