Preventive War Quotes & Sayings

Another term for preventive war is aggressive war - starting wars because someday somebody might do something to us. That is not part of the American tradition. — Ron Paul

Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Preventive war is like committing suicide out of fear of death. — Otto Von Bismarck

There is no more dangerous thing for a democracy than a foreign policy based on presidential preventive war. — Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr.

A preventive war, to my mind, is an impossibility today. How could you have one if one of its features would be several cities lying in ruins, several cities where many, many thousands of people would be dead and injured and mangled, the transportation systems destroyed, sanitation implements and systems all gone? That isn't preventive war; that is war. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

So - our readiness to meet and defeat this kind of possible attack is forced upon us, both as a potent preventive of actual war and to insure survival in event of attack. This alertness to danger has to be translated into specific policies and activities in the several parts of the world where our rights - our way of life - can be seriously damaged. Work of this kind occupies my days and nights. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I think every big town should contain artificial waterfalls that people could descend in very fragile canoes, and they should contain bathing pools full of mechanical sharks. Any person found advocating a preventive war should be condemned to two hours a day with these ingenious monsters. — Bertrand Russell

When people speak to you about a preventive war, you tell them to go and fight it. After my experience, I have come to hate war. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

I am against preventive war because it means measures by the UN against us. — Moshe Sharett

Surgery is the most masculine of medical disciplines, taking knives and penetrating the body to find disease and destroy it. It is a war game in which cold and shiny stainless steel is pitted against the unseen, sinister but discoverable and conquerable enemy. Pediatrics is in many ways the most feminine of medical disciplines, with its focus on small children, preventive care, nurturing. In terms of gender, neonatology seems to be somewhere in between. — John D. Lantos

Possibly my hatred of war blinds me so that I cannot comprehend the arguments they adduce. But, in my opinion, there is no such thing as a preventive war. Although this suggestion is repeatedly made, none has yet explained how war prevents war. Worse than this, no one has been able to explain away the fact that war creates the conditions that beget war. — Dwight D. Eisenhower

Preventive war is a crime not easily committed by a country that retains any traces of democracy. — George Orwell

I'd like to see a more aggressive attitude on the part of the United States. That doesn't mean launching an immediate preventive war ... — Curtis LeMay

The 'pre-emption' versus 'prevention' debate may be a distinction without much difference. The important thing is to have it understood that the United States is absolutely serious. The jihadists have in the past bragged that America is too feeble and corrupt to fight. A lot is involved in disproving that delusion on their part. — Christopher Hitchens

The target of preventive war must have several characteristics. It must be virtually defenceless; it must be important enough to be worth the trouble; it must be possible to portray it as the ultimate evil and an imminent threat to our survival. — Noam Chomsky