Robert McNamara Quotes

Politics and war are remarkably similar situations.

War is the ultimate tool of politics.

War is the continuation of politics by other means.

I think that war is diplomacy by other means, for sure, and there have been wars that have been fought for righteous reasons. There are wars that have had to be fought, and there will probably continue to be.

Politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.

War is the continuation of politics." In this sense war is politics and war itself is political action.... It can therefore be said that politics is war without bloodshed while war is politics with bloodshed.

All war represents a failure of diplomacy.

War is regarded as nothing but the continuation of state policy with other means.

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.

I am too realistic to believe in pacifism. But, nevertheless, the use of force should always be the last resort.

Are we going to start a war, the end of which we cannot see?

The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions ... but by iron and blood.

War is an act of force, and to the application of that force there is no limit. Each of the adversaries forces the hand of the other, and a reciprocal action results which in theory can have no limit.

War is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.

War is politics by other means.

For all the flailing and huffing and puffing, there is a kind of fatality about the process of war-making and the excuses we find for it, the consolation of belligerence in politics.

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

If they want peace, nations should avoid the pin-pricks that precede cannon shots.

I have never advocated war except as a means of peace.

Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, or hope to extinguish the ambition of others.

We pacifists have not ceased to point to the grave danger of armaments and to insist on their curtailment.

Politics are very much like war. We may even have to use poison gas at times.

War is the trade of Kings.

War can only be abolished through war, and in order to get rid of the gun it is necessary to take up the gun.