Best quotes by H. R. McMaster on War

Checkout quotes by H. R. McMaster on War

• ‟ There are two ways to fight the United States military: asymmetrically and stupid. Asymmetrically means you're going to try to avoid our strengths. In the 1991 Gulf War, it's like we called Saddam's army out into the schoolyard and beat up that army.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ It is important to understand how leaders have adapted and thought about war and warfare across their careers. 'The Autobiography of General Ulysses S. Grant: Memoirs of the Civil War' is perhaps the best war memoir ever written.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ What we can afford least is to define the problem of future war as we would like it to be and, by doing so, introduce into our defense vulnerabilities based on self-delusion.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ Because war is a competition involving life and death, and in which national security and vital interests are at stake, establishing an objective other than winning is not only counterproductive, but also irresponsible and wasteful. In some circumstances, it is also unethical.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ You have to keep listening and thinking and being critical and self-critical. Remember General Nivelle, in the First World War, at Verdun? He said he had the solution and then destroyed the French Army until it mutinied.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ The war in Vietnam was not lost in the field, nor was it lost on the front pages of the 'New York Times' or the college campuses. It was lost in Washington, D.C.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ Be skeptical of concepts that divorce war from its political nature, particularly those that promise fast, cheap victory through technology.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ War is, in fact, an extension of politics, and in any war, military operations have to be conducted in such a way that they contribute to sustainable political outcomes consistent with vital interests that are at stake in that war.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ It's important to study and understand your responsibilities within any profession, but it's particularly important for military officers to read, think, discuss, and write about the problem of war and warfare so they can understand not just the changes in the character of warfare but also the continuities.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ We're so enamored of technological advancements that we fail to think about how to best apply those technologies to what we're trying to achieve. This can mask some very important continuities in the nature of war and their implications for our responsibilities as officers.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ We confuse activity with progress, and that's always dangerous, especially in war.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ Much of the conventional wisdom associated with Vietnam was highly inaccurate. Far from an inevitable result of the imperative to contain communism, the war was only made possible through lies and deceptions aimed at the American public, Congress, and members of Lyndon Johnson's own administration.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ After engaging in acts of war against another nation, there exists a degree of uncertainty in terms of the enemy's reactions. War inspires an unpredictable psychology and evokes strong emotions that defy systems analysis quantification.

  - H. R. McMaster
  

• ‟ The important thing to remember is war does not progress linearly. The future course of events is going to be very difficult to predict with a high degree of precision.

  - H. R. McMaster