For good or for ill, air mastery is today the supreme expression of military power and fleets and armies, however vital and important, must accept a subordinate rank.

The Army was always big on Clausewitz, the Prussian; the Navy on Alfred Thayer Mahan, the American; and the Air Force on Giulio Douhet, the Italian. But the Marine Corps has always been more Eastern-oriented. I am much more comfortable with Sun-tzu and his approach to warfare.

Life is warfare.

During a few days‘ halt near Vesontio for the provision of corn and other supplies, a panic arose from inquiries made by our troops and remarks uttered by Gauls and traders, who affirmed that the Germans were men of a mighty frame and an incredible valour and skill at arms.

When rich people fight wars with one another, poor people are the ones to die.

We did not raise armies for glory or for conquest.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

The power of an air force is terrific when there is nothing to oppose it.

The most terrible job in warfare is to be a second lieutenant leading a platoon when you are on the battlefield.

The Creator has not thought proper to mark those in the forehead who are of stuff to make good generals. We are first, therefore, to seek them blindfold, and then let them learn the trade at the expense of great losses.

Hence it comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.

The atomic bomb made the prospect of future war unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass; and beyond there is a different country.

Drones are just another weapon, and they turn out to be a very effective weapon that puts no American troops at risk, and I don’t see why we shouldn’t use them against identified enemy targets.

No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.

Battle is an orgy of disorder.

It has actually been suggested that warfare may have been the principle evolutionary pressure that created the huge gap between the human brain and that of our closest living relatives, the anthropoid apes. Whole groups of hominids with inferior brains could not win wars and were therefore exterminated.

War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing-time, which gives him leisure to contrive, and furnishes as ability to execute, military plans.

You must not fight too often with one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war.

America means far more than a continent bounded by two oceans. It is more than pride of military power, glory in war, or in victory. It means more than vast expanse of farms, of great factories or mines, magnificent cities, or millions of automobiles and radios.

In 1993, Israel and North Korea were moving towards an agreement in which North Korea would stop sending any missiles or military technology to the Middle East and Israel would recognize that country. President Clinton intervened and blocked it.

Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates or reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should be avoided.

In modern war… you will die like a dog for no good reason.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

Pre-emptive war might fall within the framework of international law.

There’s no way that that our military power will not erode if a robust American economic revival is not part of the cards.

We should develop anti-satellite weapons because we could not have prevailed without them in ‚Red Storm Rising‘.

God is not on the side of the big battalions, but on the side of those who shoot best.

Other than being crazy enough to press a button, there is nothing that Putin can do militarily to fundamentally alter American interests.

All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

General Giap was one of the most brilliant military strategists of our era, who in Dien Bien Phu was able to place missile launchers in remote, mountainous jungles, something the yankee and European military officers considered impossible.

Treachery has existed as long as there’s been warfare, and there’s always been a few people that you couldn’t trust.

The target of preventive war must have several characteristics. It must be virtually defenceless; it must be important enough to be worth the trouble; it must be possible to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival.

The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.

A prisoner of war is a man who tries to kill you and fails, and then asks you not to kill him.

As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also.

Justice is an unassailable fortress, built on the brow of a mountain which cannot be overthrown by the violence of torrents, nor demolished by the force of armies.

What is human warfare but just this; an effort to make the laws of God and nature take sides with one party.

Battles are won by slaughter and maneuver. The greater the general, the more he contributes in maneuver, the less he demands in slaughter.

War is mainly a catalogue of blunders.

When I was researching my book ‚The 33 Strategies of War‘, I studied Napoleon extensively and I found myself wanting to ask Napoleon questions about things he did, and if was I interpreting his actions correctly.

The great defense against the air menace is to attack the enemy’s aircraft as near as possible to their point of departure.

You probably don’t need more weapons than what’s required to destroy every city on earth. There’s only 2,300 cities. So, the United States, by that criteria, only needs 2,300 nuclear weapons – well, we’ve got more than 25,000!

The battle of Austerlitz is the grandest of all I have fought.

War – An act of violence whose object is to constrain the enemy, to accomplish our will.

To Sun-tzu and the ancient Chinese, doing something extraordinary had little effect without a setup of something ordinary. You had to mix the two – to fix your opponent’s expectations with some banal, ordinary maneuver, a comfortable pattern that they would then expect you to follow.

I think we would find, if you study the conduct of guerilla-type wars, that the Obama Administration has hit more targets on a broader scale than the Nixon Administration ever did.

What matters in the Sun-tzu universe are not positions of strength and power, but situations in which you have options, full of potential force.

Some of the generals are saying, ‚We’re making progress. We are clearing an area.‘ But you really don’t defeat the Taliban by clearing an area. They move.

The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor.

If we turn our backs of the Scythians who have provoked us, how shamefully shall we march against the revolted Bactrians; but if we pass Tanais and make the Scythians feel, by dear experience, that we are invincible, not in Asia only, it is not to be doubted but that Europe itself, as well as Asia, will come within the bounds of our conquests.

No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.

The nation that secures control of the air will ultimately control the world.

You have to make sure you know why you are going to war and then use decisive force to end it as soon as possible.

Remember, weapons of mass destruction don’t mean missiles.

Wherever the enemy wants to fight, we will follow him to the ends of the Earth. We’ll adapt, we’ll train, we’ll advise, we’ll mentor, and we’ll fight, and we’ll fight well.

When I take action, I’m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It’s going to be decisive.

The Spanish Empire eventually collapsed because of its expensive taste for warfare and conquest.

The battlefield is a scene of constant chaos. The winner will be the one who controls that chaos, both his own and the enemies.

Total war is no longer war waged by all members of one national community against all those of another. It is total… because it may well involve the whole world.

The best weapon against an enemy is another enemy.

A siege is an act of war.