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Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week.

War is failure of diplomacy.

I think if I had to do it over again, I'd do it the same way. I would just put more resources into getting the public diplomacy part much stronger than we were able to.

Getting our military back on stable footing won't happen overnight. We must start this process now, since future engagements are likely and allies are scarce.

The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.

If all Europe lies flat while the Russian mob tramps over it, we will then be faced with a war under difficult circumstances, and with a very good chance of losing it.

The time draws near, when a radical change must take place for the whole world in the management of diplomacy.

I believe the military should be wary of diplomacy until war is declared; then the State Department should keep its nose out and let the military do whatever is necessary to win.

In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy's country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good.

There is nothing fast or easy about diplomacy. I have no illusions about that.