James Mattis Quotes
- All Quotes
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PowerPoint makes us stupid.
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Perhaps if you are in support functions waiting on the warfighters to spell out the specifics of what you are to do, you can avoid the consequences of not reading. Those who must adapt to overcoming an independent enemy's will are not allowed that luxury.
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If you read enough biography and history, you learn how people have dealt successfully or unsuccessfully with similar situations or patterns in the past. It doesn't give you a template of answers, but it does help you refine the questions you have to ask yourself.
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There is no room for military people, including our veterans, to see themselves as victims, even if so many of our countrymen are prone to relish that role.
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In this age, I don't care how tactically or operationally brilliant you are: if you cannot create harmony - even vicious harmony - on the battlefield based on trust across service lines, across coalition and national lines, and across civilian/military lines, you need to go home, because your leadership is obsolete.
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Iran is not a nation-state; it's a revolutionary cause devoted to mayhem.
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Putin goes to bed at night knowing he can break all the rules, and the West will follow all the rules.
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No war is over until the enemy says it's over.
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Iran is not an enemy of ISIS; they have a lot to gain from the turmoil that ISIS creates.
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Most people know nobody in the military.
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There are a lot of self-imposed restrictions by people who somehow believe they have to fall in with a certain military cant. There was always a sense that we had to put things into words that would touch our troops' hearts, not just their heads.
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Be the hunter, not the hunted.
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The Marines have landed, and we now own a piece of Afghanistan.
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I consider ISIS nothing more than an excuse for Iran to continue its mischief.
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The economy's always been the engine for our national security.
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There are hunters, and there are victims. By your discipline, cunning, obedience, and alertness, you will decide if you are a hunter or a victim.
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Notifying the enemy in advance of our withdrawal dates or reassuring the enemy that we will not use certain capabilities like our ground forces should be avoided.
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There's no way that that our military power will not erode if a robust American economic revival is not part of the cards.
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As commanders and staff officers, we are coaches and sentries for our units: how can we coach anything if we don't know a hell of a lot more than just the TTPs?
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Read about history, and you become aware that nothing starts with us.
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We should not fight wars without a clearly defined end state... when you go to war, it can't be a half-step.
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I would just say there is one misperception of our veterans, and that is they are somehow damaged goods. I don't buy it.
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There is one way to have a short but exciting conversation with me, and that is to move too slow.