James G. Stavridis

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

“Russian strategy seems to center on maintaining Putin's popularity at home; building a strong military capacity in special forces, nuclear weapons, and advanced submarines; pressuring nearby nations to join various defense and customs pacts dominated by Russia; and pushing back on the U.S. wherever convenient.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Building a stable, peaceful, and coherent Europe must include Russia.”

“Controlling President Trump seems incredibly difficult.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“During the early 1990s, Mexico's domestic political sensitivities meant that it rarely extradited people who had committed crimes in the U.S. After NAFTA, extradition numbers began to increase until they surpassed 100 a year in the late 2000s.”

“I tend to gravitate toward reporters who cover all aspects of the story: from personal aspects to the big picture that answer the 'so what' of a story.”

“Rested commanders are the best commanders.”

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

“It seems Russians hacked into emails from both the Democratic National Committee and Republican National Committee and then chose to release only the DNC emails. These attacks destabilize and undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral process, and they must be addressed in a serious and proportional way - just as we would for a non-cyberattack.”

“Some have called Afghanistan 'the graveyard of empires,' and it probably is the graveyard of empires.”

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

“I don't think anyone would look at Colombia today and say that it is failing. This positive outcome is an example of the effective application of smart power - it is succeeding.”

“It is an ambitious agenda, but the approach to Russia should be, 'Confront where we must, but cooperate where we can.'”

“All of my relatives on both sides of my family are from Allentown.”