Quotes About Warfare

Fear of death, which in some respects is adaptive in the evolutionary struggle for existence, is maladaptive in warfare. Those cultures that teach an afterlife of bliss for heroes — or even for those who just did what those in authority told them — might gain a competitive advantage.

If we like them, they're freedom fighters, she thought. If we don't like them, they're terrorists. In the unlikely case we can't make up our minds, they're temporarily only guerrillas.

Civilization must always defend itself

The tightly focused battle was an orgy of slaughter. Limbs, heads, and parts of bodies from men and women alike littered the ground.

They knew how to cut a person both to cause pain, to cripple, and to bring a swift death, and they weren't timid about doing either.

The ground was soaked with blood. What had been Clovis was no longer remotely recognizable. His jaw was shattered and hung completely unhinged to the side. One eye socket had been altogether caved in. Oba's knee had broken the man's sternum and crushed his chest. It was glorious.

It is always useful to face an enemy who is prepared to die for his country, he read. This means that both you and he have exactly the same aim in mind.

The consensus seemed to be that if really large numbers of men were sent to storm the mountain, then enough might survive the rocks to take the citadel. This is essentially the basis of all military thinking.

It is a long-cherished tradition among a certain type of military thinker that huge casualties are the main thing. If they are on the other side then this is a valuable bonus.

Although the scythe isn't pre-eminent among the weapons of war, anyone who has been on the wrong end of, say, a peasants' revolt will know that in skilled hands it is fearsome.

When he was a boy he'd read books about great military campaigns, and visited the museums and looked with patriotic pride at the paintings of famous cavalry charges, last stands and glorious victories. It had come as rather a shock, when he later began to participate in some of these, to find that the painters had unaccountably left out the intestines. Perhaps they just weren't very good at them.

Perhaps that's why men did it. You didn't do it to save duchesses, or countries. You killed the enemy to stop him killing your mates, that they in turn might save you ...

It's all trickery. They keep you down and when they piss off some other country, you have to fight for them! It's only your country when they want you to get killed!

As castles went, this one looked as though it could be taken by a small squad of not very efficient soldiers. For defence, putting a blanket over your head might be marginally safer.

Some of the men and older boys were trained in firing the cannon, but since there wasn't any gun powder to spare for actually firing any more of the things, they made do with pushing wooden cartridges into the barrel and shouting, "Bang!" They got quite good at that, and were proud at the speed with which "Bang!" could be shouted. Daphne said she hoped the enemy would be trained to say "Aargh!

He'd been a successful soldier, as these things went; he'd generally been on the winning side, and had killed more of the enemy by good if dull tactics than his own men by bad but exciting ones.

Tell me, Leonard,' he said. 'Has it ever occurred to you that one day wars will be fought with brains?' Leonard picked up his coffee cup. 'Oh dear. Won't that be rather messy?' he said.

How can you be the good guys if you're dropping clever bombs right down people's chimneys? And blowing people up just because they're being bossed around by a loony?

Cohen looked at the forest of lances and pennants. Hundreds of thousands of men looked like quite a lot of men when you saw them close to. I suppose, he said, slowly, that none of you has got some amazing plan you've been keeping quiet about? We thought you had one, said Truckle.

This is the way modern men do battle, not with spear and sword, but with credit cards.

The Third World War will not be unleashed by the great powers; it will break out first in the zones of famine and oppression.

The Afghan people do not take kindly to conquerors.

Don't forget your great guns, which are the most respectable arguments of the rights of kings.

I shot down two airplanes in Korea, so I wasn't a slouch.