Curtis LeMay Quotes

If the [present] deterrent is the mutual annihilation of each other ..., what else do we need and why?

Blow them [the Russians] off the face of the earth, quick, before they do the same to us. We haven't much time.

Russia alone has the capacity to obliterate the United States.

Nobody should have any illusion about the possibility of gaining military superiority over Russia. We will never allow this to happen.

During the Cold War, we were interested because we were scared that Russia and the United States were going to go to war. We were scared that Russia was going to take over the world. Every country became a battleground.

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.

The United States and Russia probably do not have common aims and dreams, but they have common worries: Both Washington and Moscow are concerned about the rise of China and are threatened by the rise of radical Islam.

The Pentagon talks about our power to 'overkill' Russia ten times, twenty times, perhaps forty-eight times. For my tax money, it is sufficient to overkill them once.

This is an era of violent peace.

The basic reason Russia has not attacked us is that we can outproduce her.

the deterrent ratio might well shift to the Soviets so heavily, during the years of the [missile] gap, as to open to them a shortcut to world domination... Their missile power will be the shield from behind which they will slowly, but surely, advance...

I must confess to the most profound distrust of Russia. I have no belief whatever in her ability to maintain an effective offensive, even if she wanted to.

The Americans want us to continue fighting but not to win, just to bleed the Russians

To Moscow, it must seem that the Cold War is only half over, since the West’s deterrence posture, although muted, lives on.

Nuclear weapons are only good for deterring. It is insane that two men, sitting on opposite ends of the world, should be able to decide to bring an end to civilization.

We have to risk a nuclear war in order to escape capitulation to Communism. For all I know, we may stumble into this terrible war.

To have the ability to destroy all and not to do it was one of the hard tests humanity passed - but only just - in the middle of the twentieth century.

It is not in the interest of the German people or in the interest of world peace that Germany should become a pawn or a partner in a military struggle for power between the East and the West.

During the Cold War, America took sides not only in disputes between Arab countries, but also in debates within them.

I remember fear and I remember the potential of nuclear war.

People were really interested in what was going on because of the international context of the Cold War.

The only thing that kept the Cold War cold was the mutual deterrence afforded by nuclear weapons.

I'm still bothered by the threat of nuclear war.

The Cold War is over but Cold War thinking survives.

Certainly the existence of these huge nuclear force was important for the ultimate confrontation, let's say, over western Europe. You just can't use them to deal with a situation like Afghanistan.