Herman Kahn Quotes

The lesson of history is when a war starts every nation will ultimately use whatever weapon it has available. ... Therefore, we must expect that if another war — a serious war — breaks out, we will use nuclear energy in some form.

If we are to assume that North Korea becomes a nuclear-power state, of course the danger of having an all-out nuclear war, that possibility is very slim.

If the Third World War is fought with nuclear weapons, the fourth will be fought with bows and arrows.

We woke up one day, and Pakistan had nuclear weapons.

If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, its influence and that of Hamas and Hezbollah are strengthened.

Even with the best intentions, you can have a nuclear war, a nuclear holocaust, through miscalculation, through accidents.

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

A nuclear weapon is not just a football that you can use at will.

Every thinking person fears nuclear war, and every technological nation plans for it.

I would not recommend the use of any atomic weapon, no matter how small, when both sides have the power to destroy the world.

There's no way you can possibly intellectually justify, 'Well, it's okay for the Western Judeo-Christian countries to have nuclear weapons, but not for a country like Iran.' That logic goes nowhere fast.

The greatest threat that the world faces is a nuclear Iran. A nuclear North Korea is already troubling enough.

This is the reality of nuclear weapons: they may trigger a world war; a war which, unlike previous ones, destroys all of civilization.

I worry about a democracy having nuclear weapons as much as a dictatorship having nuclear weapons.

My feelings of revulsion and foreboding about nuclear weapons had not changed an iota since 1945, and they have never left me. Since I was 14, the overriding objective of my life has been to prevent the occurrence of nuclear war.

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

It is not viable for one country to demand a right to increase and upgrade its nuclear weapons capabilities while asking others to eliminate theirs.

Some day, somebody is going to have to start talking about what happens to us all a decade from now if we let these North Koreans and the Iranians go forward with their nuclear weapons program.

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 can't understand why anyone would want nuclear warheads. If you shoot them off, it's not like you can take over that country-all you do is kill millions of people.

There is no direct evidence that nuclear weapons prevented a world war. Conversely, it is known that they nearly caused one.

In a world which is armed to its teeth with nuclear weapons, every quarrel or difference of opinion may lead to violence of a kind quite different from what is possible today.

The two biggest threats to international security in 2013 are Iran getting a nuclear weapon, and Iran being bombed to stop it getting a nuclear weapon. Both would precipitate a long and dangerous conflict in an already unstable Middle East. Both would be a disaster.

The human species really could have faced global thermonuclear war. During seventy years of Cold War we grew used to it.

The decision to use any kind of nuclear weapon, even the tactical ones, presents such a risk of it getting out of control so quickly …