Nuclear war

“ People of the Soviet Union, there is only one sane policy, for your country and mine, to preserve our civilization in this modern age: A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. ”

“ Many of these American service men and women witnessed the awesome potential of nuclear weapons. In honoring these veterans, let us rededicate ourselves once more to our national goal of a world at peace in which nuclear war is unthinkable. ”

“ I speak of peace because of the new face of war. Total war makes no sense in an age where great powers can maintain large and relatively invulnerable nuclear forces and refuse to surrender without resort to those forces. It makes no sense in an age where a single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all the allied air forces in the Second World War. It makes no sense in an age when the deadly poisons produced by a nuclear exchange would be carried by wind and water and soil and seed to the far corners of the globe and to generations yet unborn. ”

“ We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth—but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced. ”

“ Your awareness is needed in saving the world from nuclear war.
You may be the "Hundredth Monkey" . . . .
You may furnish the added consciousness energy to create the shared awareness of the urgent necessity to rapidly achieve a nuclear-free world.
"If I knew then what I know now, I never would have helped to develop the bomb," spoke George Kistiakowsky, an advisor to President Eisenhower who worked on the Manhattan Project.
Let's look at the almost incredible nuclear monster we have created in the last forty years on planet Earth . . . . ”

“ For the past 20 years we've believed that no war will be launched as long as each side knows it can retaliate with a deadly counterstrike. Well, I believe there's a better way of eliminating the threat of nuclear war. It is a Strategic Defense Initiative aimed ultimately at finding a nonnuclear defense against ballistic missiles. It's the most hopeful possibility of the nuclear age. ”

“ That nuclear war did not receive extensive attention during the early postwar years was a consequence of the nation's short-lived monopoly of atomic weapons and the complexity of military decision making in a dangerous international environment. ”

“ Any fighting unit in a nuclear war will have to be small, mobile, inconspicuous and capable of independent action. Such units whether on sea, land or in the air cannot rely and will not rely on fixed lines of supply. There will be no possibility and no need to occupy territory and to fight at fixed and definite fronts. If a war should be fought for military reasons and for military advantage, it will consist of short and sharp local engagements involving skill and advanced techniques and not involving masses that slaughter and are being slaughtered. ”

“ When you do not communicate with your adversaries and when you know that war is going to be devastating if it comes, it is a mistake to leave any ambiguity about policy. Those ambiguities can only be removed by frank and candid dialogue. The greatest nuclear dangers we faced during the Cold War were addressed primarily by being able to prevent war against the United States and our allies by assured survivability of our nuclear deterrents and assured destruction of any nation launching an attack on us. ”

“ Cities like Prague that existed for centuries, that embodied the beauty and the talent of so much of humanity, would have ceased to exist.
Today, the cold war has disappeared but thousands of those weapons have not. In a strange turn of history, the threat of global nuclear war has gone down, but the risk of a nuclear attack has gone up. More nations have acquired these weapons. Testing has continued. Black market trade in nuclear secrets and nuclear materials abound. The technology to build a bomb has spread. Terrorists are determined to buy, build, or steal one. ”

“ And along with the Russians, we're on our way to destroying the missiles and the bombers that carry 9,000 nuclear warheads. We've come so far so fast in this post-cold-war world that it's easy to take the decline of the nuclear threat for granted. ”

“ One is that factories are located in cities, and these factories support the war effort. The other reason is that cities are centers of transportation through which the supplies of war materials pass. By destroying these centers the flow of the war supplies can be interrupted.
Nuclear warfare is likely to be quite different from past conflicts. The great concentration of firepower which a nuclear weapon represents makes it possible to attack on enemy anywhere, at very short notice. ”

“ And the passions of many military and political leaders and terrorists are such that sooner or later they will unleash every bit of destructiveness they can get their hands on!
A nuclear war could blow enough fine dust into our stratosphere to filter out sunlight and create a nuclear winter that could freeze out most human and animal life on the planet. ”

“ Thus, the possibility of a serious increase in ultraviolet radiation has been added to widespread radioactive fallout as a fearsome consequence of the large-scale use of nuclear weapons. And it is likely that we must reckon with still other complex and subtle processes, global in scope, which could seriously threaten the health of distant populations in the event of an all-out nuclear war. ”

“ For the bulk of the world's population, internal and external radiation doses of natural origin amount to less than one-tenth rad annually. Thus nuclear testing to date does not appear to pose a severe radiation threat in global terms. But a nuclear war releasing 10 or 100 times the total yield of all previous weapons tests could pose a far greater worldwide threat. ”

“ In a nuclear war, even in a limited one, the situation will probably be quite different. That noncombatants suffer in wars is not new. In a nuclear war, this suffering may well be increased further due to the radioactive poisons which kill friend and foe, soldier and civilian alike. ”

“ It is true that most of the horror and tragedy of nuclear war would be visited on the populations subject to direct attack, who would doubtless have to cope with extreme and perhaps insuperable obstacles in seeking to reestablish their own societies. ”

“ In the more important centers of western civilization the chief item of public expenditure is preparation for a war of air, water and land machines that may extend technologically into a nuclear war. While we have no precedent that would enable us to gauge the consequences of an extensive nuclear war it seems reasonable to assume that it would further fragment an already fragmented European continent. ”

“ A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. I pray God that we can rid the world of these dangerous weapons, in part by finding a reliable defense against them. Our negotiators in Geneva are working hard to reach a breakthrough. ”

“ Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power. In the ruins of two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this nation made a pledge, and we renew that pledge tonight: Whatever the duration of this struggle, and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men -- free people will set the course of history.
Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. ”

“ We are developing clean weapons which are effective by their blast and their heat, but which produce little radioactivity. Of course, blast and heat will do damage only near the point of detonation. Radioactivity may be carried by the winds and escape the control of man to a considerable extent.
It is clear that war is and always has been terrible. We refuse to believe that wars will always be with us but we cannot disregard the danger of war as long as the world is half free and half slave. ”

“ No instrument, not even a weapon, is evil in itself. Everything depends on the way in which it is used.
Public opinion has all but persuaded itself that nuclear weapons will be used not for a military objective but to terrorize and kill the greatest number of people. This is technically feasible. In fact, it does not even require the atomic bomb. For the last hundred years this possibility has been with us. Bacteriological warfare may cause widespread destruction. Yet no one has resorted to this horrible way of making war. ”

“ Thousands of nuclear warheads that are stockpiled in various locations coupled with programs to further develop these inhuman weapons have created a new atmosphere of repression and the rule of the machines of war, threatening the international community and even the citizens of the countries that possess them. ”

“ The great mobility of nuclear firepower makes it highly probable that the nuclear conflict will be short. What the factory produces during this conflict will not affect the outcome of the fighting. The only weapons on which anyone can rely are 142 the weapons which are already stockpiled. Therefore, it will be militarily useless to bomb factories.
The same fact of mobility also implies that no great flow of war material will need to be maintained. Practically all movement can be executed by light and fast methods, by planes, submarines, and small battle groups. ”

“ The Warsaw Summit Communique states— (A) with respect to the nuclear deterrence capability of NATO, "As a means to prevent conflict and war, credible deterrence and defence is essential. Therefore, deterrence and defence, based on an appropriate mix of nuclear, conventional, and missile defence capabilities, remains a core element of our overall strategy. . . The fundamental purpose of NATO's nuclear capability is to preserve peace, prevent coercion, and deter aggression. Nuclear weapons are unique. ”

“ It would place the nuclear powers in a position to deal more effectively with one of the greatest hazards which man faces in 1963, the further spread of nuclear arms. It would increase our security—it would decrease the prospects of war. ”

“ If nuclear military capabilities are to provide deterrence for the nation they need to be relevant to the emerging global strategic environment. The current stockpile was designed to meet the needs of a bipolar world with roots in the Cold War era. A more complex, chaotic, and dynamic security environment is emerging. In order to uphold the Department's mission to ensure an effective nuclear deterrent.... we must ensure our nuclear capabilities meet the challenges of known and potential geopolitical and technological trends. ”

“ In a short and highly mobile war neither centers of supply and communication nor massive means of production will count. If cities are bombed, this will be done primarily for reasons of psychological warfare. We must be and we are prepared for this kind of war but only as a measure of retaliation. There is good reason to believe that as long as we are prepared for all-out war, our civilian population will not suffer from a nuclear attack. ”

“ The task of building the peace lies with the leaders of every nation, large and small. For the great powers have no monopoly on conflict or ambition. The cold war is not the only expression of tension in this world--and the nuclear race is not the only arms race. Even little wars are dangerous in a nuclear world. The long labor of peace is an undertaking for every nation--and in this effort none of us can remain unaligned. To this goal none can be uncommitted. ”

“ In 1949 the Soviets exploded their first nuclear bomb. In 1952 the British did the same; in 1960, the French; and in 1964, the Chinese.
Although many nuclear bombs have been exploded for test purposes, the two over Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been the only ones used in time of war. ”

“ National weakness — real or perceived — can tempt aggression and thus cause war. That's why the United States cannot neglect its military strength. We must and we will remain strong. But with equal determination, the United States and all countries must find ways to control and reduce the horrifying danger that is posed by the world's enormous stockpiles of nuclear arms.
This has been a concern of every American president since the moment we first saw what these weapons could do. ”

“ Moreover, it now appears that a massive attack with many large-scale nuclear detonations could cause such widespread and long-lasting environmental damage that the aggressor country might suffer serious physiological, economic, and environmental effects even without a nuclear response by the country attacked. ”

“ We set sail on this new sea because there is new knowledge to be gained, and new rights to be won, and they must be won and used for the progress of all people. For space science, like nuclear science and all technology, has no conscience of its own. Whether it will become a force for good or ill depends on man, and only if the United States occupies a position of pre-eminence can we help decide whether this new ocean will be a sea of peace or a new terrifying theater of war. ”

“ If we abandon our light and mobile weapons, we shall enable the Red bloc to take over one country after another, close to their borders, as opportunities arise. The free nations cannot maintain the massive armies throughout the world which would be required to resist such piecemeal aggression. On the other hand, the flexible power of clean nuclear explosives would put us 145 in a position where we could resist aggression in any part of the world, practically at a moment’s notice. ”