War Preparedness Quotes

It must be thoroughly understood that war is a necessity, and that the more readily we accept it, the less will be the ardor of our opponents.

There is not a ship in our navy that can defend us against a first class enemy.

The German people in its whole character is not warlike, but rather soldierly, that is, while they do not want war, they are not frightened by the thoughts of it.

The military's own report says that one-third of deaths and casualties could have been avoided if proper body armor and vehicle armor had been provided from the start of the war.

Our nation has a regrettable history of drawing down our forces and readiness after each conflict, only to find ourselve ill-prepared for the next great struggle.

For any rational political leader, war is indeed unthinkable, but two huge military bureaucracies in the two countries [Russia and America] are paid to think about it every day, to plan for it, and to develop scenarios for "winning." The madness of one bureaucracy sustains the other. The technological nightmare into which we have entered is an environment that chokes rational thought.

Although the policy of England is peace, there is no country so well prepared for war as our own ….If she enters in a righteous cause … her resources … are inexhaustible. She is not a country that when she enters on a campaign, has to ask herself whether she can support a second or a third campaign. She enters into a campaign which she will not terminate till right is done

Officers who fail to correct errors or to praise excellence are valueless in peace and dangerous misfits in war.

It is a doctrine of war not to assume the enemy will not come, but rather to rely on one's readiness to meet him; not to presume that he will not attack, but rather to make one's self invincible.

Unfitness for war is unfitness for existence.

Discipline can only be obtained when all the officers are imbued with the sense of their awful obligation to their men and to their country that they cannot tolerate negligence. Officers who fail to correct errors or to praise excellence are valueless in peace and dangerous misfits in war.

Neither our oceans nor our radar nor our fighters can keep us intact through another major war.

With tanks, airplanes and the atomic bomb, war can become instantaneous and disaster can occur while Congress is assembling and debating.

Any diminishment of the government forces stationed here endangers the safety of the state, for the militia are not & cannot for some time be made efficient as the Want of Arms & munitions of War, are sources of great embarrassment.

The commanders and fighters of the entire Chinese People's Liberation Army absolutely must not relax in the least their will to fight; any thinking that relaxes the will to fight and belittles the enemy is wrong.

Rely not on the likelihood of the enemy's not coming, but on our own readiness to receive him

What we need is a strong defense, but right now there is zero chance of an invasion by another country and right now we have more firepower than all other countries put together.

We desire peace. However, if imperialism insists on fighting a war, we will have no alternative but to take the firm resolution to fight to the finish before going ahead with our construction. If you are afraid of war day in day out, what will you do if war eventually comes? First, I said that the East Wind is prevailing over the West Wind and war will not break out, and now I have added these explanations about the situation in case war should break out. Both possibilities have thus been taken into account.

The only hope of a short war is to prepare for a long one.

A war put off is not a war avoided.

Surely no rational or realistic person will discount the possibility that [during wartime] the United States might suddenly resort to nuclear weapons. Those who retain the instinct for survival, not to speak of minimal concern for their fellow man, will seek ways to act before rather than after the event.

Preparedness has never caused a war, nor has unpreparedness ever prevented one

We won't always have the strongest military.

[L]eave nothing to the uncertainty of procuring a warlike apparatus at the moment of public danger.

It is well for the man in the street to realize that there is no power on earth that can protect him from being bombed. Whatever people tell him, the bomber will always get through.