76 Military Defense Quotes
Following is our list of military defense quotations and slogans full of insightful wisdom and perspective about .
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Famous Military Defense Quotes
National defense is the sacred duty of the young and all other people. — Kim Jong Il
Defense is superior to opulence. — Adam Smith
A strong country must have a strong military, as only then can it guarantee the security of the nation. — Xi Jinping
America needs to be defended. We need missile defense to better police the skies over the United States. — Rudy Giuliani
Only one military organization can hold and gain ground in war-a ground army supported by tactical aviation with supply lines guarded by the navy. — Omar N. Bradley
I support development and deployment of a limited national missile defense. Few if any of our duties surpass our obligation to provide for the common defense of our nation. — Joe Lieberman
The defense budget is more than a piggy bank for people who want to get busy beating swords into pork barrels. — George H. W. Bush
We are for peace, but we accept the challenge of the enemy. We will protect our motherland. — Petro Poroshenko
Fortifications, artillery, foreign aid - will be of no value, unless the ordinary soldier knows that it is HE guarding his country — Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim
A military is built to fight. Our military must regard combat capability as the criterion to meet in all its work and focus on how to win when it is called on. — Xi Jinping
We don't declare war any more; we declare national defense. — Eugene McCarthy
War is just a racket... I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. — Smedley Butler
In order to assure an adequate national defense, it is necessary - and sufficient - to be in a position in case of war to conquer the command of the air. — Giulio Douhet
We will strengthen our security by building missile defense, restoring our military might, and standing by and strengthening our intelligence officers. — Mitt Romney
Best defense, thorough analysis, margin for error — Howard Marks
Short Military Defense Quotes
- To be prepared for war is one of the most effective means of preserving peace. — George Washington
- To secure peace is to prepare for war. — Carl von Clausewitz
- The best defense is a good offense. — Jack Dempsey
- Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack. — Sun Tzu
- The preservation of freedom, is not the task of soldiers alone. The whole nation has to be strong. — Lal Bahadur Shastri
- ...The greatest bulwark of capitalism is militarism. — Emma Goldman
Defense Quotes
If violent crime is to be curbed, it is only the intended victim who can do it. The felon does not fear the police, and he fears neither judge nor jury. Therefore what he must be taught to fear is his victim. — Jeff Cooper
When a government betrays the people by amassing too much power and becoming tyrannical, the people have no choice but to exercise their original right of self-defense — to fight the government. — Alexander Hamilton
Oppressors can tyrannize only when they achieve a standing army, an enslaved press, and a disarmed populace. — James Madison
If you find yourself under lethal attack don't be kind. Be harsh. Be tough. Be ruthless. — Jeff Cooper
Karate is not a game. It is not a sport. It is not even a system of self-defense. Karate is half physical exercise and half spiritual. The karateist who has given the necessary years of exercise and meditation is a tranquil person. He is unafraid. He can even be calm in a burning building. — Mas Oyama
Education is, quite simply, peace-building by another name. It is the most effective form of defense spending there is. — Kofi Annan
Brave men do not gather by thousands to torture and murder a single individual, so gagged and bound he cannot make even feeble resistance or defense. — Ida B. Wells
We are the only people on Earth asked to guarantee the security of our occupier...while Israel is the only country that calls for defense from its victims. — Hanan Ashrawi
I don't think I was awake for much of my childhood. I did a lot of napping. This might have been a defensive measure against encroaching depression. Until about the age of eleven or twelve, I had zero interests other than trying to steal gumballs from supermarket gumball machines. — Michael Ian Black
Those who beat their swords into plowshares usually end up plowing for those who kept their swords. — Benjamin Franklin
People Writing About Military Defense
More Military Defense Quotes
A people who mean to be free must be prepared to meet danger in person, and not rely upon the fallacious protection of armies — Edmund Randolph
A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual doom. — Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our military, our national guard, our national police, our territory defense, special service, nationals of Ukraine, please carry on. We will win. Glory to Ukraine. We are successfully holding back the enemy’s attacks. We know we are defending our land and the future of our children. Kyiv and the key areas are controlled by our army. The occupiers wanted to set up their puppet in our capital. They didn’t succeed. On our streets, there was a proper fight going on. — Volodymyr Zelenskyy
As it stands, a large number of firms in all advanced economies specialize in warfare as a business, and are thus reliant on perpetuating war to continue being in business. They live off government spending exclusively, and have their entire existence reliant on there being perpetual wars necessitating ever‐larger arms spending. In the United States, whose defense spending is almost equal to that of the rest of the planet combined, these industries have a vested interest in keeping the U.S. government involved in some form of military adventure or other. This, more than any strategic, cultural, ideological, or security operations, explains why the United States has been involved in so many conflicts in parts of the world that cannot possibly have any bearing on the life of the average American. Only with unsound money can these firms grow to such enormous magnitude that they can influence the press, academia, and think tanks to continuously beat the drums of more war. — Saifedean Ammous
Adolf Galland said that the day we took our fighters off the bombers and put them against the German fighters, that is, went from defensive to offsensive, Germany lost the air war. I made that decision and it was my most important decision during World War II. As you can imagine, the bomber crews were upset. The fighter pilots were ecstatic. — Jimmy Doolittle
The Russians have repeatedly offered to settle. If you look at the Minsk accords, which the Russians offered to settle for, they look like a really good deal today. Let's be honest: it’s a US war against Russia, to essentially sacrifice the flower of Ukrainian youth in an abattoir of death and destruction for the geopolitical ambition of the neocons, oft-stated, of regime change for Vladimir Putin and exhausting the Russian military so that they can't fight anywhere else in the world. President Biden has said that was his intention — to get rid of Vladimir Putin. His Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin, in April 2022, said that our purpose here is to exhaust the Russian army. What does that mean, exhaust? It means throwing Ukrainians at them. My son fought over there, side-by-side with the Ukrainians and we've sacrificed 300,000 of them. The commander of the special forces unit in the Ukraine, which is probably the most elite fighting force in Europe, has said 80% of his troops are dead or are wounded and they cannot rebuild the unit. Right now, the Russians are killing Ukrainians at a ratio of either 1:5 or 1:8, depending on what data you believe. — Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
Much of the Greek coastline comprises steep cliffs and there are few coastal plains for agriculture. Inland are more steep cliffs, rivers that will not allow transportation, and few wide, fertile valleys. There is too little good agricultural land for Greece to become a major agricultural exporter, or to develop more than a handful of major urban areas containing highly educated, highly skilled, and technologically advanced populations. Its situation is further exacerbated by its location, with Athens positioned at the tip of the peninsula, almost cut off from land trade with Europe. It is reliant on the Aegean Sea for access to maritime trade in the region — but across that sea lies Turkey, a large potential enemy. Greece spends a vast amount of euros, which it doesn’t have, on defense. There are about 1,400 Greek islands 6,000 if you include various rocks sticking out of the Aegean of which approximately 200 are inhabited. It takes a decent navy just to patrol this territory, never mind one strong enough to defer any attempt to take the islands over. The result is a huge cost in military spending that Greece doesn’t have. During the Cold War, the Americans, and to a lesser extent, the British were content to underwrite some of the military requirements in order to keep the Soviet Union out of the Aegean and the Mediterranean. When the Cold War ended, so did the checks. — Tim Marshall
These are the strategic dialectics of anti-imperialist struggle: through the defensive reactions of the system, the escalation of counterrevolution, the transformation of the political martial law into military martial law, the enemy betrays himself, becomes visible. — Ulrike Meinhof
Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can complel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
(God) gives the weak a weapon for self-defense that the strong, despite his military and nuclear arsenals, can do nothing against. There are clerics who condemn this and even say that these are suicide operations that are not allowed in Islam. — Yusuf al-Qaradawi
Strategic air assault is wasted if it is dissipated piecemeal in sporadic attacks between which the enemy has an opportunity to readjust defenses or recuperate. — Henry H. Arnold
A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power. — George Mason
Let us hope our weapons are never needed - but do not forget what the common people of this nation knew when they demanded the Bill of Rights: An armed citizenry is the first defense, the best defense, and the final defense against tyranny. — Edward Abbey
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. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Putting together a counter- terrorism policy, it's very easy to look at law enforcement or defense, military action or stopping the money flows or whatever, but the really difficult part is integrating all aspects of the policy, and I think she put a lot of emphasis on that. — Lee H. Hamilton
The more closely [the German army] converged on [Stalingrad], the narrower became their scope for tactical manoeuvre as a lever in loosening resistance. By contrast, the narrowing of the frontage made it easier for the defender to switch his local reserves to any threatened point on the defensive arc. — B. H. Liddell Hart
The attack and our response show just how vital Arizona's military bases are to the defense of our country. We need to do everything we can to protect them. — Jane D. Hull
If our nation goes over a financial Niagara, we won't have much strength and, eventually, we won't have peace. We are currently borrowing the entire defense budget from foreign investors. Within a few years, we will be spending more on interest payments than on national security. That is not, as our military friends say, a 'robust strategy.' — Mitch Daniels
Remember, it is the president's constitutional duty to provide a strong national defense. Don't insert politics into national security. Listen to your ground commanders. They know better than anyone what our military's needs are. Have somebody strong at home who can provide you with needed support 'off the battle field.' — Ryan Zinke
A defensive war is apt to betray us into too frequent detachment. Those generals who have had but little experience attempt to protect every point, while those who are better acquainted with their profession, having only the capital object in view, guard against a decisive blow, and acquiesce in small misfortunes to avoid greater. — Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor
You know, I know, all of us know that the time factor is the vital consideration - and vital is the correct meaning of the term - of our national defense program; that we must never be caught in the same situation we found ourselves in 1917. — George C. Marshall
My job is to give the president and secretary of defense military advice before they know they need it. — John W. Vessey, Jr.
Only those who are ideologically opposed to military programs think of the defense budget as the first and best place to get resources for social welfare needs. — Herman Kahn
Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan and the war on terrorism have reduced the pace of military transformation and have revealed our lack of preparation for defensive and stability operations. This Administration has overextended our military. — Barack Obama
We've learned something about President-elect [Donald] Trump's choice for secretary of defense. Lawmakers in Congress intend to proper debate over whether retired General James Mattis meets a requirement for civilian control of the military. — Steve Inskeep
The wisdom and spirit of Churchill not only saved Britain from the Third Reich but saved Western civilization from a Nazi Dark Ages when no other nation was willing to take up that defense. Churchill was the greatest military, political and spiritual leader of the 20th century. — Victor Davis Hanson
The Defense Department's plan to ban newspaper reporters from pool coverage of military operations is incredible. It reveals the administration to be out of touch with journalism, reality and the First Amendment. — Arthur Ochs Sulzberger
Surely the Department of Defense can and needs to do a better job of training new and existing first responders to respond to sexual assaults occurring in the military. — Louise Slaughter
The events in Prague, together with the Berlin blockade, convinced the European recipients of American economic assistance that they needed military protection as well: that led them to request the creation of a North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which committed the United States for the first time ever to the peacetime defense of Western Europe. — John Lewis
The reality is, the United States has global interests. Our defense budget is about the same as the defense budgets or military budgets of every other country in the world put together. — Robert M. Gates
Defense is the stronger form with the negative object, and attack the weaker form with the positive object. — Ernest Hemingway
Our country represents nothing but peaceful intentions toward all the earth, but it ought not to fail to maintain such a military force as comports with the dignity and security of a great people. — Calvin Coolidge
As a soldier and combat veteran, I believe American military forces should only be used in the defense and furtherance of our nation's vital interests. — Joni Ernst
National Review once opined, many years ago, that, every year, the Nobel peace prize should go to the U.S. secretary of defense: The American military is the number-one guarantor of peace in the world. But maybe something like a Nobel freedom prize would be a more appropriate award for Reagan than a peace prize. — Jay Nordlinger
The highest levels of the U.S. military, the Defense Department, and the White House must be held accountable for putting our troops at greater risk and diminishing Americas moral authority across the globe. — Lawrence Korb
[M]ilitary metaphors have more and more come to infuse all aspects of the description of the medical situation. Disease is seen as an invasion of alien organisms, to which the body responds by its own military operations, such as the mobilizing of immunological "defenses", and medicine is "aggressive" as in the language of most chemotherapies. — Susan Sontag
Air power can either paralyze the enemy's military action or compel him to devote to the defense of his bases and communications a share of his straitened resources far greater that what we need in the attack. — Winston Churchill
The authority of the civil defense ... issued a warning to the civilian population not to pick up any of those pencils because they are booby traps. — Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf
What would you do differently as defense secretary to compensate for this record in which the greatest military in the world, as we are constantly told, doesn't get the job done? — James Mattis
I will make certain that our military is the best in the world in both cyber offense and defense and in every other way, by the way. Every other way. — Donald Trump
In 2009, US President [Barack] Obama said that the missile defense only serves as protection from Iranian nuclear missiles. But now there is an international treaty with Iran that bans Tehran from developing a potential military nuclear project. — Vladimir Putin
New Defense Secretary Ashton Carter said that he is open to letting transgender people serve in the military. He said there's no reason to prevent people from being generals just because of their privates. — Jimmy Fallon
Our military strength is a prerequisite to peace, but let it be clear we maintain this strength in the hope it will never be used. — Ronald Reagan
No profession or occupation is more pleasing than the military; a profession or exercise both noble in execution (for the strongest, most generous and proudest of all virtues is true valor) and noble in its cause. No utility either more just or universal than the protection of the repose or defense of the greatness of one's country. The company and daily conversation of so many noble, young and active men cannot but be well-pleasing to you. — Michel de Montaigne
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