I come out of a Cold War sensibility, a Cold War mentality, and during those Cold War years, I used to know, I thought, the answers to everything. And since the end of the Cold War, I'm just a dumb as everyone else.
We've suffered a war, and one thing we know: Whenever our nation's faced war, whether it was in the 1980s when we were winning the Cold War or in the 1940s during World War II, the responsible thing to do has been to borrow money to win the war.
There are some patriotic citizens who sincerely hope that America will win the war - but they also hope that Russia will lose it; and there are some who hope that America will win the war, but that England will lose it; and there are some who hope that America will win the war, but that Roosevelt will lose it.
I have on my bookshelf a series of books with opposite titles: 'The Alpha Strategy' and the 'Omega Strategy'; 'Asia Rising' and 'Asia Falling'; 'Free to Choose' and 'Free to Lose'; 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' and 'How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.' Visitors love the collection.
I think my father [ Erwin Rommel] would have given the same answer. The British and Americans and the French were too strong, too strong and the strategy of this battle was too clever. And the war may be - it would have taken some weeks longer before the German front was penetrated. And by the way, today we know that it was better to lose the war than to win it with Hitler.
I think sometimes, when you're on top and all you do is win, win, win, win, win, you get lazy and lose focus. When you lose it opens your eyes and you get serious. There is always a time when it is good to lose, at the right time for you.
I dont think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it, the people of Viet-Nam, against the Communists.
The older you get, the more you start to realize that you can't win an argument in a relationship. You can't win a fight with your woman. Because if you lose, you lose. And if you win, you lose.
Growing up during the Cold War, I remember the seemingly imminent threat of nuclear war. In primary school we were taught to 'duck-and-cover' for protection. But even as children hiding under wooden desks, we recognized the inadequacies of this strategy.
The two-war strategy was a product of the cold war, when we had to have the ability to fight the Russians on the plains of Europe and fight the Chinese on the Korean peninsula at the same time. That costs an awful lot of money.
[Barack Obama] is sending more troops [to Afghanistan], but they have also realized that we are not going to win that war through guns and tanks. We have to engage the neighbors, and it is good that there is a non-military strategy in addition to a military strategy. It is, at least, encouraging. Whether it will work or not, the jury is still put.
The first lesson is that you can't lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can't win a war if you haven't.
One is left with the horrible feeling now that war settles nothing; that to win a war is as disastrous as to lose one.
We had a world dominated by the Soviet Union on the one hand, and the Americans on the other hand. They called it the Cold War. But it wasn't cold. I am someone who comes from the third world. In the third world, the cold war wasn't cold. Millions had been killed. It was a proxy war.
In that period, we had the Cold War mentality imbued through us - the Post-war [environment] and the Cold War. I think we were reflecting some of that. This was before the Wall collapsed, etc.
You must keep in mind that Pakistan has suffered the aftermaths of the Cold War, and that Cold War had left deep imprints on our society. We were the worst sufferers from the ills of the Afghan war.