There is a great inertia about all military operations of any size. But once this inertia has been overcome and underway they are almost as hard to arrest as to initiate.
Climate change constitutes a serious threat to global security, an immediate risk to our national security, and, make no mistake, it will impact how our military defends our country.
One of the great things about the United States is that when it comes to world affairs, the president obviously is the leader of the Executive Branch, the Commander-in-Chief, the spokesperson for the nation, but the influence and the work that we have is the result not just of the president, it is the result of countless interactions and arrangements and relationships between our military and other militaries, and our diplomats and other diplomats, the intelligence officers and development workers.
Mankind are in the end always governed by superiority of intellectual faculties, and none are more sensible of this than the military profession. When, on my return from Italy, I assumed the dress of the Institute, and associated with men of science, I knew what I was doing: I was sure of not being misunderstood by the lowest drummer boy in the army.
In Iraq and Syria, American leadership - including our military power - is stopping ISIL's advance, instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition, including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group.
I hold it to be of great prudence for men to abstain from threats and insulting words towards any one, for neither the one nor the other in any way diminishes the strength of the enemy; but the one makes him more cautious, and the other increases his hatred of you, and makes him more persevering in his efforts to injure you
It is characteristic of the military mentality that non-human factors ... are held essential, while the human being, his desires and thoughts-in short, the psychological factors-are considered as unimportant and secondary.
There are always so many conjectures as to the issue of any event that, whatever the outcome, there will always be people to say: 'I said then that it would be so'