Quotes About War

Stalin was especially furious with the "Leningrad Clique" of Zhdanov, who had assured him that the Finnish war would amount to little more than a police action, a nuisance that could be concluded in two weeks.

As President Kallio signed the document that gave the Moscow delegation authority to conclude the war on Moscow's terms, he growled, "May the hand wither that is forced to sign such a document as this." A few months later, the old man suffered a stroke that left him paralyzed in his right arm.

scratch units made up of raw draftees, many of whom were so ignorant they didn't even know the name of the country they were invading.

At the beginning of the war, Mannerheim's biggest problem was not men but materiel. Shipments of antitank and antiaircraft guns were arriving in small quantities and at a glacially slow pace.

Wars have an unpleasant habit of evolving in ways that none of the participants anticipated. When, in the summer of 1914, Europe resounded with cries of "A Berlin!" or "Nach Paris!", no one imagined the Somme, or Verdun, or the starvation blockade of Germany that killed 750,000 civilians.

In June of 1944, when Field Marshal von Rundstedt, the German commander in France, was told that the Allies were landing in Normandy, he knew exactly what to do. He went out into the garden and pruned his roses. Von Rundstedt knew that in war, early reports, regardless of whether the news is good or bad, are usually misleading. Reacting to them with instant analysis merely makes the problem worse.

In planning a war, the most important task is to understand what can be planned and what cannot.

When we teach tactics in the opposite order, that is, the mechanics ahead of the thinking, too often we produce, instead of soldiers, structured mechanics who find it difficult to think without rules. The art of war has no traffic with rules. Yet I have often seen students reject their best tactical ideas because they could not fit them into the format.

Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.

War always changes. Our enemies learn and adapt, and we must do the same or lose. But today, war is changing faster and on a larger scale than at any time in the last 350 years. Not only are we facing rapid change in how war is fought, we are facing radical changes in who fights and what they are fighting for. All over the world, state militaries find themselves fighting non-state opponents. This kind of war, which we call Fourth Generation war, or 4GW, is a very difficult challenge.

The second precondition is developing a viable strategy before entering a Fourth Generation conflict. We have already noted that our strategic goals must be realistic; we cannot remake other societies and cultures in our own image. Here, we offer another warning, one related directly to fighting Fourth Generation war: our strategy must not be so misconceived that it provides a primary reason for others to fight us.

When a state's armed service is given a mission to intervene in a Fourth Generation conflict, its first objective must be to keep its own footprint as small as possible. This is an important way to minimize the contradiction between the physical and moral levels of war. The smaller the state's physical presence, the fewer negative effects it will have at the moral level.

At the mental level, Fourth Generation war turns Clausewitz on his head. Clausewitz wrote that war is the extension of politics by other means. At the mental level of Fourth Generation war, politics is the extension of war by other means. Not only are all politics local, but everything local is politics.

This is a war universe. War all the time. That is its nature. There may be other universes based on all sorts of other principles, but ours seems to be based on war and games. All games are basically hostile. Winners and losers. We see them all around us: the winners and the losers. The losers can oftentimes become winners, and the winners can very easily become losers.

Come the three corners of the world in arms,And we shall shock them. Nought shall make us rue,If England to itself do rest but true.

O! wither'd is the garland of the war,The soldier's pole is fall'n; young boys and girlsAre level now with men; the odds is gone,And there is nothing left remarkableBeneath the visiting moon.

He is come to openThe purple testament of bleeding war.

Give me another horse! bind up my wounds!

Grim-visag'd war hath smooth'd his wrinkled front.

William Shakespeare

Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels.

This silent war of lilies and of roses,Which Tarquin view'd in her fair face's field.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;Or close the wall up with our English dead!In peace there's nothing so becomes a manAs modest stillness and humility:But when the blast of war blows in our ears,Then imitate the action of the tiger;Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,Disguise fair nature with hard-favor'd rage;Then lend the eye a terrible aspect.

O, now, for ever Farewell the tranquil mind farewell content Farewell the plumed troop and the big wars That make ambition virtue O, farewell Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump, The spirit-stirring drum, the ear-piercing fife, The royal banner, and all quality, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war And, O you mortal engines, whose rude throats The immortal Jove's dread clamours counterfeit, Farewell Othello's occupation's gone