Randolph Bourne: Quotes about war

“We cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State.”

Randolph Bourne

¶28. Published under "Psychology of the State," The State https://mises.org/library/state (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), pp. 17–18.
"The State" (1918)
Context: It cannot be too firmly realized that war…is the chief function of States. … War cannot exist without a military establishment, and a military establishment cannot exist without a State organization. War has an immemorial tradition and heredity only because the State has a long tradition and heredity. But they are inseparably and functionally joined. We cannot crusade against war without crusading implicitly against the State. And we cannot expect, or take measures to ensure, that this war is a war to end war, unless at the same time we take measures to end the State in its traditional form. … [W]ith the passing of the dominance of the State, the genuine life-enhancing forces of the nation will be liberated. … No one wlil deny that war is a vast complex of life-destroying and life-crippling forces. If the State's chief function is war, then it is chiefly concerned with coordinating and developing the powers and techniques which make for destruction. And this means not only the actual and potential destruction of the enemy, but of the nation at home as well. For the very existence of a State in a system of States means that the nation lies always under a risk of war and invasion, and the calling away of energy into military pursuits means a crippling of the productive and life-enhancing process of the national life.

War

“War is the health of the State.”

Randolph Bourne

¶35. Published under "Psychology of the State," The State https://mises.org/library/state (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), p. 21.
"The State" (1918)
Context: All of which goes to show that the State represents all the autocratic, arbitrary, coercive, belligerent forces within a social group, it is a sort of complexus of everything most distasteful to the modern free creative spirit, the feeling for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. War is the health of the State. Only when the State is at war does the modern society function with that unity of sentiment, simple uncritical patriotic devotion, cooperation of services, which have always been the ideal of the State lover. … How unregenerate the ancient State may be…is indicated by the laws against sedition, and by the Government's unreformed attitude on foreign policy.

War , Health

“Indeed, it is not too much to say that the normal relation of States is war.”

Randolph Bourne

¶36. Published under "Psychology of the State," The State https://mises.org/library/state (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), p. 22, where the term relation is rendered relations.
"The State" (1918)

War

“War is the health of the State, wrote Bourne, and in his full realization of what that meant, he recognized the roots of modern totalitarianism years before the psychoanalysis of fascism.”

Randolph Bourne

Page 5.
Michael Grieg quotes

War , Health

“Randolph Bourne, horrified at the support of the war by so-called liberals and progressives, had insisted that an unconditionally defeated Germany would become a greater menace to European peace; the war itself, he charged, was the only real enemy of American freedom.”

Randolph Bourne

Leonard P. Liggio, " Why the Futile Crusade? https://mises.org/library/why-futile-crusade" Left and Right: A Journal of Libertarian Thought 1, no. 1 (Spring, 1965) p. 26.

War , Peace , Support , Freedom

“War is the health of the State and it is during war that one best understands the nature of that institution.”

Randolph Bourne

¶2. Published under "The Development of the American State," The State https://mises.org/library/state (Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press, 1998), p. 27.
"The State" (1918), II

War , Understanding , Health , Nature