Top 25 James G. Stavridis Quotes

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.

In the 21st century, we can’t create security by building walls.

Internal fights between various agencies, i.e. between the CIA and FBI, are highly counterproductive.

The NATO treaty is crystal clear on this one: An attack on one nation shall be regarded as an attack on all of them.

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.

Thinklogical’s systems play a key role in the delivery and visualization of mission critical data used every day by military and intelligence communities worldwide.

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.

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.

In any insurgency there will be people who are irreconcilable and who pose a clear and present threat to the U.S. and our allies.

Getting enough sleep makes us better family members, friends, lovers, drivers, writers, cooks, and pretty much everything else that is of importance in our lives.

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.

When I get up, the first thing I do is open up Gmail and check my personal email.

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.

As cyberweapons and cyberattacks increase in scale and intensity, it will be difficult to defend against them all.

Rested commanders are the best commanders.

Controlling President Trump seems incredibly difficult.

Sleep is a key part of the requirements for resilience and good decision-making.

I would not be surprised to see Syria break apart entirely.

If we discover through a thorough and unbiased investigation that Russia has indeed attacked our electoral process directly with the intent to influencing the process, our response needs to be robust, rapid, and proportional. This will shape our relationship with Russia profoundly.

We are excellent at launching Tomahawk missiles; we need to get better at launching ideas.

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.

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.

It’s probably worth noting that although I’m ethnically Greek, my grandfather was actually born in Turkey and came through Greece on his way to the United States.

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.

As a 4-star admiral, I visited over a hundred U.S. embassies all around the world, and I never failed to see lines of locals seeking visas to our nation.