“It does not need much imagination to see that even in so-called advanced nations like the UK and the US, a great deal of racism and deep-seated religious prejudice fuels the propensity towards righteous war and the belief that one's own nation is always right and that "terrorism" resides only in the other.”

Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), The Power of Words (1937), p. 224
Context: What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things which enable its citizens to live, but the things which enable it to make war; petrol is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict. Thus when war is waged it is for the purpose of safeguarding or increasing one's capacity to make war. International politics are wholly involved in this vicious cycle. What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralize other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. What is called national security is an imaginary state of affairs in which one would retain the capacity to make war while depriving all other countries of it. It amounts to this, that a self-respecting nation is ready for anything, including war, except for a renunciation of its option to make war. But why is it so essential to be able to make war? No one knows, any more than the Trojans knew why it was necessary for them to keep Helen. That is why the good intentions of peace-loving statesman are so ineffectual. If the countries were divided by a real opposition of interests, it would be possible to arrive at a satisfactory compromise. But when economic and political interests have no meaning apart from war, how can they be peacefully reconciled?

1900s, Inaugural Address (1905)

Source: 1950s, National images and international systems, 1959, p. 131

Inscription at the World Trade Center Memorial Wall http://web.archive.org/web/20031117142036/http://www.kremlin.ru/events/photos/2001/11/39974.shtml (15 November 2001). <br class="br">2000 - 2005

In response to the interviewer stating: 'America, the world's only superpower, has called you Public Enemy Number One. Are you worried?'
1990s, Time magazine interview (1998)

The Devil's Advocate (1952)
1950s
Context: You see, when a nation threatens another nation the people of the latter forget their factionalism, their local antagonisms, their political differences, their suspicions of each other, their religious hostilities, and band together as one unit. Leaders know that, and that is why so many of them whip up wars during periods of national crisis, or when the people become discontented and angry. The leaders stigmatize the enemy with every vice they can think of, every evil and human depravity. They stimulate their people’s natural fear of all other men by channeling it into a defined fear of just certain men, or nations. Attacking another nation, then, acts as a sort of catharsis, temporarily, on men’s fear of their immediate neighbors. This is the explanation of all wars, all racial and religious hatreds, all massacres, and all attempts at genocide.

Remarks to Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (10 March 1839), quoted in Memoirs of Prince Adam Czartoryski and His Correspondence with Alexander I, Vol. II, ed. Adam Gielgud (1888), p. 340
1830s