Howard Bloom Quotes

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

If the perpetrators of the World Trade Center plane crashes had a nuclear weapon, there's no doubt in my mind but that they would've detonated it in New York.

This diffusion of nuclear weapons is terrible…terrible. Imagine a world with a large number of states with nuclear bombs.

I really believe the nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons is the world's most ominous threat.

The biggest threat that we face right now is not a nuclear missile coming over the skies. It's in a suitcase. This is why the issue of nuclear proliferation is so important. It is the - the biggest threat to the United States is a terrorist getting their hands on nuclear weapons.

The gravest threat faced by the world is of an extremist group getting hold of nuclear weapons or materials.

So the idea about how detonation of a nuclear weapon might happen vary, you know - some people are especially concerned about terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons and using them. Some people are worried that there might be a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. Some think the Middle East, were Israel already has nuclear weapons and where other countries may be interested at some point and acquiring them, might be a flash point.

I have to bring to your notice a terrifying reality: with the development of nuclear weapons Man has acquired, for the first time in history, the technical means to destroy the whole of civilization in a single act.

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.

If we have isolated individuals able to inflict enormous harm, imagine what a single lunatic can do with a nuclear weapon. I think the whole base of civil society is at risk.

The risk of just one terrorist with just one nuclear weapon is a risk we simply cannot afford to take.

A nuclear weapon of some dimension, whether it's actually a nuclear weapon, or a dirty bomb, or some kind of radiological device. Yes, I think it's probably a near thing.

The consequence of a world full of nuclear powers to me is so incomprehensible in terms of the dangers that that implies.

We must eliminate all nuclear weapons in order to eliminate the grave risk they pose to our world. This will require persistent efforts by all countries and peoples. A nuclear war would affect everyone, and all have a stake in preventing this nightmare.

Nuclear arms is pretty scary because that could end the world. I'm more interested in that stuff than I am Bill Clinton. I mean, I think Bill Clinton is a good president.

Our enemy is Al Qaeda and its allies, people who have publicly said they wish to attack the United States again, people who have publicly called on nuclear physicists and engineers to help them gain access to nuclear weapons, which, as the whole world knows, Pakistan has.

The greatest threat facing humanity is a radical Islamist regime meeting up with nuclear weapons.

There are nuclear weapons in China, Iran, Korea and Pakistan. It wouldn't take much to send a couple of warheads off on this planet somewhere that would cause a lot of environmental damage, then if you have got someone who wants to retaliate you have real problems.

I worry about 10, 15, 20, 25 years down the road. Where are we going to be in this age of nuclear weapons, where there is no margin for error?

We may yet work up to some serious shooting war, or maybe some acts of urban genocide committed with rogue nuclear weapons. But if that were the case, why would we call that '9/11'? If Washington disappeared in a mushroom cloud, we'd give that huge event a different name.

Nuclear weapons exist. They probably always will. And they work, with horrible efficiency. They threaten the very future of our species. We have no choice but to manage that risk. Never again can we put the task out of our minds; nor trivialize it; nor make it routine.

If the terrorists were to explode even one suitcase-sized nuclear weapon in a Western city, democratic institutions might not survive. The security agencies in the Western democracies would be granted, or would simply seize, powers comparable to those of the Gestapo and the KGB…. I doubt that democratic institutions will be resilient enough to stand the strain.

I view current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous, creating unacceptable risks to other nations and to our own"

There isn’t going to be any learning curve for nuclear weapons. An administration makes one mistake and the result can destroy entire nations.

Iran with a nuclear weapon or with fissile material that can be given to Hezbollah or Hamas or others has the potential of not just destabilizing the Middle East. But it could be brought here.