Strategy Strikes Back Quotes

“[...] idealist political rhetoric should not blind policy makers to the requirements of security, which often has a logic all its own. There is nothing wrong with lofty national security rhetoric that seeks to inspire a world built on something more enlightened than the will of the strong. But it is foolhardy to allow your aspirations to substitute for defense planning based on logic and evidence. As Niccolo Machiavelli observed in The Prince, "any one who would act up to a perfect standard of goodness in everything, must be ruined among so many who are not good." Failure to make military preparations for plausible threats because it would be inconsistent with your ideals is a smooth path to destruction.”
― Max Brooks, Strategy Strikes Back: How Star Wars Explains Modern Military Conflict