“The possibility of peace, on whose behalf many are working, might perhaps become actual because the technical advances in offensive weapons make the prospect of a European war so disastrous, and because, if the nations were at grips again, even the victorious aggressor would be ruined. But there still remains open the possibility of a new war which, more dreadful than any that have preceded it would make an end of contemporary Europeans.”

Man in the Modern Age (1933)

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Karl Jaspers44

German psychiatrist and philosopher 1883–1969

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“If our social skills (that is, our ability to secure co-operation between people) had advanced step by step with our technical skills, there would not have been another European War.”

Elton Mayo (1880–1949) Australian academic

Source: The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilisation, 1945, p. 30 (in 2014 edition); Cited in: Urwick & Brech (1949, 215)

“Our main goal should be to establish a precedent for a new post-Cold War era, in which the community of nations, working through the United Nations and other organizations, can insure that would-be aggressors do not profit from invasion, coercion and force.”

Paul Nitze (1907–2004) American government official

Source: War Whether We Need It Or Not? (1991)

“Although 50 years of European peace since the end of World War II may augur well for the future, it must be remembered that there were also more than 50 year of peace between the Congress of Vienna and the Franco-Prussian War. Moreover, contrary to the hopes and assumptions of Jean Monnet and other advocates of European integration, the devastating American Civil War shows that a formal political union is no guarantee against an intra-European war.”

Martin Feldstein (1939–2019) American economist

"EMU and international conflict", 1997

“Who would be such a fool as to make advances to his reader, advances which might end in rejection or, worse still, in acceptance?”

Randall Jarrell (1914–1965) poet, critic, novelist, essayist

“Her Shield”. p. 181
Poetry and the Age (1953)

“With all of the history of war, and the human race's history unfortunately has been a good deal more war than peace, with nuclear weapons distributed all through the world, and available, and the strong reluctance of any people to accept defeat, I see the possibility in the 1970's of the President of the United States having to face a world in which 15 or 20 or 25 nations may have these weapons.”

John F. Kennedy (1917–1963) 35th president of the United States of America

1963

“Once you go nuclear at all, you go nuclear for good; and you know it. Here is the parting of the ways, for from this point two opposite conclusions can be drawn. One is that therefore there can never again be serious war of any duration between Western nations, including Russia—in particular, that there can never again be serious war on the Continent of Europe or the waters around it, which an enemy must master in order to threaten Britain. That is the Government's position. The other conclusion, therefore, is that resort is most unlikely to be had to nuclear weapons at all, but that war could nevertheless develop as if they did not exist, except of course that it would be so conducted as to minimise any possibility of misapprehension that the use of nuclear weapons was imminent or had begun. The crucial question is whether there is any stage of a European war at which any nation would choose self-annihiliation in preference to prolonging the struggle. The Secretary of State says, "Yes, the loser or likely loser would almost instantly choose self-annihiliation."”

Enoch Powell (1912–1998) British politician

I say, "No. The probability, though not the certainty, but surely at least the possibility, is that no such point would come, whatever the course of the conflict." <br class="br"> Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1967/mar/06/defence-army-estimates-1967-68-vote-a in the House of Commons (1 March 1967) <br class="br">1960s

“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 (1886–1918) American writer

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.

“I little thought, when the war was finished, that any circumstances could possibly have happened, which would call the General into public life again.”

Martha Washington (1731–1802) First Lady of the United States

Letter to Mercy Warren (1789)
Context: I little thought, when the war was finished, that any circumstances could possibly have happened, which would call the General into public life again. I had anticipated that, from this moment, we should have been left to grow old, in solitude and tranquillity, together. That was, my dear madam, the first and dearest wish of my heart; but in that I have been disappointed. I will not, however, contemplate, with too much regret, disappointments that were inevitable. Though the General's feelings and my own were perfectly in unison, with respect to our predilection for private life, yet I cannot blame him, for having acted according to his ideas of duty, in obeying the voice of his country. The consciousness of having attempted to do all the good in his power, and the pleasure of finding his fellow-citizens so well satisfied with the disinterestedness of his conduct, will doubtless be some compensation for the great sacrifices, which I know he has made.

“The fact is that the two major nuclear powers have not gone to war against each other—because, I believe, nuclear weapons are achieving their purpose as a deterrent that makes the prospect of war too horrific. It is noteworthy that, since the last world war, there have been 140 conventional wars, fought with ordinary weapons, which are themselves horrific, and that nuclear weapons have been a deterrent to war. I therefore believe that we should keep them.”

Margaret Thatcher (1925–2013) British stateswoman and politician

Prime Minister's Questions (15 June 1982) http://www.margaretthatcher.org/document/104968 <br class="br">First term as Prime Minister

“Fellows were encouraged to revisit their former industries and make a report on any new perceptions they might have. One of these Fellows, Ken Bamforth, returned with news of an innovation in work practice and organization which had occurred in a new seam in the colliery where he used to work in the South Yorkshire coalfield. The seam, the Haighmoor, had become possible to mine "shortwall" because of improved roof control.”

Eric Trist (1909–1993) British scientist

Source: The evolution of socio-technical systems, (1981), p. 8

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