The best way to fight evil is to do some good. Let me qualify that—the best way to fight evil at home is to do some good. The best way to fight them abroad is to unleash the military.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Even if only 2 percent of those assigned to perform military service should announce their refusal to fight, governments would be powerless, they would not dare send such a large number of people to jail.
Fighting with a large army under your command is nowise different from fighting with a small one: it is merely a question of instituting signs and signals.
If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.
I would say that I have been consistent in my broad view of how American power should be deployed, and the view that we underestimate our power when we restrict it to just our military power. We shortchange our influence and our ability to shape events when that's the only tool we think we have in the toolbox.
If you've got somebody in harm's way, you want the president being -- making advice, not -- be given advice by the military, and not making decisions based upon the latest Gallup poll or focus group.