Robert McNamara Quotes

Nuclear weapons exist. They probably always will. And they work, with horrible efficiency. They threaten the very future of our species. We have no choice but to manage that risk. Never again can we put the task out of our minds; nor trivialize it; nor make it routine.

The combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons can destroy nations.

The truth is, as long as nuclear weapons exist, we are not safe.

As long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.

There has been a transition from a nuclear-annihilation scenario to an isolated-terrorist-nuclear-bomb scenario. But we're still locked into a mind-set that nuclear war would be so overwhelming that any kind of preparedness would be futile.

We still live with this unbelievable threat over our heads of nuclear war. I mean, are we stupid? Do we think that the nuclear threat has gone, that the nuclear destruction of the planet is not imminent? It's a delusion to think it's gone away.

The atomic bomb means the end of world war.

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

Any possession of nuclear weapons in the Middle East is a danger.

I view current US nuclear weapons policy as immoral, illegal, militarily unnecessary and dreadfully dangerous, creating unacceptable risks to other nations and to our own"

I have no hope that a nuclear disaster can be avoided.

People tend to forget about nuclear weapons. We think they are going to remain in silos for the rest of time. As long as they exist, they are going to be used.

They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations.

You know, people have actually changed the way they think about nuclear weapons now, post-Cold War, post-9/11. The threat of nuclear weapons is not so much Russia attacking the United States, China. It's not a state-to-state - it's obviously terrorism; it's proliferation.

The risk of just one terrorist with just one nuclear weapon is a risk we simply cannot afford to take.

And beyond that, the next issue is how do we guarantee one of these weapons, not necessarily this missile, but nuclear weapons ends up in the hands of Al Qaeda or some other terrorist group.

This programme to stop nuclear by 2020 is just crazy. If there were a nuclear war, and humanity were wiped out, the Earth would breathe a sigh of relief.

This diffusion of nuclear weapons is terrible…terrible. Imagine a world with a large number of states with nuclear bombs.

Now that the threat against which we need nuclear weapons is no longer clear, all that is clear is the threat of the nuclear weapons themselves—to the environment and the human race.

The centerpiece of a serious campaign to prevent nuclear terrorism … should be denying terrorists access to weapons and their components. After all, no nuclear weapons or material means no nuclear terrorism; it’s that simple.

For decades, we and the Soviets have lived under the threat of mutual assured destruction; if either resorted to the use of nuclear weapons, the other could retaliate and destroy the one who had started it. Is there either logic or morality in believing that if one side threatens to kill tens of millions of our people, our only recourse is to threaten killing tens of millions of theirs?

If there was a market in mass-produced portable nuclear weapons, we'd market them, too.

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

Nuclear weapons are the greatest national security risk to the United States, and they are the most important weapons in our arsenal.

The fewer nuclear weapons possessed by the fewest countries is safer, not only because of the possibility of a nuclear accident but also a nuclear war.