Military Quotes

Now this brings me to my main topic - our military strength - more specifically, how to stay strong against threat from outside, without undermining the economic health that supports our security.

Arms alone can give the world no permanent peace, no confident security. Arms are solely for defense - to protect from violent assault what we already have. They are only a costly insurance. They cannot add to human progress.

We do not keep security establishments merely to defend property or territory or rights abroad or at sea. We keep the security forces to defend a way of life.

Obviously all of us know that the composition that was reached in Korea is not satisfactory to America, but it is far better than to continue the bloody, dreary, sacrifice of lives with no possible strictly military victory in sight.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.

Three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United State corporations.

We now have a broadly based and efficient defensive strength, including a great deterrent power, which... is, for the present, our main guarantee against war; but, unless we act wisely and promptly, we could lose that capacity to deter attack or defend ourselves.

My profoundest conviction is that the American people will say, as one man: No matter what the exertions or sacrifices, we shall maintain that necessary strength! But we could make no more tragic mistake than merely to concentrate on military strength. For if we did only this, the future would hold nothing for the world but an Age of Terror.

Our second task is to do the constructive work of building a genuine peace. We must never become so preoccupied with our desire for military strength that we neglect those areas of economic development, trade, diplomacy, education, ideas and principles where the foundations of real peace must be laid.

Any orderly balance-sheet of military strength must be in two parts. The first is the position as of today. The second is the position in the period ahead.

Our real problem, then, is not our strength today; it is rather the vital necessity of action today to ensure our strength tomorrow. What I have just said applies to our strength as a single country.

As with our military potential, our economic assets are more than equal to the task. Our independent farmers produce an abundance of food and fibre. Our free workers are versatile, intelligent, and hardworking. Our businessmen are imaginative and resourceful. The productivity, the adaptability of the American economy is the solid foundation-stone of our security structure.

A nation with a strong defence industry will not only be more secure. It will also reap rich economic benefits - it can boost investment, expand manufacturing, support enterprise, raise the technology level and increase economic growth in the country.

Keeping technology at the forefront, we need to further speed up our defence programme & keep pace with the world.

When people have a sense of our military capability, nobody will ever dare to cast an evil eye on our nation.

Where the Government is weak, military sway prevails.

An order that can be misunderstood, will be misunderstood.

I know he's a good general, but is he lucky?