Stephen M. Walt Quotes

The nuclear threat is a direct product of the cult of force that has dominated the world for centuries.

Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?

There is only one thing worse than one nation having the atomic bomb -- that's two nations having it.

I remember some of the limited debate I did back in high school in the late '70s, early '80s: nuclear proliferation was always the big topic, and it's bad. We don't want to see it.

Nuclear weapons offer us nothing but a balance of terror, and a balance of terror is still terror.

It's Russia some people would like to get rid of. They are still afraid of our nuclear deterrent. We have our own foreign policy whether they like it or not.

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

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.

There are some people that will be deterred by the fact that we have nuclear weapons... But those people are the folks we can deal with anyway.

I'm not concerned about weapons of mass destruction.

We still need to be conscious of the fact that Russia has intercontinental ballistic missiles.

In a nuclear age, each of us is threatened when peace is not secured everywhere.

I built a nuclear option to get peace, not to have bombs. Our enemies learned that they could not destroy us.

The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and their means of delivery is a threat to both the Nato allies and Russia.

Israel will not tolerate a situation in which Iran has effective control of non-conventional weapons that can be used directly against the state of Israel.

We still live in a world where if you have nuclear weapons, you are buying power; you are buying insurance against attack.

We are told that the possession of nuclear weapons - in some cases even the testing of these weapons - is essential for national security. But this argument can be made by other countries as well.

The days are gone forever when our enemies could blackmail us with nuclear bombs.

So long as nuclear weapons continue to exist, so will the temptation to threaten others with overwhelming military force.

Nuclear weapons are infinitely less important in our foreign policy than they were in the days of the Cold War. I don't think we need nuclear weapons any longer.

If a country is suspected of going nuclear, you need to understand why. Why does it feel insecure?

It's very certain that North Korea is developing nuclear weapons for offensive purposes. They don't need nuclear weapons to defend their own country.

The weapons were conceived and created by a small band of physicists and chemists; they remain a cataclysmic threat to the whole of human society and the natural environment.

Most of those mocking us and our works night after night have not reached the point of suggesting we are going to use those weapons. They are pretty useless right now.

North Korea has taught a great lesson to all the countries in the world, especially the rogue countries of dictatorships or whatever: if you don't want to be invaded by America, get some nuclear weapons.