Mutual Deterrence Quotes

It is thus that mutual cowardice keeps us in peace. Were one-half of mankind brave and one-half cowards, the brave would always be beating the cowards. Were all brave, they would leave a very uneasy life; all would be continually fighting; but being all cowards, we go on very well.

The basic reason Russia has not attacked us is that we can outproduce her.

The lesson of the Cold War is that against nuclear weapons, only nuclear weapons can hold the peace.

When we get to the point, as we one day will, that both sides know that in any outbreak of general hostilities, regardless of the element of surprise, destruction will be both reciprocal and complete, possibly we will have sense enough to meet at the conference table with the understanding that the era of armaments has ended and the human race must conform its actions to this truth or die.

Yes, we all know that there's a good chance the missiles won't work properly when the government people finally come to get them, but over the years we've stopped worrying about that. Deep down, most of us feel it's probably better this way. After all, if there are families in faraway countries with their own backyard missiles, armed and pointed back at us, we would hope that they too have found a much better use for them.

The only thing that kept the Cold War cold was the mutual deterrence afforded by nuclear weapons.

Today on the NATO line, our military forces face east to prevent a possible invasion. On the other side of the line, the Soviet forces also face east to prevent their people from leaving.

A nuclear exchange confined to military targets seems more possible, not less, when both sides have a sure second strike capability. Then you might have a more stable balance of terror.

Imagine a room awash in gasoline, and there are two implacable enemies in that room. One of them has nine thousand matches. The other has seven thousand matches. Each of them is concerned about who's ahead, who's stronger. Well that's the kind of situation we are actually in. The amount of weapons that are available to the United States and the Soviet Union are so bloated, so grossly in excess of what's needed to dissuade the other, that if it weren't so tragic, it would be laughable. What is necessary is to reduce the matches and to clean up the gasoline.

An economic version of mutual deterrence is preserving the uneasy status quo between China and Japan.

Even during the years of the Cold War, the intense confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States, we always avoided any direct clash between our civilians and, most certainly, between our military.

The barn doors are open, and the horses are running out because we've got guns all over the place. It's basically a cold war for individuals: you've got a nuclear bomb, and I've got a nuclear bomb, and the only thing stopping us from using them is the fact we both have them.

...but highly placed sources within the Kennedy Administration disagreed: "[T]he assumption that the strategic nuclear balance mattered in any way was wrong... As far as I am concerned, it made no difference... If my memory serves me correctly, we had some five thousand strategic nuclear warheads as against t heir three hundred. Can anyone seriously tell me that their having three hundred and forty would have made any difference? The military balance wasn't changed. I didn't believe it then, and I don't believe it now..."

I appeal to the responsibility of the blocs and the major powers, not to seek security in the arms race, but rather in a meeting for joint disarmament and arms limitations.

The only sure basis of an alliance is for each party to be equally afraid of the other

Clearly, the Iranians are well aware that Teheran would be turned into a field of glass and sand if they ever stepped toward open war with Israel or Saudi Arabia.

Our capacity to retaliate must be, and is, massive in order to deter all forms of aggression.

Have we raised the threshold of horror so high that nothing short of a nuclear strike qualifies as a 'real' war? Are we to spend the rest of our lives in this state of high alert with guns pointed at each other's heads and fingers trembling on the trigger?