“There is no doubt that all nations are aggressive; it is the nature of man.”

&lt;!-- The first sentence is attributed as a statement of 1850 in the introduction of Our Enemy, the State http://www.barefootsworld.net/nockoets0.html by Albert Jay Nock --&gt; <br class="br">The Man versus the State (1884), The Sins of Our Legislators <br class="br">Context: Be it or be it not true that Man is shapen in iniquity and conceived in sin, it is unquestionably true that Government is begotten of aggression, and by aggression. In small undeveloped societies where for ages complete peace has continued, there exists nothing like what we call Government: no coercive agency, but mere honorary headship, if any headship at all. In these exceptional communities, unaggressive and from special causes unaggressed upon, there is so little deviation from the virtues of truthfulness, honesty, justice, and generosity, that nothing beyond an occasional expression of public opinion by informally-assembled elders is needful. Conversely, we find proofs that, at first recognized but temporarily during leadership in war, the authority of a chief is permanently established by continuity of war; and grows strong where successful aggression ends in subjection of neighboring tribes. And thence onwards, examples furnished by all races put beyond doubt the truth, that the coercive power of the chief, developing into king, and king of kings (a frequent title in the ancient East), becomes great in proportion as conquest becomes habitual and the union of subdued nations extensive. Comparisons disclose a further truth which should be ever present to us — the truth that the aggressiveness of the ruling power inside a society increases with its aggressiveness outside the society. As, to make an efficient army, the soldiers in their several grades must be subordinate to the commander; so, to make an efficient fighting community, must the citizens be subordinate to the ruling power. They must furnish recruits to the extent demanded, and yield up whatever property is required.<br>An obvious implication is that the ethics of Government, originally identical with the ethics of war, must long remain akin to them; and can diverge from them only as warlike activities and preparations become less.

Stated by Montague, Secretary of State for India.[Hunt, Frazier, Great Personalities, http://books.google.com/books?id=EgEZRS4xer0C&pg=PT153, 1931, New York Life Insurance Company, 153–]

1950s, The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)

Source: Sylvia cartoon strip, p. 24

Source: &quot;The Failure of Nonviolence&quot; (2013) https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-failure-of-nonviolence, Chapter 2. Recuperation is How We Lose

Source: 1940s, And Keep Your Powder Dry: An Anthropologist Looks at America (1942), p. 134

Part 2, Chapter 9 (p. 147)
Today We Choose Faces (1973)

Source: Man, the State, and War (1959), Chapter II, The First Image, p. 16

Prime Minister <br class="br">Source: Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1919/jul/03/unprovoked-attack-upon-france#S5CV0117P0_19190703_HOC_333 in the House of Commons on the Treaty of Versailles (3 July 1919)