ajay0
Well-Known Member
War is failure of diplomacy. ~ John Dingell
World War I was not inevitable, as many historians say. It could have been avoided, and it was a diplomatically botched negotiation. ~ Richard Holbrooke
"When you spend money on defense, on military solutions, it's like surgery. It's painful. It's high-risk. Things go wrong. When you spend money on diplomacy, with our wonderful foreign service officers, it's kind of like going to the clinic and using a variety of different drugs and physical therapy. And when you think about development and soft power, it's preventative medicine. It's those things like working out, taking an aspirin. It's low-cost, low pain, and yet it has long-term benefits.
So any military person will tell you, use us as a last resort. Use surgery only when you have to. When you can, use preventative medicine - that's development - or diplomacy, but don't reach for that military instrument too soon. "~ James Stavridis
"... When I look at what we spend on defense, which is pushing up toward $650 to $700 billion dollars a year, as compared to what we spend on diplomacy and development... a couple of dozen billions of dollars a year, the scale is just enormous.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates famously said, look, we have more people on a single aircraft carrier - and we have 12 of those, David - than we do in the entire foreign service. And another one is former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who said, you can spend a lot more money on the military, but if you're not going to spend it on our diplomats and development, you're just going to have to buy me more ammunition. Those are two voices I would listen to. Let's keep this thing in balance." ~ ` James Stavridis
World War I was not inevitable, as many historians say. It could have been avoided, and it was a diplomatically botched negotiation. ~ Richard Holbrooke
"When you spend money on defense, on military solutions, it's like surgery. It's painful. It's high-risk. Things go wrong. When you spend money on diplomacy, with our wonderful foreign service officers, it's kind of like going to the clinic and using a variety of different drugs and physical therapy. And when you think about development and soft power, it's preventative medicine. It's those things like working out, taking an aspirin. It's low-cost, low pain, and yet it has long-term benefits.
So any military person will tell you, use us as a last resort. Use surgery only when you have to. When you can, use preventative medicine - that's development - or diplomacy, but don't reach for that military instrument too soon. "~ James Stavridis
"... When I look at what we spend on defense, which is pushing up toward $650 to $700 billion dollars a year, as compared to what we spend on diplomacy and development... a couple of dozen billions of dollars a year, the scale is just enormous.
Secretary of Defense Robert Gates famously said, look, we have more people on a single aircraft carrier - and we have 12 of those, David - than we do in the entire foreign service. And another one is former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, who said, you can spend a lot more money on the military, but if you're not going to spend it on our diplomats and development, you're just going to have to buy me more ammunition. Those are two voices I would listen to. Let's keep this thing in balance." ~ ` James Stavridis
