Quotes About Warfare

It is true that when there's a drone attack, those - that the - the terrorists are killed, it's true. But 500 and 5,000 more people rises against it, and more terrorism occurs, and more - more bomb blasts occurs.

Identifying terrorists on the battlefield is relatively simple.

We need to ask who is the enemy, and the enemies are terrorists.

Killing terrorists is cheaper than capturing them.

Blowing terrorists to smithereens is gratifying.

We need a military strategy to defeat terrorists on the ground.

We can't afford to leave Afghanistan to the Taliban and the terrorists.

The terrorists' only rules? That there are no rules, and this gives them a major advantage.

You cannot have good terrorists and bad terrorists.

History tells us that a general can move and feed an army as efficiently as he likes, but the real litmus test is the battlefield.

Just look at the Old Testament. They didn't go out with the army first. They sent the musicians out.

With fire and sword the country round Was wasted far and wide, And many a childing mother then, And new-born infant, died. But things like that, you know, must be At every famous victory. They say it was a shocking sight, After the field was won, For many thousand bodies here Lay rotting in the sun; But things like that, you know, must be After a famous victory.

The Koran tells Muslims to "make ready your strength to the utmost of your power, including steeds of war, to strike terror into (the hearts of) the enemies of Allah and your enemies" (8:60).

But according to Islamic law, Muslims may only conclude truces during jihad warfare with non-Muslims when they are in a position of weakness and need time to gather strength to fight again. Those who concluded agreements with the Crusaders did not lose sight of this principle and never entered into a pact that ultimately weakened the Muslims' position.

Corson arrived at the Academy in September 1964 as an instructor. His course in guerrilla warfare quickly became a midshipman favorite. His teaching methods were unconventional. He had books imported from mainland China, including three volumes of Mao's writing. To Corson, the lesson was clear: if you can't outlast the guerrilla, don't get in the game.

Burrich told me that the ax was not a sophisticated weapon, but was a very satisfactory one if used correctly.

Nothing the Western Front can offer, however, matches the intensity of the five days of fighting inside Fort Vaux.

The French Army expended more artillery ammunition in September 1914 than it had done in the whole of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. Total French production of the 75 mm shell in 1914 amounted to 14,000 shells a day, at a time when one single battery of 75 mm guns could easily shoot off 1,000 shells a day.

The generals were now two years into this war and it should have been - and indeed was - glaringly apparent that the methods being employed to attack the enemy lines, be they British, French or German, were simply not working. Increasing the scale of the attack by the current methods simply increased the number of casualties

French losses, from August 1914 to 31 December 1915, came to 1,932,051 of whom no less than 1,001,271 were killed or missing. The British total in the same period was 512,420, of whom around 200,000 were killed or missing.

Von Falkenhayn's plan for Verdun, however flawed in execution, was at least possible; he did not intend to gain ground, penetrate the enemy defences or take Verdun. He simply wanted to kill soldiers, to bleed the French Army to death. The Anglo-French Somme plan, even if it had not been disrupted and reduced by the Verdun offensive, was a far more risky business, with little chance of achieving its objectives without new tactical ideas and new equipment.

the capture of Douaumont took less than four hours and cost the 24th Brandenburg Regiment just 32 men killed and 40 wounded. It was later estimated that French losses resulting from the fall of Douaumont, or incurred in its recapture many months later, amounted to around 100,000 men.

In the second week of June, two second-lieutenants were shot by firing squads drawn from their own companies, for allegedly failing to press home their attacks. Orders also went out that battalions abandoning positions or retiring during an attack were to be fired on by their own machine-guns or bombarded by French artillery. Some of these orders were actually obeyed but the resentment they caused far outweighed the influence they had on the front-line soldier.

The defence of Verdun and the French Republic was a splendid cause but that alone was not enough; it needed to be a two-way commitment - and what did the Republic care for them, the infantry soldiers of France, alone and dying in their shell holes, sent in again and again in attacks that withered away under the shelling and machine-gun fire, achieving nothing? By mid-June the murmurs heard among the troops in May were growing louder.