Conflict Consequences Quotes

Never, never, never believe any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on the strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter. The statesman who yields to war fever must realize that once the signal is given, he is no longer the master of policy but the slave of unforeseeable and uncontrollable events. Antiquated War Offices, weak, incompetent, or arrogant Commanders, untrustworthy allies, hostile neutrals, malignant Fortune, ugly surprises, awful miscalculations — all take their seats at the Council Board on the morrow of a declaration of war. Always remember, however sure you are that you could easily win, that there would not be a war if the other man did not think he also had a chance.

Against war one might say that it makes the victor stupid and the vanquished malicious. In its favor, that in producing these two effects it barbarizes, and so makes the combatants more natural. For culture it is a sleep or a wintertime, and man emerges from it stronger for good and for evil.

Women have always been the primary victims of war. Women lose their husbands, their fathers, their sons in combat. Women often have to flee from the only homes they have ever known. Women are often the refugees from conflict and sometimes, more frequently in today's warfare, victims. Women are often left with the responsibility, alone, of raising the children.

War is not popular politically because there is always a cost—a cost in people and a cost in money.

Great is the guilt of an unnecessary war.

The people who died in the Twin Towers in that terrible crime mattered. The people who were bombed to death in dusty villages in Afghanistan didn't matter, even though it now seems that their numbers were greater. The people who will die in Iraq don't matter.

A bloody battle leaves even the victor bloodied. But compromise also has its costs—particularly when it alienates the majority and is taken as a sign of weakness.

It is good that war is so horrible, or we might grow to like it.

The scientific and technological discoveries that have made war so infinitely more terrible for us are part of the same process that has knit us all so much more closely together.

I think it is tragic that a situation should arise where civilians on any side are killed. But it is almost a cliche to say that it is virtually unavoidable and this isn't unique to us alone.

Who does not know the evils of war cannot appreciate its benefits.

They are more than men at the outset of their battles; at the end they are less than the women.

The more I've traveled to war zones, the more I'm convinced that the impact and the effects are way beyond anything we can even begin to imagine.

Whenever you have a war, the civilians and the innocents will pay the price. That's in any war, any war is a bad war.

For harmony makes small states great, while discord undermines the mightiest empires.

Except when war is waged in a desert, noncombatants, also known as civilians or "the people," constitute the great majority of those affected.

These [Hamas] leaders are making their people killed by others…. They should take care of the lives of their own people.

When mom and dad went to war the only prisoners they took were the children

If war is glorified, it tends to eclipse the policies it is meant to serve.

We were spending American blood and treasure to liberate the people of Afghanistan from one of the most brutal regimes on the face of the earth. That we would not use that moment to press for women's rights seems to me unthinkable.

All that happens is that the destruction of human beings - unless they're Americans - is called collateral damage.

Anyway, there were more after the war than before.

Haven’t we learned that when you go to war, the outcome is unpredictable.

The prescription for endless war poses a far greater danger to Americans than perceived enemies do, for reasons the terrorist organisations understand very well.

I think we've, again, got to be extremely careful; otherwise we'll misunderstand what's going on in Iraq and in Syria today. Of course, you can't say that those of us who removed Saddam in 2003 bear no responsibility for the situation in 2015.