War Risks Quotes

If an officer is in pursuit [of guerrillas] he would be perfectly justified in retaliating on the farmers among whom they mingle. It is not our wish or policy to destroy the farmers or their farms, but of course there is and must be a remedy for all Evils, if the farmers of a neighborhood encourage or even permit in their midst a set of Guerrillas they cannot expect to escape the necessary consequences.... These principles of war and common sense should be made familiar to the people that they may clearly understand how ... they lay themselves clearly liable to all the risks of war without any of its excitement.

I think a weakened, fragmented, chaotic Iraq, which could happen if this isn’t done carefully, is more dangerous in the long run than a contained Saddam is now.

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

Once you start bombing in Syria, when you start looking for targets, there will be a lot.

[Nuclear war]... may not be desirable.

Sophisticated modern weapons have not eliminated the uncertainty that puts war and warlike activities "in the province of chance" and makes war an extremely dangerous activity with results that are unpredictable and depend as much on "moral force" as on numbers and technology.

I think one can easily make a case for taking out Saddam Hussein. In fact, one could probably be made on humanitarian grounds alone. But just as there's a downside risk to doing nothing about this man, there is a very serious downside risk to invading the country.

As I've said many times and publicly, a war between China and Taiwan that involves the United States is a lose-lose-lose.

Inclined to peace by his temper and situation, it was easy for [Augustus] to discover that Rome, in her present exalted situation, had much less to hope than to fear from the chance of arms; and that, in the prosecution of remote wars, the undertaking became every day more difficult, the event more doubtful, and the possession more precarious and less beneficial.

If I were an Englishman, I should esteem the man who advised a war with China to be the greatest living enemy of my country. You would be beaten in the end, and perhaps a revolution in India would follow.

Nothing is lost with peace; all may be with war.

Somebody said that carrier pilots were the best in the world, and they must be or there wouldn't be any of them left alive.

Here, in Cork district, you have in combination all the dangers which war can inflict.

Although biological weapons are highly dangerous, their actual use in war and in terrorist attacks has been relatively rare

Embarking upon war is always dangerous for national leaders because it makes them more than ever at the mercy of events. When domestic opinion is acutely divided, however, war can be politically lethal for its makers.

No soldier outlives a thousand chances.