Top 14 Joseph Dunford Quotes

I think the morale of Taliban fighters has been affected adversely as a result of the lack of success.

I’m an implementer of policy, not a maker of policy.

It’s something I take very seriously as a commander: the lives of our young men and women.

Competition doesn’t have to be conflict.

There’s no substitute for taking a clear-eyed look at the threats we’ll face and asking how our force will adapt to meet those threats.

When you have to make a choice between capacity and capability, I would go with capability.

My sense is that General Kayani recognises that a stable and secure Afghanistan is in the best interests of Pakistan.

It is not unimaginable to have military options to respond to North Korean nuclear capability. What’s unimaginable to me is allowing a capability that would allow a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado. That’s unimaginable to me. So my job will be to develop military options to make sure that doesn’t happen.

If we’re going to grow capacity, you need to do it in a way where it is meaningful capability.

We have a strong tradition in our country of senior leaders being apolitical, nonpartisan.

When you start to look at completing the development of a modern professional army, when you talk about maturing a democracy, when you talk about development and the economic conditions that have to be addressed, a decade is not too short a period of time to talk about.

Generally, Sunday talk shows talk about policy, and I don’t address policy.

You can’t have force structure without proper training, without proper equipment, without proper leadership, without proper funding to conduct exercises and perform maintenance.

From my perspective, to really be ready, we can’t afford to have these deep degradations in readiness associated with personnel turbulence post-deployment.