Barack Obama Quotes

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

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.

During the Cold War era, the issue was the containment of Soviet influence, and we tolerated many an authoritarian regime as long as they were useful to us in this respect.

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.

Here in Europe, I think that there are a lot of young people who forget the issues that were at stake during the Cold War.

It's the height of the Cold War, but I grew up in apolitical family and politics wasn't on the agenda.

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?

I think the Cold War works as a great analogy or simile for different kinds of conflict. It's funny, when you look back at it, it's one of the last times that the boundaries were clear. Now, as we see on 'Homeland,' there are no clear boundaries and enemies.

The Cold War isn't thawing; it is burning with a deadly heat. Communism isn't sleeping; it is, as always, plotting, scheming, working, fighting.

Those of my generation who grew up in the midst of the Cold War had a very, very strong awareness and very much were sort of influenced by the demonization of the Soviet Union, whether that was through the Cuban Missile Crisis or duck-and-cover, or any of those things that so affected us then.

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.

We were to be forever at war with somebody. We were going to fight communism everywhere on earth even if it didn't threaten us. It was a holy war, just as we've made one on terrorism and Islam, equally stupid and equally irrelevant.

"World War III, was the Cold War".

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.

We had a world dominated by the Soviet Union on the one hand, and the Americans on the other hand. They called it the Cold War. But it wasn't cold. I am someone who comes from the third world. In the third world, the cold war wasn't cold. Millions had been killed. It was a proxy war.

And, gentlemen, they have not yet done so, and it is quite clear that no Americans, no people in the world probably, are going to war with the Soviet Union.

I think that the Cold War was an exceptional and unnecessary piece of cruelty.

I was very much a child of the Cold War.

In the post war period I began again to have my doubts about Russian policy.

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.

There's no longer a monolithic evil empire somewhere, spreading a different philosophy of life. That doesn't exist.

I started out as a Cold Warrior, even my last years in grade school.

During the Cold War, we lived in coded times when it wasn't easy and there were shades of grey and ambiguity.

The Cold War is over. The kind of authority that the presidents asserted during the Cold War has now been diminished.

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