Bacevich Andrew Quotes & Sayings

For the majority of contemporary Americans, the essence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness centers on a relentless personal quest to acquire, consume, to indulge, and to shed whatever constraints might interfere with those endeavors. — Andrew Bacevich

History had singled out the United States to play a unique role as the chief instrument for securing the advance of freedom, which found its highest expression in democratic capitalism. — Andrew J. Bacevich

Sometimes, when you can't fix the problem on your own, you need to make some compromises and find the partners who can get the job done for you. — Andrew Bacevich

As it turned out, Clark's shortcomings as a strategist - particularly failing to accurately take the measure of Milosevic - were as nothing in comparison to his deficiencies as a battlefield general. — Andrew J. Bacevich

The U.S. has become a defacto one-party state, with the legislative branch permanently controlled by an incumbent's party and every president exploiting his role as Commander-in-Chief to expand on the imperial prerogatives of his office. — Andrew Bacevich

The resulting fractious, at times even dysfunctional, relationship between the top brass and civilian political leaders is one of Washington's dirty little secrets - recognized by all of the inside players, concealed from an electorate that might ask discomfiting questions about who is actually in charge. — Andrew J. Bacevich

Memorial Day orators will say that a G.I.'s life is priceless. Don't believe it. I know what value the U.S. government assigns to a soldier's life: I've been handed the check. It's roughly what the Yankees will pay Roger Clemens per inning once he starts pitching next month. — Andrew Bacevich

If any overarching conclusion emerges from the Afghan and Iraq Wars (and from their Israeli equivalents), it's this: victory is a chimera. — Andrew Bacevich

In an era that exalts individual autonomy above all other values, the state as a practical matter has long since forfeited its authority to command citizens to defend the nation. — Andrew J. Bacevich

As the writings of Walton and others suggest, many evangelicals view the requirements of U.S. national security in the here-and-now and the final accomplishment of Christ's saving mission at the end of time as closely related if not indistinguishable. — Andrew J. Bacevich

For people that don't have any interest in the psychology of nuance, who need everything to be in their face, who don't want to analyze ... those aren't the people I romanticize about dressing. — Marc Jacobs

Touring the United States in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, astute observer of the young Republic, noted the "feverish ardor" of its citizens to accumulate. Yet, even as the typical American "clutches at everything," the Frenchman wrote, "he holds nothing fast, but soon loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications." However munificent his possessions, the American hungered for more, an obsession that filled him with "anxiety, fear, and regret, and keeps his mind in ceaseless trepidation."2 — Andrew J. Bacevich

Time and again-from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the events of 9/11 to the onset of the Arab Spring-events have caught the experts, whether in government or on the outside, completely by surprise. Business owners with comparable performance records go bust. Brokers lose their clients. Physicians get sued for malpractice. Yet think-tankers and policy wonks continue to opine, never pausing to reflect on-or apologize for-their spotty records. — Andrew Bacevich

It's not so much the amount of tax we pay - it's the sense that our pocket's being picked without our knowing what's going on. — Andrew Bacevich

There are no rules in filmmaking. Only sins. And the cardinal sin is dullness. — Frank Capra

Ideology makes people stupid. — Andrew Bacevich

When a field is declared volatile, the compiler and runtime are put on notice that this variable is shared and that operations on it should not be reordered with other memory operations. Volatile variables are not cached in registers or in caches where they are hidden from other processors, so a read of a volatile variable always returns the most recent write by any thread. — Brian Goetz

as the Age of Bush gave way to the Era of Obama, little of substance changed. That was the greatest irony of all. — Andrew J. Bacevich

As a kid I was enamored with fiction, most of it utterly forgettable and long forgotten. — Andrew Bacevich

Even as U.S. policy in recent decades has become progressively militarized, so too has the Vietnam-induced gap separating the U.S. military from American society persisted and perhaps even widened.47 — Andrew J. Bacevich

We are squandering our wealth in many respects, to the extent that we persist in our imperial delusions, we're also going to squander our freedom. — Andrew Bacevich

Worldly ambition inhibits true learning. Ask me. I know. A young man in a hurry is nearly uneducable: He knows what he wants and where he's headed; when it comes to looking back or entertaining heretical thoughts, he has neither the time nor the inclination. All that counts is that he is going somewhere. Only as ambition wanes does education become a possibility. — Andrew J. Bacevich

Writing over a century ago, the historian Frederick Jackson Turner made the essential point. "Not the Constitution, but free land and an abundance of natural resources open to a fit people," he wrote, made American democracy possible.4 A half century later, the historian David Potter discovered a similar symbiosis between affluence and liberty. "A politics of abundance," he claimed, had created the American way of life, "a politics which smiled both on those who valued abundance as a means to safeguard freedom and those who valued freedom as an aid in securing abundance."5 William Appleman Williams, another historian, found an even tighter correlation. For Americans, he observed, "abundance was freedom and freedom was abundance."6 — Andrew J. Bacevich

Americans entrust their security to a class of military professionals who see themselves in many respects as culturally and politically set apart from the rest of society.53 — Andrew J. Bacevich

To divine the course of world events, you'd do as well to probe the entrails of dead animals. Better still, ask your hairstylist. She will be at least as insightful and probably more entertaining a prophet than anyone you can read in Foreign Affairs or the op-ed page of the Washington Post. — Andrew Bacevich

I began to appreciate that authentic truth is never simple and that any version of truth handed down from on high - whether by presidents, prime ministers, or archbishops - is inherently suspect. The powerful, I came to see, reveal truth only to the extent that it suits them. — Andrew Bacevich

The folly and hubris of the policy makers who heedlessly thrust the nation into an ill-defined and open-ended 'global war on terror' without the foggiest notion of what victory would look like, how it would be won, and what it might cost approached standards hitherto achieved only by slightly mad German warlords. — Andrew Bacevich

You know, we live in a country where if you want to go bomb somebody, there's remarkably little discussion about how much it might cost, even though the costs almost inevitably end up being orders of magnitude larger than anybody projected at the outcome. But when you have a discussion about whether or not we can assist people who are suffering, then suddenly we come very, you know, cost-conscious. — Andrew Bacevich

Rejection would be a disaster for the U.S., but ratification alone will not end our problems in Iraq. Even if the constitution is ratified, the insurgents are not going to lay down their arms. — Andrew Bacevich

Then, who is Matilda?' I asked.
Toby tilted his cup and poked at the slush with his straw. 'I suppose Matilda's the girl who felt like home. — Carol Rifka Brunt

It's found in a Bible verse: "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" (Romans 12:a). In this verse Paul tells us that change begins on the inside, through the renewing of the mind. So the best way to approach weight loss isn't to focus on saying no to the cinnamon roll. It's to focus on changing the thoughts that make us want to say yes. — Barb Raveling

The war that the officer corps prepared itself to fight was the war in which the prospects of actually having to fight were most remote. This made perfect sense. — Andrew J. Bacevich

Great people do not do great things; God does great things through surrendered people. — Jennie Allen