Cold War Nuclear Quotes & Sayings

You know, people have actually changed the way they think about nuclear weapons now, post-Cold War, post-9/11. The threat of nuclear weapons is not so much Russia attacking the United States, China. It's not a state-to-state - it's obviously terrorism; it's proliferation. — Lawrence Bender

New Zealand's nuclear free movement is a broad-based and popular movement. Our nuclear free status is a challenge to much that is accepted as orthodox in international relations. It was formally adopted in the cold war era as a form of resistance to the dismal doctrines of nuclear deterrence. It is still a rebuke to the unprincipled exercise of economic power and military might. — David Lange

It has always struck me as the world's great fortune that the two great superpowers were the United States and the Soviet Union, who managed the Cold War with meticulous care in retrospect. Imagine the European diplomats of 1914 or 1938 armed with nuclear weapons. It is easy to believe they would not have been as cautious. — George Friedman

If you took every nuclear weapon ever built at the height of the Cold War, lumped them together and blew them up at the same time, that would be one one-millionth of the energy released at that moment. — Phil Plait

Much as Cold War nuclear strategists could argue about winning a nuclear war by having more survivors, advocates of a Global Warming War might see the United States, Western Europe, or Russia as better able to ride out climate disruption and manipulation than, say, China or the countries of the Middle East. — Jamais Cascio

The politicians always told us that the Cold War stand-off could only change by way of nuclear war. None of them believed that such systemic change was possible. — Lech Walesa

The Bush administration continues to coddle China, despite its continuing crackdown on democratic reform, its brutal subjugation of Tibet, its irresponsible export of nuclear and missile technology ... Such forbearance on our part might have made sense during the Cold War when China was the counterweight to Soviet power. It makes no sense to play the China card now when our opponents have thrown in their hand. — William J. Clinton

I have a fear of nuclear annihilation. I'm a child of the cold war: I didn't live more than 10 miles from a major WarPac nuclear target until the Berlin Wall came down and the CW ended. Knowing you can die horribly at any moment because of decisions made by alien intelligences thousands of miles away who don't even know you exist - there's something Lovecraftian about that, isn't there? — Charles Stross

Members will exchange hostages with each other; you offer your lives to each other, as hostages. In other words, it means, "if you die, I die, too, dammit!" If we agree to this, then we will be unable to act, like nuclear powers, glaring at each other during a cold war. And even if we want to die, we will be unable to.
If the situation turns into, "I don't care, even if you die," then this group's system has failed. Let's make sure that it doesn't become that way! — Tatsuhiko Takimoto

We don't talk about that at all as a country. I think that most people assume that there's nothing they could do if a nuclear bomb went off in their city. And that's just not true. Most people would survive most terrorist nuclear attacks because the bombs would likely be much smaller than those we were dealing with in the Cold War. — Amanda Ripley

In some ways, the challenges are even more daunting than they were at the peak of the cold war. Not only do we continue to face grave nuclear threats, but those threats are being compounded by new weapons developments, new violence within States and new challenges to the rule of law. — Kofi Annan

So I ask the nuclear powers to abandon the out-of-date thinking of the Cold War period and take a fresh look. Above all, I appeal to them to bear in mind the long-term threat that nuclear weapons pose to humankind and to begin action towards their elimination. — Joseph Rotblat

The only thing that kept the Cold War cold was the mutual deterrence afforded by nuclear weapons. — Chung Mong-joon

Nuclear weapons are infinitely less important in our foreign policy than they were in the days of the Cold War. I don't think we need nuclear weapons any longer. — Des Browne

I remembered being young in the late '70s and early '80s and growing up at the height of the Cold War. I remembered how scared I was of nuclear weapons, how often I though about them and about the possibility of everything and everyone I knew vanishing in a second in temperatures hotter than the centre of the sun. — John Niven

History's long rhythm of challenges and response, of solutions that breed new crises, is not to be interrupted. But the Cold War left one shining example of human wisdom as a legacy for the future. Fifty years after the first use of atomic weapons, the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain unique and poignant shrines to the inspiring fact that they have no successor. The long confrontation of the Cold War, a struggle to the death between two systems for the mastery of human destiny, was managed and resolved without that nuclear war which lurked in the monstrous imminence in silos and submarines around the globe. That was the real victory. — Martin Walker

No great monument has been built to honor those who served during the Cold War, who risked their lives and sometimes lost them in the name of freedom. It was ordinary men and women, not just diplomats and statesmen, who helped to avert a nuclear holocaust. Their courage and their sacrifices should be remembered. — Eric Schlosser

The truth emerging from this scattered picture of nuclear proliferation is simple: there is a stronger chance of a nuclear bomb being used now than at almost any point in the Cold War. — Johann Hari

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. — Mike Quigley

The South Africans decided that they would like to prove to the world they did not have any nuclear weapons and their decision was not doubted because it was the end of the Cold War, it was also the end of apartheid. — Hans Blix

When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace. — Jimmy Carter

Alternatively, suppose Qaddafi winds up hanging from a lamppost in his favorite party dress. If you're a Third World dictator, what lessons would you draw? Qaddafi was the thug who came in from the cold, the one who (in the wake of Saddam's fall) renounced his nuclear program and was supposedly rehabilitated in the chancelleries of the West. He was a strong partner in the war on terrorism, according to U.S. diplomats. And what did Washington do? They overthrew him anyway. — Mark Steyn

After the Cold War ended, there was an agreement between the former Soviet Union and America to convert weapons-grade nuclear materials into reactor-grade materials. So disarmament and nuclear energy actually are strongly linked. — Susan Eisenhower

The world's deteriorating ecology poses as great a danger to mankind today as did the nuclear standoff between the superpowers at the height of the Cold War. — Mikhail Gorbachev

This is Communism's view of war. War is necessary. War is an instrument for achieving a goal.

But unfortunately for Communism, this policy ran up against the American atomic bomb in 1945. Then the Communists changed their tactics and suddenly became advocates of peace at any cost. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

If you read British Foreign Office records from the 1940s, it's clear they recognised that their day in the sun was over and that Britain would have to be the "junior partner" of the United States, and sometimes treated in a humiliating way. A striking example of this was in 1962, the time of the Cuban missile crisis. The Kennedy planners were making some very dangerous choices and pursuing policies which they thought had a good chance of leading to nuclear war, and they knew that Britain would be wiped out. The US wouldn't, because Russia's missiles couldn't reach there, but Britain would be wiped out. — Noam Chomsky

When we succeeded in winning the Cold War, escaping a nuclear Armageddon that could have killed us all, the U.S. inevitably had a serious problem about an encore: what now for our place in the world? — Graham T. Allison

I have seen the rise and fall of Nazi tyranny, the subsequent cold war and the nuclear nightmare that for fifty years haunted the dreams of children everywhere. During that time my generation defeated totalitarianism. As a result, your world is poised for better tomorrows. What will you do on your journey? — Ronald Reagan

[A] new generation, innocent of the divisions of the Cold War, this coming-of-age ... If its members do not feel the urgency to escape the nuclear danger that some of its parents felt, neither has it developed the deep attachment to nuclear arms also often found among their parents, including most of the governing class ... The call for abolition should therefore be, among other things, a call from an older generation to younger one. — Jonathan Schell

Case studies of Cold War-era conflicts suggest two ironclad, unwritten rules: first, no nuclear power may use military force against another nuclear power; and, second, a nuclear power, using military force against a non-nuclear nation, may not use nuclear weapons. Moreover, possessing nuclear weapons did not necessarily deter a non-nuclear nation from waging war with a client state of a nuclear power, as the United States found out in the Korean and Vietnam Wars. — Joseph M. Siracusa

Who knows better than you what it means to have a commander-in-chief who lived his entire life, who lived throughout the entire Cold War, and doesn't know what the nuclear triad is? It's absolutely astonishing. And so it's terrific to have Joe Dunford and you know, perhaps John Bolton and other people in positions of trust. — Bret Stephens

In a nuclear age, and in an age of serious environmental degradation, apocalyptic belief creates a serious second order danger. The precarious logic of self-interest that saw us through the Cold War would collapse if the leaders of one nuclear state came to welcome, or ceased to fear mass death. — Ian McEwan

Growing up during the Cold War period, I always found that, although we always thought that the world would end in some sort of nuclear holocaust, at some point, everybody was pretty hopeful. — George Clooney

In many places around the world, all over the U.S. and Europe there are active nuclear power plants. And for many years during the Cold War the threat of nuclear war was a permanent fear. There's always the concern that human kind is biting off more than they can chew in harnessing nuclear power. — Oren Peli

The nightmare of the Cold War was nuclear weapons in the hands of an irrational person. I don't want to live through that nightmare. — Rudy Giuliani

The lesson of the Cold War is that against nuclear weapons, only nuclear weapons can hold the peace. — Chung Mong-joon

Seventeen years after the Cold War, how can it be in the Unites States' national security interest for the President of Russia to have only a few minutes to decide whether to fire his nuclear weapons or lose them in response to what could be a false warning? — Sam Nunn

The Cold War philosophy of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which prevented the former Soviet Union and the United States from using the nuclear weapons they had targeted at each other, would not apply to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's Iran. For him (Ahmadinejad), Mutual Assured Destruction is not a deterrent, it is an inducement. — Bernard Lewis

I lived through the Cold War as a child, and we always thought a nuclear bomb could end life everywhere at any time. On one hand, it created an atmosphere where you lived for the moment - because it could end at any second - but on the other, it warped a generation into thinking t there was no reasonable expectation of building a future that could be vaporized at any moment by a few morons. — Louie Psihoyos

Do not hide behind utopian logic which says that until we have the perfect security environment, nuclear disarmament cannot proceed. This is old-think. This is the mentality of the Cold War era. We must face the realities of the 21st century. The Conference on Disarmament can be a driving force for building a safer world and a better future. — Ban Ki-moon

I came into politics because of a real childhood concern about the Cold War. So to me the importance of the nuclear deterrent is actually really ingrained in me. — Andrea Leadsom

Presidents should be very careful at all times in discussing the use or non-use of nuclear weapons. Presidents since the cold war have used nuclear deterrence to keep the peace, and I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons. — Hillary Clinton

I grew up during the Cold War, when everything seemed very tenuous. For many years, right up until the fall of the Berlin Wall, I had vivid nightmares of nuclear apocalypse. — Justin Cronin

You have theoreticians who say, "The U.S. must stop the process of nuclear armament. We have enough already. Today America has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the other half of the world. Why should we need more than that?" Let the American nuclear specialists reason this way if they want, but for some reason the nuclear specialists of the Soviet Union - and the leaders of the Soviet Union - think differently. — Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The cold war was the longest war in United States history. Because of the nuclear capabilities of our enemy it was the most dangerous conflict our country ever faced. Those that won this war did so in obscurity. Those that gave their lives in the cold war have never been properly honored. — Harry Reid

The threat of mutually assured destruction worked for the United States during the Cold War because it had proved its willingness to drop nuclear bombs on enemy cities at the end of World War II. It might work less well for Israel, because the Israeli Air Force has never deliberately targeted a large civilian population center, and its leaders have said its morality would not permit it do so. — Alan Dershowitz

Since the end of the Cold War two main nuclear powers have begun to make big reductions in their nuclear arsenals. Each of them is dismantling about 2,000 nuclear warheads a year. — Joseph Rotblat

For my generation, coming of age at the height of the Cold War, fear of nuclear winter seemed the leading existential threat on the horizon. But the danger posed by war to all humanity-and to our planet-is at least matched by climate change. — Ban Ki-moon

The phone rang and Archie announced, "The Russians would like to see a typical Canadian home, so I am bringing them home in about an hour. Just have some tea and cookies ready for a snack.---At that time in history, the Russians had nuclear weapons pointing at the U.S. and the U.S. had nuclear weapons pointing at them. No one knew what would happen. They called it the "Cold War." but it was a very dangerous time to be having Russians dropping into our home. — Helen Goldie

There is probably no way of explaining Project Koschei, or XK-PLUTO, or MK-NIGHTMARE, or the gates, without watering them down into just another weapons system -- which they are not. Weapons may have deadly or hideous effects, but they acquire moral character from the actions of those who use them. Whereas these projects are indelibly stained by a patina of ancient evil ... — Charles Stross

Mammoth organizations, these ponderous processes. Many people don't realize that the nuclear capability that this country [USA] amassed and maintained over the period of the Cold War cost $6 trillion . — George Lee Butler

During bomb drills, we students were told to crouch under our desks. Apparently the desks used in classrooms in the fifties were made of an exceptionally missile-resistant variety of wood. During the Cold War years I often wondered why it never occurred to our defense planners to protect the entire nation from nuclear attack by simply covering it, from sea to shining sea, with a huge Strategic Classroom Desk. — Dave Barry

As they were during the Cold War, urban population centers remain the most likely targets of a nuclear attack. Now, however, an attack may come without warning from an unknown enemy, to achieve unclear motives. — Alan Cranston

They could take the money from building enough nukes to kill all the Russians in the world and give it to libraries. What good does an independent nuclear deterrent do Britain, compared to the good of libraries? — Jo Walton

But scientists on both sides of the iron curtain played a very significant role in maintaining the momentum of the nuclear arms race throughout the four decades of the Cold War. — Joseph Rotblat

The probability of a fatal nuclear detonation is greater now than at any time during the Cold War. As the Russian military deteriorates, and as rogue governments and terrorists seek to acquire nuclear capabilities, the threat continues to grow. — Alan Cranston

For some twenty years the window that opened at the end of the Cold War has been allowed to hang flapping in the wind. It is high time that the five nuclear-weapon states take seriously their commitment to negotiate toward nuclear disarmament. — Hans Blix

Without perestroika, the cold war simply would not have ended. But the world could not continue developing as it had, with the stark menace of nuclear war ever present. — Mikhail Gorbachev