A Quote by Edward Dunlop
The moral is obvious it is that great armaments lead inevitably to war.
Related Quotes
It is idle to say that nations can struggle to outdo each other in building armaments and never use them. History demonstrates the contrary, and we have but to go back to the last war to see the appalling effect of nations competing in great armaments.
The very existence of armaments and great armies psychologically accustoms us to accept the philosophy of militarism. They inevitably increase fear and hate in the world.
I know that military alliances and armament have been the reliance for peace for centuries, but they do not produce peace; and when war comes, as it inevitably does under such conditions, these armaments and alliances but intensify and broaden the conflict.
That all war is physically frightful is obvious; but if that were a moral verdict, there would be no difference between a torturer and a surgeon. There are certain intellectuals who are too bright to be content with merely praising peace but who are infuriated by anybody praising war. If no war is possible, all criminality has its chance
Armaments do not, generally speaking, cause wars. This notion, the logical crux of all arguments in favor of disarmament, turns the causal relationship upside down. Actually, it is wars, or conflicts threatening war, that cause armaments, not the reverse.
As the First World War made painfully clear, when politicians and generals lead nations into war, they almost invariably assume swift victory, and have a remarkably enduring tendency not to foresee problems that, in hindsight, seem obvious.
I came to the conclusion that war was an unacceptable way of solving whatever problems there were in the world--that there would be problems of tyranny, of injustice, of nations crossing frontiers and that injustice and tyranny should not be tolerated and should be fought and resisted, but the one thing that must not be used to solve that problem is war. Because war is inevitably the indiscriminate killing of large numbers of people. And that fact overwhelms whatever moral cause is somewhere buried in the history of that war.
A point has been reached where the peoples of the Americas must take cognizance of growing ill-will, of marked trends toward aggression, of increasing armaments, of shortening tempers--a situation which has in it many of the elements that lead to the tragedy of general war.... Peace is threatened by those who seek selfish power.
I have spent my life in the study of military strength as a deterrent to war, and in the character of military armaments necessary to win a war. The study of the first of these questions is still profitable, but we are rapidly getting to the point that no war can be won.
Lenin was the first to discover that capitalism 'inevitably' caused war; and he discovered this only when the First World War was already being fought. Of course he was right. Since every great state was capitalist in 1914.
Every government, left or right, always engages in moral crusades. What else are they supposed to do? Especially when they make war; any war has to be a moral crusade.
This truth may be unfashionable, unpalatable, no doubt unpopular, but, if it is the truth, the story of mankind shows that war was universal and unceasing for millions of years before armaments were invented or armies organized. Indeed, the lucid intervals of peace and order only occurred in human history after armaments in the hands of strong governments have come into being, and civilization in every age has been nursed only in cradles guarded by superior weapons and superior discipline.
Armaments are necessary - or are maintained on the pretext of necessity - because of a real or an imagined danger of war.
Unconditional war can no longer lead to unconditional victory. It can no longer serve to settle disputes. It can no longer concern the Great Powers alone. For a nuclear disaster, spread by wind and water and fear, could well engulf the great and the small, the rich and the poor, the committed and the uncommitted alike. Mankind must put an end to war--or war will put an end to mankind.
The present level of armaments could be taken as the starting point. It could be stipulated in an international treaty that these armaments should be simultaneously and uniformly reduced by a certain proportion in all countries.
We're in a very, very profound crisis. It's so obvious that no one in the power structure, either the corporate power structure or the political power structure, knows what to do or is willing to do what's necessary in relationship both to global war and global warming. It's so obvious that conditions are getting worse for the great majority of Americans. It's so obvious also that we face a very serious danger from people who feel, see themselves only as victims. And we have to somehow, in a very loving way, help the American people to recover the best that is in our traditions.
Related Authors
Ala Bashir Quotes
Iraqi
Surgeon
Astley Cooper Quotes
British
Surgeon
August Bier Quotes
German
Surgeon
Caldwell Esselstyn Quotes
American
Surgeon
Denton Cooley Quotes
American
Surgeon
Fiona Wood Quotes
Australian
Surgeon
Francis Daniels Moore Quotes
American
Surgeon
Henry Heimlich Quotes
American
Surgeon
Henry Jacob Bigelow Quotes
American
Surgeon
Mary Edwards Walker Quotes
American
Surgeon
Michael E. DeBakey Quotes
American
Surgeon
Philibert Joseph Roux Quotes
French
Surgeon
Sir Benjamin Collins Brodie, 1st Baronet Quotes
English
Surgeon
Tenley Albright Quotes
American
Surgeon
Theodor Billroth Quotes
Austrian
Surgeon
Wilfred Trotter Quotes
English
Surgeon