Recent presidents have gone off on ad hoc adventures. They have set unattainable goal because they have framed the issue incorrectly, as they believed their own rhetoric. George Friedman More Quotes by George Friedman More Quotes From George Friedman Strategy is something that emerges from reality, while tactics might be chosen. George Friedman tacticsmightreality The tragedy of the human condition is that the thing that makes us most human - community - originates in the inhumanity of war. George Friedman communitytragedywar Europeans have always thought of U.S. presidents as either naive, as they did with Jimmy Carter, or as cowboys, as they did with Lyndon Johnson, and held them in contempt in either case. George Friedman cowboycasespresident Galvanized people can do careless things. It is in the extreme and emotion-laden moments that distance and coolness are most required. I am tempted to howl in rage. It is not my place to do so. My job is to try to dissect the event, place it in context and try to understand what has happened and why. From that, after the rage cools, plans for action can be made. Rage has its place, but actions must be taken with discipline and thought. George Friedman distancetakenjobs Idealism is frequently another word for self-righteousness, a disease that can only be corrected by a profound understanding power in its complete sense. George Friedman understandingselfprofound The kind of president we need has little to do with ideology and more to do with a willingness to wield power to moral ends. George Friedman presidentlittlesneeds The great presidents never forget the principle of the republic and seek to preserve and enhance them – in the long run– without undermining the needs of the moment. Bad presidents simply do what is expedient, heedless of principles. But the worst presidents are those who adhere to the principles regardless of what the fortunes of the moment demand. George Friedman presidentrunninglong One of the great famines in human history took place during the Chinese Cultural Revolution. [At the same time] Western journalists were reporting how marvelously Chinese society was working. We know so little [about what happens in China]. George Friedman chineserevolutionlittles War is an extraordinary condition to be in - to be, for example, in the combat information center of a warship [and behaving] as though you were merely processing credit card applications. [Instead,] the information you're processing is that an incoming missile is 15 kilometers away, now 10 kilometers away, now 5 kilometers. You have to separate yourself psychologically from the fact that your mortal existence may well end. That is the ancient reality of war. George Friedman warcardsreality What is revolutionary today is that we're using precision-guided munitions. And instead of building individual weapons, we are building an industry and a philosophy, the culture of precision. You saw Desert Storm. Precision works. George Friedman stormphilosophyculture The British bombed German cities [during World War II] to keep the workers awake at night. So instead of dropping one bomb, we sent a thousand planes and, yes, we took out the factory sometimes, but we also took out the city. It reached the point where we wanted more efficient ways to destroy a city. The result was nuclear weapons. George Friedman citiesnightwar War to me is very much like sex. You can develop a theory that says sex is primarily for the exchange of genetic material, or that it's a celebration of life, or you can make up 50,000 theories about why human beings have sex, all of which are in some sense true, all of which by themselves miss the point. Because the answer is extraordinarily complex. It may be for fun, it may be for reproduction, for financial reasons, any number of things. George Friedman funwarsex When I went to war, I did not go making geopolitical calculations. I went to war with a lust. George Friedman geopoliticallustwar In a way, we can have a much easier discussion about the future of technology than we can about why a young man kills another man in a war. George Friedman technologymenwar We cannot anticipate the moral circumstances under which we will live. And therefore [I refuse] to say that I will not live in a moral circumstance that requires violence. George Friedman moralviolencecircumstances I think there are worse things than war. For example, injustice. George Friedman examplewarthinking I think the personal and psychological aspects of war remain the same. War is about killing and dying. A man or woman stands at the post and there is a very real possibility of dying in the next five minutes. Whether he dies or not depends partly on him and partly on luck, and yet he must continue to function. George Friedman realmenwar One definition of the wicked is that they will resort to whatever means are necessary to achieve their ends. Therefore, if those who oppose wickedness don't learn the art of war, they will be helpless. George Friedman warmeanart Every theory I've seen that contains an explanation of war fails. I think they fail for the same reason that explanations of sex fail. War derives from things so deep and so complex, I'm thoroughly baffled by it at the end of the day. George Friedman warsexthinking I cannot understand how something as ubiquitous as war can simply be dismissed as pathological. It is not clear to me that it is an unspeakable evil. If it is, I need proof of it. George Friedman evilwarneeds
