Quotes from Jack Keane

One of the banners I would put up in front of any American president and new administration is 'Do not overreact to your predecessors' policies.'

Air power will not defeat ISIS. It has not been able to deny ISIS freedom of maneuver and the ability to attack at will.

ISIS itself, it draws its central belief system from the Koran and from the writings of the Prophet Muhammad. That is undeniable. And it's a medieval interpretation of it. It is a literal interpretation of it.

I have lots of concerns at working with Russia going against ISIS until we have agreements in terms of what Russia's behavior is going to be.

Afghanistan is where much of the al Qaeda journey began. It is the main site where Osama bin Laden, Mullah Omar and their cohort rose to prominence fighting the Soviets in the 1980s. Afghan territory holds special significance to the group, which is committed to retaking it and re-establishing it as the base of a global movement.

We must take all that territory away from ISIS.

I'm a New York kid, so when I saw that plane that hit the first building, I suspected it was terrorism - blue sky day.

While conducting a conventional war in Iraq and Syria, ISIS has staged terrorist attacks on a global scale against the people from the countries who are fighting ISIS.

Aircraft are always going to be something that terrorists are interested in because you bring down an airliner, you have drawn the world's attention.

The homegrown terrorists are the most significant because any fighter returning from Syria to the United States would likely be identified and detected by our intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

I'm not in a position to go back into public service.

It's not that I can't be fooled, but I'm not fooled often.

The Arab Spring, nobody's in the streets demonstrating for radical Islam; they're in the streets with a window of democracy. They want our political reform, our social justice, and our economic opportunity.

The Pentagon is a series of wedges. So you have - the outer wedge has windows on the outside, and then inside of that, it has windows with an alleyway; then there's another wedge with windows outside, windows inside. And we call them the E Ring, the D Ring, the C Ring.

This radical Islam is a religious-based ideology. And you actually have to, when you deal with the ideology, you have to attack it on that basis.

Radical Islam, it has grown into a global jihad.

Senator Clinton is very knowledgeable about national security and is probably going to be strong on defense. I have no doubts whatsoever that if she were president in January '09, she would not act irresponsibly and issue orders to conduct an immediate withdrawal from Iraq, regardless of the consequences, and squander the gains that have been made.

What did we want out of Iraq? We wanted a country that was stable and secure, that elected its own government, that was not going to be a threat to its neighbors and also was capable of protecting and defending itself. That was our objective in Iraq.

When you had thugs and bullies and killers imposing their will on their own people or other people - if you don't respond to it, it just keeps coming because they're encouraged by their own success.

The success of ISIS is largely tied to the safe haven it has in Syria.

Rebuilding the military is something Putin will pay attention to.

Putin has put Russia on a path to be a world power with global influence.

Russia and China completely disagree with the international order that was established after World War II, and they're trying to take it apart right before our eyes.

To get an Army that's already fighting a war to change in stride to a total different military strategy on the ground - and to get everybody on the same page - was accomplished by the sheer force of Dave Petraeus' will.