Strategic Blunders Quotes

Many of the architects of the Vietnam War became near pariahs as they spent the remainder of their lives in the futile quest to explain away their decisions at the time.

Historically, the Republicans have been geniuses at throwing away advantages.

A general who allows himself to be decisively defeated in an extended mountain position deserves to be court-martialled.

Napoleon and Hitler made the mistake of blithely marching into another cold-weather nation, when they tried to take Russia. Look how those adventures turned out. Beneath that affable, welcoming exterior, Canadians are remarkably tough. You don’t get through those brutal winters without building up a sturdy resilience. And Canadians can fight and skate at the same time.

Torturous advances won over generations can be lost by a single stroke of a myopic president's pen or a vainglorious general's sword.

You don't have to be Dave Halberstam to see that the American role in both conflicts [the Iraq war and the Vietnam conflict] is characterized by arrogance, ignorance and self-delusion at the highest levels of government.

Cardinals are never off-base. They are often ill-advised.

Ms. Rice was a bad national security adviser and a bad secretary of state. She was on the wrong side of some of the administration's biggest internal policy fights. She had a tendency to flip-flop when it came to the president's core priorities, and her political misjudgment more than once cost Mr. Bush dearly.

The United States has made serious mistakes in the conduct of its foreign affairs, which have had unfortunate repercussions long after the decisions were taken.

Hillary Clinton gave us ISIS, because her and Obama created this huge vacuum, and a small group came out of that huge vacuum because when - we should never have been in Iraq, but once we were there, we should have never got out the way they wanted to get out.