James G. Stavridis Quotes
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I spent much of my life - almost 40 years - as a military officer. My specialty was in the part of the Navy that operates ocean-going ships, and as a result, I was at sea for many months at a time.
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It seems Russians hacked into emails from both the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee and then chose to release only the DNC emails. These attacks destabilize and undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral process, and they must be addressed in a serious and proportional way - just as we would for a non-cyberattack.
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I knew early I wanted to follow my father into the military. He did a full 30-year career and retired as a full colonel in the Marines after graduating from Allentown H.S. and later from Cornell University.
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After 37 years in the Navy, there were no further jobs in uniform, and it was my time to transition. But I wanted to continue to mentor and educate young people, which is, of course, a big part of being a senior officer in the military.
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During the early 1990s, Mexico's domestic political sensitivities meant that it rarely extradited people who had committed crimes in the U.S. After NAFTA, extradition numbers began to increase until they surpassed 100 a year in the late 2000s.
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Russian strategy seems to center on maintaining Putin's popularity at home; building a strong military capacity in special forces, nuclear weapons, and advanced submarines; pressuring nearby nations to join various defense and customs pacts dominated by Russia; and pushing back on the U.S. wherever convenient.
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The NATO treaty is crystal clear on this one: An attack on one nation shall be regarded as an attack on all of them.
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I would not be surprised to see Syria break apart entirely.
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Some have called Afghanistan 'the graveyard of empires,' and it probably is the graveyard of empires.
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Eighty-five percent cannot read when they enter the security forces of Afghanistan. Why? Because the Taliban withheld education during the period of time in which these men and women would have learned to read.
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What's the third largest nation in the world after China and India? It's the Facebook nation - 430 million people on Facebook.
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Wikipedia, every day, is tens of thousands of people inputting information, and every day millions of people withdrawing that information. It's a perfect image for the fundamental point that no one of us is as smart as all of us thinking together.
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The most important thing I learned was the value of personal friendships and working cooperatively with your peers - the Academy has a saying, 'cooperate to graduate,' and that remains a very important central core in my thinking today.
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We are excellent at launching Tomahawk missiles; we need to get better at launching ideas.
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I tend to gravitate toward reporters who cover all aspects of the story: from personal aspects to the big picture that answer the 'so what' of a story.
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I grew up as a baseball player, and given my modest size, it was always clear that I would end up playing in the infield.
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All of the military services - land, sea, and air - spend a great deal of time awake. This is a direct result of the high tempo of operations we conduct while forward deployed well outside our national borders.
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Internal fights between various agencies, i.e. between the CIA and FBI, are highly counterproductive.
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Controlling President Trump seems incredibly difficult.
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Front-line officials, including DEA agents, border patrol and other homeland-security professionals, should remind Mr. Trump how important Mexico's assistance is in achieving his national-security goals.
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Rested commanders are the best commanders.
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I've never been in a 'Twitter fight,' though I've witnessed my fair share. I do enjoy vigorous and informed debate, but the benefit is lost when the exchange becomes a series of petty ad hominem attacks. I don't see much value in it.
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As a geographic location, Greece offers the best bases in the NATO Alliance from which to operate in the trouble spots of the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
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I am a huge consumer of social networks, and I utilize Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. I'm interested and am learning more about Tumblr and other visually dominant sites.