Quotes from Max Boot

As someone who has spent much of my life identifying as a conservative, I can't stand what American conservatism has become.

The genteel conservatism of 'Downton Abbey' is not a rigid, extremist ideology whose adherents are bent on power at all costs.

History education in schools is so poor that students often enter college ignorant of the past - and leave just as unenlightened.

Only 36 percent of Americans could pass a multiple-choice civics test of the kind that is administered to immigrants seeking to become citizens.

May 11, Trump admitted to Lester Holt of NBC News that he was determined to fire Comey "regardless" of the recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in order to stop the investigation of the "Russia thing." Trump isn't the first president to attempt to obstruct justice. But he is the first to admit what he was doing on national TV, and his admissions led to the appointment of former FBI director Robert S. Mueller as a special counsel.

a crucial element of English success was their commanders' ability to learn on the fly, make adjustments, and attempt new tactics. The Spanish paid a heavy price for their lack of equal flexibility.

Max Boot theorem: Don't invade without planning for a long occupation.

This is how all social, ideological, or religious movements police their members—by making clear that agreement will be rewarded with greater social standing and support, and disagreement punished with ostracism. This pressure is so amorphous and pervasive that, like oxygen, you are only aware of it when it is gone.

If Trump has a saving grace, it is that he is so ignorant and impetuous. He is incapable of effectively implementing his worst impulses in the face of entrenched resistance from government professionals, the judiciary, and the press corps. A future Trump might be smarter and more disciplined, and thus more dangerous. That's a frightening thought, given how much damage

as they say in Texas, all hat and no cattle.

Here commenced a scene of horrors," the dramatist Friedrich von Schiller later wrote, "for which history has no language, poetry no pencil.

Chapter 10 Precision and Professionalism

Cheap to produce and easy to disseminate, germs, chemicals, and cyber-viruses are particularly well-suited for the weak to use against the strong.

McCarthy was an Irish Catholic small-town judge and a dipsomaniac with a vengeful streak and an exaggerated war record as a Marine tail gunner (he had not actually flown in combat). "Ignorant, crude, boastful, unaware of either intellectual or social refinements

But in the military sphere, just as in science, economics, art, or culture, change is not evenly distributed across space and time. Sometimes innovations cluster together to produce a major change in the way people live—or, in the case of the military, the way they die.

At the beginning of his reign, England had to import almost all of its guns from abroad; by the time of his death, England's cannon industry was among the finest in the world. Under the supervision of the Ordnance Board, which carefully parceled out contracts to a small group of private firms, English foundries developed the first cannons made of cast iron.

The only way to restore fiscal sanity is to either increase revenue or restrain entitlement spending.

They are embracing the kind of extremism personified in the past, in their different ways, by the likes of Joe McCarthy, Barry Goldwater, Strom

Trump supporters routinely praise him for his "honesty," by which they mean, apparently, not actually telling the truth but making "politically incorrect" remarks—their term of art for racist, xenophobic, or otherwise offensive statements.

This should have been a tocsin ringing loudly—but it was ignored by Republican voters, ignorant of history, who seemed to have no conception of how toxic this phrase was.

In 2012, when Ryan spoke those words, federal debt stood at $16 trillion. By 2018 the debt was more than $21 trillion—and climbing, largely because of the spending increases and tax cuts passed by Republicans like Ryan. In 2017 Republicans in Congress approved, on a party-line vote, a tax bill that is projected to add $1.9 trillion to the debt.

An influx of immigrants also can contribute to the impression among white, working-class Americans that "their" country is being lost. But the right answer is to ameliorate the suffering of those left behind by providing retraining and social welfare benefits—not to shut down free trade and immigration and thereby impose heavy costs on the entire country.

If the Germans did not have material superiority, what accounted for their easy victory? Quite simply, their decisive edge in doctrine, training, planning, coordination, and leadership. Thus the final victory was a tribute not to panzers alone but to the skillful employment of the combined-arms concept.

My mother and I were alike in one crucial respect: We may have been Russian by birth, but we were English in spirit. She was intensely reserved and private, and seldom showed what she was feeling.