People From New Jersey

"Most experts have assumed that the allosaurs, about 35 feet long, were the worst threats to the herbivores of the Jurassic, some of which were gigantic and probably able to fend off even an allosaur. But epanterias would have spelled trouble for everyone."

"Israel went to extraordinary lengths to limit collateral damage and civilian casualties."

"One of the things that fascinated me about the Chinese is whenever I would have a conversation with them about international standards or international rules of behavior, they would inevitably point out that those rules were made when they were absent from the world stage. They are no longer absent from the world stage, and so those rules need to be renegotiated with them."

"Number 2: We are a paradigm of diversity, now I kind've touched on that already. I had my Israeli counterpart of all people, one day say to me, "hey, do you understand why you are who you are?". You mean me personally? "No, your country." I said, 'well I think so, but I'd love to hear it from your perspective.' And he said, "it's the dash". And I said, 'what are you talking about the dash?' And he said, "the dash, Irish-American; Jewish-American; Arab-American; Black.. African-American." And you know I thought about it, and I thanked him actually for the perspective because we are a diverse nation, and that's who we are. I mean, I don't know how many of you in the audience are actually native Americans; my guess is not many. Everybody else here is at some level, from some other part of the world. And we're very diverse, we embrace diversity, and we embrace it because: in my case I'll tell you when I had the Joint Chiefs around me; the Army; the Navy; the Air Force; the Marines; the Coast Guard. I would never have been able to have been an effective Chairmen if everyone had been of one view, or if everyone was of one culture. It just wouldn't have worked. We would have convinced ourselves that we had a single perfect answer, when in fact the world lend itself to single perfect answers. So look, I think in terms of assertions about America's role, we have to show the world what's possible when you embrace diverse thinking, diverse personalities, diverse groups, diverse ethnicities, diverse religions. And if we don't do it, there's very few that are going to be able to do it. So whether we accept that or not, as I said earlier, is really an individual and ultimately at some level a national choice. But my assertion is, if you're asking me our role one part of it is to continue to be that paradigm of diversity."

"There are a lot of memories in this book. I hope they are not too self-aggrandizing. I certainly don't mean them to be. Rather, I intend them to argue that life is a journey that must be felt to be meaningful, that it will always surprise us, and that it is an opportunity meant to be experienced by participation, not by observation. I intend them to show that history finds us, not the other way around. And since we can't know which of us history will find, we should each do all we can to prepare by living a life of character and consequence. I intend them to illustrate that we all- leaders and followers alike- have obligations to each other. Each chapter is a piece of a puzzle, no one piece more important than the other."

"Ranger School is the toughest training offered in the Army- not a place for the faint of heart and only recently open to women. Only a fraction of the soldiers who enter the nine-week course make it out successfully."

"There was a certain comfort in returning to West Point after a month at home- not because I was back among those who universally supported the war, but quite the opposite: I was back among those who believed the Vietnam War would soon be theirs to wage and wanted earnestly to understand it. I was back among classmates and instructors who encouraged me to challenge both the idea that the war was a lost cause and the notion that it should not be questioned simply because it was the policy of the U.S. government. I was back in an institution that provided and promoted a liberal education as essential in the preparation for becoming a military officer. I didn't know it at the time, but those days were just the beginning of a journey in learning how to listen, to learn, to question, to communicate, to apply knowledge and skills to real-world problems honestly and with an open mind. Later, long after I had graduated from West Point, I would make sure those around me knew that I would always welcome, even expect, a bit of sensible skepticism."

"On March 16, 1968, in the Vietnamese hamlet of My Lai, American soldiers massacred between four hundred and five hundred unarmed civilians, mostly women and children. When the incident was discovered in November 1969, it quickly and severely eroded support for U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. Though twenty-six soldiers were charged with criminal offenses, only one, Lieutenant William Calley Jr., was convicted. His trial took place between November 1970 and March 1971, and its details sparked widespread outrage. That summer, right after I had completed my plebe year and arrived home to stay for a month, I was called a "baby killer" for the first time. And not by some stranger. By a grammar-school classmate I had known most of my life. Not everyone in my hometown was so outspoken, but there was an unmistakable awkwardness in the many conversations I had with friends and relatives about the war that summer. The Vietnam War was a searing experience for those drafted to fight there, and it was polarizing at home. Lined up against opponents of the war were those who subscribed to the idea of "my country, right or wrong." Just as the "baby killer" moniker didn't sit well with me, neither did the idea that anything done in the name of the country must be right. It was a confusing time when peace signs and jingoistic slogans competed on bumper stickers across America."

"There's no place as beautiful as West Point in the spring, summer and fall and no place as dismal as West Point in January and February. In fact, cadets commonly refer to this time of year at the Academy as "gloom period.""

"Loyalty is not an entitlement. It must be earned, both by leaders and by those who follow them. And even when loyalty has been earned, it must have limits. (Who among us can forget being asked by our chiding parents, "If your friend told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?" Every day we see misplaced loyalty contributing to problems such as bullying, hazing, sexual harassment, discrimination, and corruption. To be sure, it can be difficult to say no to someone in a position of power who is using loyalty as leverage, especially when that person makes it clear that they expect total and unconditional loyalty. But that's where loyalty must meet moral courage, if we are to act honorably and do what's right."

"Like most graduate students, I took my studies far more seriously than I had as an undergraduate. I sometimes think of my undergraduate studies as a survival reality show, but I wanted to do well in graduate school and felt I had the proper attitude and life experience to do so."

"I was a good student at West Point- probably not as good as I could have been or should have been, but I performed well enough there and in the eight years afterward, serving with two cavalry squadrons, that I was selected for graduate school and a teaching assignment back at West Point. I chose to pursue a master's degree in English literature at Duke University. Even in retrospect, I wouldn't suggest that at the time I was passionate about getting an advanced degree in English. I was passionate about going to graduate school in some discipline other than engineering, my undergraduate major, and I really wanted to go back to West Point to teach. The English department provided a path for me to accomplish those goals."

"In this era of ubiquitous information, complexity, and intense scrutiny, it is becoming routine to respond to reports of character flaws in business, athletics, and politics with an indifferent shrug and a "Yes, but..." It's becoming easier to rationalize a lack of character by emphasizing accomplishments, as though this were a binary choice. It's becoming commonplace that character flaws are greeted with skepticism. In this environment, character matters even more. Building teams requires bringing together individuals with the right credentials, commitment, and character. A lack of any one of these will eventually mean trouble. Our teams- both leaders and followers- will and should be judged not only by what they accomplish but also by how. Neither leading nor following will be effective if personal interactions and beliefs are considered mere differences in perception. Rather, both leading and following require conviction and character."

"Not all of us have a moral compass on our desks, but we need to have one in our hearts. Without it, we won't live a life in which character matters."

"There are people in our lives who may know more about what's good for us than we do."

"There are certain moments in our lives that are clearly more important than others. They are defining moments, moments that shape us, moments that we rely upon to help us make the big decisions. We should recognize them, remember them, and embrace them for what they provide us. We should welcome moments of surprising clarity."

"To Deanie, who's been there every step of the way."

"if I did my job right, it should be something everyone can connect with"

""Maybe im complicated"

"In the 1950s and 1960s, a substantial number of economists taking on a role of social philosopher defended a "little" inflation as a kind of social solvent, helping to reconcile competing political and economic pressures.… It was a game of mirrors, but it seemed acceptable for a while, more acceptable than imposing the degree of fiscal, monetary and other restraints necessary to deal with inflation."

"Productivity growth in this country has actually been negative in a recent period. And, we have had higher oil prices; of course…. Under those conditions, the standard of living of the average American has declined."

"The second liberal gripe against Carter is that he lost to Reagan. As the saying went, Carter was defeated by the three Ks — Khomeini, Kennedy and Koch. Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini’s Iranian revolution led to the hostage crisis that was a millstone round Carter’s neck. After 444 days in captivity, the US hostages were released a few minutes after Carter left office. It has not been proved that Reagan struck a back channel deal with Khomeini’s government to keep the hostages until after the 1980 election. But the evidence is very strong. Carter believes that William Casey, Reagan’s campaign manager, did strike a bargain. Such an unnatural Rolodex would also explain Reagan’s Iran-Contra shenanigans a few years later. Ted Kennedy’s primary challenge also damaged Carter. Though Kennedy infamously could not explain why he wanted to be president, Carter had his own theory: Kennedy saw it as his birthright. The gap between the rural Georgian farmer who grew up without shoes and the Boston aristocrat is a faultline that still hobbles the Democratic party. Biden is on Carter’s side of it. Ed Koch was New York’s Democratic mayor who thought Carter was biased against Israel. Carter’s Camp David deal neutralised Egypt — Israel’s most potent enemy — and thus did more for Israel’s security than any US president since. No good deed goes unpunished. Carter was the only Democratic president to get less than half of the Jewish vote. Paul Volcker’s last name does not start with a K. However, the then chair of the US Federal Reserve is probably the largest contributor to Carter’s defeat. With interest rates at 20 per cent, Carter stood little chance at the ballot box. It is worth noting that Carter picked Volcker in full knowledge of his anti-inflation credentials. On that, as so much else, Carter did the right thing but got no credit. The left hated him for it. The right pretended it was Reagan’s doing. Much the same can be said of how America won the cold war. The moral of Carter’s story is that virtue must be its own reward. History is a biased judge."

"Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker essentially eliminated M1 as a target indicator. His successor, Alan Greenspan, eliminated M2. On the other hand, in the past year or two, Greenspan has said on various occasions that maybe we should reconsider using M2. The trouble is that all these measures of money cannot be relied on because the velocity of money changes. It is quite unstable."

"There does seem to me a latent danger— no part of the intention of present European leaders— implicit in the development [of the euro]. Regional monetary unity implies a greater degree of visible loss of autonomy for mem­ber countries; yet national econom ic problems will remain. The temptation could arise to solve some of these regional adjustment problems within Europe by direct subsidies to producers, by protection against the outside world, or by other means damaging to the trading opportunities of others."

"I start from the premise that the underlying pres­sures toward integration and interdependence are growing stronger, not weaker. We cannot reverse or stop the advancing technology that brings us fast and cheap communication and transportation, or the spread of knowledge."

"The happy days of Bretton Woods, often viewed today with nostalgia, were a special case, workable because of a particular economic and political setting… the inherent contradictions in the system were too great. With the benefit of hindsight, it would seem that an erosion of the United States competitive position was implicit in the postwar arrangements."

"We live in a world in which individuals and busi­nessmen… they want to do so unencumbered by national boundaries. At the same time, modern democracies, at least as much as other forms of government, long for autonomy; they want to control their own destinies in ways responsive to the needs of an electorate often concerned less with na­tional than with local or sectorial interests. Yet, theory and experience indicate we can’t have it both ways, full integration and full autonomy."

"Fred Hirsch's last dicta: "A controlled disintegration in the world economy is a legitimate objective for the 1980's"… The phrase captures what seems to me the prevailing attitudes and practices of most gov­ernments in this decade."

"It is a sobering fact that the prominence of central banks in this century has coincided with a general tendency towards more inflation, not less. [I]f the overriding objective is price stability, we did better with the nineteenth-century gold standard and passive central banks, with currency boards, or even with "free banking.""

"This is a time of testing — a testing not only of our capacity collectively to reach coherent and intelligent policies, but to stick with them."

"As to the issues on which we part ways with the Committee, I have already stated that our reviews indicate that the detention and interrogation program produced useful intelligence that helped the United States thwart attack plans, capture terrorists, and save lives. But let me be clear. We have not concluded that it was the use of EITs (Enhanced interrogation techniques) within that program that allowed us to obtain useful information from detainees subjected to them. The cause and effect relationship between the use of EITs and useful information subsequently provided by the detainee is, in my view, unknowable."

"John Brennan made the first official public admission about the targeted killing program: "[T]he United States government conducts targeted strikes against specific Al Qaeda terrorists, sometimes using remotely piloted aircraft, often referred to publicly as drones. And I'm here today because President Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts." As usual, Medea Benjamin was there. She spoke out, declaring, "How many people are you willing to sacrifice? Why are you lying to the American people and not saying how many innocents have been killed? I speak out on behalf of Tariq Aziz, a sixteen-year-old in Pakistan, who was killed because he wanted to document the drone strikes. I speak out on behalf of Abdulrahman al-Awlaki, a sixteen-year-old born in Denver, killed in Yemen, just because his father was someone we don't like. I speak out on behalf of the Constitution, on behalf of the rule of law. I love the rule of law. I love my country. You are making us less safe by killing so many innocent people.""

"Our strategy is also shaped by a deeper understanding of al-Qa’ida’s goals, strategy, and tactics. I’m not talking about al-Qa’ida’s grandiose vision of global domination through a violent Islamic caliphate. That vision is absurd, and we are not going to organize our counterterrorism policies against a feckless delusion that is never going to happen. We are not going to elevate these thugs and their murderous aspirations into something larger than they are."

"As far as the allegations of the CIA hacking into Senate computers, nothing could be further from the truth, ... We wouldn’t do that. I mean, that’s just beyond the, you know, the scope of reason in terms of what we do."

"My young nerds, here's the deal:"

"However, even those who expect deterrence to work might hesitate at introducing a new weapon system that increased the reliability of deterrence, but at the cost of increasing the possible casualties by a factor of 10, that is, there would then be one or two billion hostages at risk if their expectations fail. Neither the 180 million Americans nor even the half billion people in the NATO alliance should or would be willing to design and procure a security system in which a malfunction or failure would cause the death of one or two billion people. If the choice were made explicit, the United States or NATO would seriously consider "lower quality" systems; i.e.,systems which were less deterring, but whose consequences were less catastrophic if deterrence failed. They would even consider such possibilities as a dangerous degree of partial or complete unilateral disarmament, if there were no other acceptable postures. The West might be willing to procure a military system which, if used in a totally irrational and unrealistic way, could cause such damage, but only if all of the normal or practically conceivable abnormal ways of operating the system would not do anything like the hypothesized damage. On the other hand, we would not let the Soviets cynically blackmail us into accommodation by a threat on their part to build a Doomsday Machine, even though we would not consciously build a strategic system which inevitably forced the Soviets to build a Doomsday Machine in self-defense."

"The unacceptability of the Doomsday Machine raises awkward, unpleasant, and complicated questions that must be considered by both policy maker and technician. If it is not acceptable to risk the lives of the three billion inhabitants of the earth in order to protect ourselves from surprise attack, then how many people would we be willing to risk? I believe that both the United States and NATO would reluctantly be willing to envisage the possibility of one or two hundred million people (i.e., about five times more than World War II deaths) dying from the immediate effects, even if one does not include deferred long-term effects due to radiation, if an all-out thermonuclear war results from a failure of Type I Deterrence. With somewhat more controversy, similar numbers would apply to Type II Deterrence. (For example, some experts would concede the statement for an all-out Soviet nuclear attack on Europe, but not if the Soviets restricted themselves to the use of conventional weapons.) We are willing to live with the possibility partly because we think of it as a remote possibility. We do not expect either kind of deterrence to fail, and we do not expect the results to be that cataclysmic if deterrence does fail."

"I have been surprised at the unanimity with which the notion of the unacceptability of a Doomsday Machine is greeted. I used to be wary of discussing the concept for fear that some colonel would get out a General Operating Requirement or Development Planning Objective for the device, but it seems that I need not have worried. Except by some scientists and engineers who have overemphasized the single objective of maximizing the effectiveness of deterrence, the device is universally rejected. It just does not look professional to senior military officers, and it looks even worse to senior civilians. The fact that more than a few scientists and engineers do seem attracted to the idea is disquieting, but as long as the development project is expensive,even these dedicated experts are unlikely to get one under way."

"The Doomsday Machine is not sufficiently controllable. Even though it maximizes the probability that deterrence will work (including minimizing the probability of accidents or miscalculations), it is totally unsatisfactory. One must still examine the consequences of a failure. In this case a failure kills too many people and kills them too automatically. There is no chance of human intervention, control, and final decision.And even if we give up the computer and make the Doomsday Machine reliably controllable by the decision makers, it is still not controllable enough. Neither NATO nor the United States, and possibly not even the Soviet Union, would be willing to spend billions of dollars to give a few individuals this particular kind of life and death power over the entire world."

"(The emphasis is deliberate. This deterrent is more efficient since in most practical cases deterrents destroy populations—not decision makers.)"

"Even though it is the ultimate in Type I Deterrence, the Doomsday Machine is an unsatisfactory basis for a weapon system. It is most improbable that either the Soviet or U.S.governments would ever authorize procuring such a machine. The project is expensive enough so it would be subject to a searching budgetary and operational scrutiny—a scrutiny which would raise questions it could never survive."

"I don't want to live in your world in which 1 percent of the children are born defective."My answer was rather brutal, I fear. "It is not my world,"

"Few people differentiate between having 10 million dead, 50 million dead, or 100 million dead. It all seems too horrible."

"In addition to the obvious dangers, there is another subtle but by no means minor disadvantage to a pure deterrence posture: the threat of mutual suicide is a very uninspiring concept, no matter how logical it may seem. If it happened to involve explicitly the annihilation of all humanity it would also be totally immoral; one doubts if it could long remain an important part of United States policy."

"The final outcome of benevolent, informed, and intelligent decisions may turn out to be disastrous. But choices must be made; dies must be cast."

"The difference between megaton and kiloton is very large, in some ways larger than the difference between kiloton and ton. Megaton weapons are comparable to gross forces of nature, such as earthquakes and hurricanes."

"Even if military advantages were not to be had by deliberately limiting attack to counterforce targets, I suspect that most governments would still prefer to observe such limits. Almost nobody wants to go down in history as the first man to kill 100,000 people."

"Actually, even with tested missiles, results of attacks are not really mathematically predictable. The probability of extreme variations in performance, the upper and lower limits, cannot be calculated accurately. But laymen or narrow professionals persist in regarding the matter as a simple problem in engineering and physics."

"He ambles along the platform."Lots of times people say about systems analysis, why don't you guys do an experiment? What the hell are you sitting here figuring things? Why don't you go out and run an experiment? Well we'd love to run experiments,but there are two difficulties. One, in realistic experiments, people get shot down. That's not the major difficulty. We're willing to do it." The audience laughs. "We are. The real difficulty is we're talking weapons which aren't in existence yet.""

"The next picture is a Goliath with four arms, reading a book, lofting a 1000-pound dumbbell, aiming a pistol at a target, painting a picture. The enemy can do everything. "He's a giant, seven feet tall with four arms, each with two biceps. Each arm can, of course, be used simultaneously.""