American - Public | July 24, 1962 -
We often operate effectively on the physical battleground but not on the psychological battleground. We fail to communicate our resolve.
H. R. McMaster
ResolveFailPhysicalCommunicate
We confuse activity with progress, and that's always dangerous, especially in war.
ProgressWarDangerousAlways
In the Army, because the stakes are so high - right? - you can't just be a yes-man and say, 'Great idea, boss!' if you don't believe it - right? - because lives are at stake. And the commanders that I've worked for, they want frank assessments; they want criticism and feedback.
GreatBossBelieveCriticismYou
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.
WisdomWarCommunismAmericanResult
Bombing, particularly from the perspective of the receiving end, is not 'communication.' Bombs result in death and destruction.
CommunicationPerspectiveDeathEnd
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.
WarUncertaintyStrongEmotions
My personal experience in Ninawa Province has been that, at the most fundamental level, people don't really care if it's a Shiite, a Sunni, a Kurd, or a Turkoman that's providing them security as long as that force treats them with respect.
RespectExperiencePeopleCareLong
What we have found is that we were the principal mediators in many cases between the Iraqis and their own security forces and their own government, and so you have to almost embrace that role.
GovernmentYouSecurityPrincipal
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.
FutureProgressWarRememberPredict
Muslims who commit terrorist acts are perverting their religion.
ReligionCommitWhoMuslimsActs
Although combat operations unseated the Taliban and the Saddam Hussein regime, a poor understanding of the recent histories of the Afghan and Iraqi peoples undermined efforts to consolidate early battlefield gains into lasting security.
UnderstandingEarlySecurityPoor
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.
FightWarStupidArmyYouTry
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