Quotes from Mark Esper

If you talk to any senior Army leaders, you'll find one, if not all, their children are in the Army.

Child care is very important, so I want to put dollars there, and I want to make sure we get the policies right.

We closely track the systems Boeing builds for us, and they're some very capable systems. So that's been my focus. It is something that I look at every month. I look at the metrics for all major combat systems and our platforms, which Boeing builds many, and they're successful platforms.

I've been studying China for quite some time now, and I'm big on China as well. And I think we need to be very concerned about Chinese technology getting into our systems or the systems of our allies.

At the age of 18, I went to West Point, and I swore an oath to defend this Constitution, and I embraced a motto called duty and honor and country. And I've lived my life in accordance with those values ever since then.

When I went to West Point, I was there with cadets from 50 other states and territories. Cadets from other countries, and you learn all of these things about our country, about our culture, our heritage, our ethnicity. At the end of the day, you come back, we all wear green, and we all consider ourselves an Army.

The surest way to deter adversary aggression is to fully prepare for war.

It is an honor of a lifetime to be appointed secretary of defense and to lead the greatest military in history.

The goal is to deter war, and this can only be done with a strong, modern, and ready military that has overmatch in all domains.

The bottom line is this: in an era of mounting fiscal challenges and competing demands, we must actively seek ways to free up time, money, and manpower to invest back into our top priorities.

A collective security relies on everybody doing their fair share.

Our legacy platforms have served us well for decades, but we're running out of upgrades that will keep us ahead. Technology is changing too fast, and our enemies are too adaptable.

I think artificial intelligence will likely change the character of warfare, and I believe whoever masters it first will dominate on the battlefield for many, many, many years.

AI will allow the soldier to act and think much more quickly. Whoever gets to AI first, I believe, will have dominance for many years afterward.

I've got a lot of military kids who are not in on-base child care, and they should be. So it's things like that I'm going to change, either from a funding perspective or a policy perspective.

Our warfighting doctrine is that we don't want to be in a fair fight, and we want the fight to always be tilted in our favor.

Now, 'high-intensity conflict' is a fancy word for saying tanks on tanks, aircraft shooting each other out of the sky, a great deal of violence at a level we haven't seen since probably the Korean War or World War II, where you have big armies facing off against one another.

The international rules-based order in the wake of World War II is the order that has ensured prosperity and security now for 75 years. I'm fully committed to that.

I can't tell you what the Army end strength will be. I know it has to be above 500,000. I know it has to be above 500,000 in the regular Army - and I've always said associated growth in the Guard and Reserve.

Having previously served in the regular Army, National Guard, and Reserve, I understand well the sacrifices our service members, civilians, and their families make to protect this great country.

We are extending basic training. It'll be the longest and toughest in the world.

I've stepped down from jobs that paid me well more than what I was working anywhere else. And each time, it was to serve the public good and to serve the young men and women of our armed services.

Stay focused on your mission, remain steadfast in your pursuit of excellence, and always do the right thing.

I felt that I had, again, great freedom to do what I wanted to do. I felt that I was trusted to train my soldiers, and I was accountable for it.