Barack Obama Quotes

There was no race - but to the extent that there was an arms competition, it was almost entirely on the Soviet side, first to catch up and then to surpass the Americans.

These four mongrels are supposed to be our defense against Communism and the extremes of Arab Nationalism in the Middle East.

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.

You've got to remember the Cold War was a very real thing then, so the relationship with the United States was very, very important. As was the relationship that I was developing with China: that was something I did very much. And they weren't conflicting things.

With grace and a keen appreciation of human nature, Nicholas Thompson has written a revealing, moving history of the Cold War through two fascinating men.

The Cold War was a war, and we won it.

I'm a child of the Cold War. You do not say, "Oh, my God, there are Russian planes, so I'm going to cede the field." I mean, what kind of world would we have had if the United States had done that for 60 years?

My total focus was on building up our military, building up our strength, building up our borders, making sure that China, Japan, Mexico, both at the border and in trade, no longer takes advantage of our country.

The day that the Soviets officially crossed the border of Afghanistan, I wrote to President Jimmy Carter: We now have the opportunity of giving to the USSR its Vietnam war.

Our veterans have sacrificed so much for our country and to keep us safe.

President Trump say that relations between the United States and Russia may be at their lowest point since the end of the Cold War.

I don't worry about superpower confrontation. You know, I lived through the Cold War days, and where everybody was worried about a Soviet Union armed to the teeth. I think we're going to get along fine with Russia, and I don't see them as internationally ambitious.

I expect that Trump believes we do not have an obligation to have a Cold War with Russia, but that he is very cautious.

I'm post-cynical on this stuff. I look at the El Salvador model as the glory days: Why don't we just fund the death squads secretly and keep our boys at home? That where I almost am at this point. Clearly the American military has been a force for good for the United States. There's a reason we have a standing military. But there's something to be said for having a much smaller military because then we wouldn't be tempted to get involved in things we shouldn't be getting involved in.

Let us understand: North Vietnam cannot defeat or humiliate the United States. Only Americans can do that.

I don't object to its being called "McNamara's war." I think it is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it.

With all this talk about the supposed strain in relations [with the Soviet Union], there is an inference that somehow it is our fault. But we didn't kill Russian civilians by shooting down a civilian airplane. We didn't attempt to conquer an adjacent country to ours. We didn't walk out on negotiations and refuse to give a date for when we would resume.

I am afraid if the present trend in Vietnam continues that direct confrontation, first of all between Washington and Peking, is inevitable.

If somewhere is a deficiency the normal American answer would have been well then, let's spend some more money, build some more weapons and deploy them. That's the normal way of thinking of the military, in America not only but also all over the place, but America or Russia or other countries.

President Roosevelt and President Truman and President Eisenhower had the same experience, they all made the effort to get along with the Russians. But every time, finally it failed. And the reason it failed was because the Communists are determined to destroy us, and regardless of what hand of friendship we may hold out or what arguments we may put up, the only thing that will make that decisive difference is the strength of the United States.

The first murmurings from the liberal part of the U.S.A. that we were somehow in the wrong, brutal killers, bullying other countries; that we who put our lives on the line for our nation at the behest of our government should somehow be charged with murder for shooting our enemy.

Every argument that Margaret Thatcher ever made internationally didn't have a great deal to do with her contempt for Communism - she never really got into that. What she talked about was giving freedom to tens of millions of people in Central and Eastern Europe. She was an inspirational leader when it came to discussing her belief in freedom. More visceral and moral.

I suppose that history will remember my term in office as the years when the Cold War began to overshadow our lives. I have hardly a day in office that has not been dominated by this all-embracing struggle. And always in the background there has been the atomic bomb. But when history says that my term of office saw the begining of the Cold War, it will also say that in those eight years we have set the course that can win it.

I think a resumption of the Cold War would be a historic tragedy. If a conflict is avoidable, on a basis reflecting morality and security, one should try to avoid it.

The Western world doesn't really give enough credit to the importance in history of the Soviet invasion and the subsequent war in Afghanistan. For us it was a sideshow of the Cold War. For the Islamic world it was an unprovoked infidel invasion of a Muslim country not unlike Iraq.