Nuclear Arms Race Quotes

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.

The nuclear arms race has no military purpose. Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons. Their existence only adds to our perils.

While it may be theoretically possible to demonstrate the risks inherent in any treaty... the far greater risk to our security are the risks of unrestricted testing, the risks of a nuclear arms race, the risks of new nuclear powers.

A nuclear Iran is a threat to America's national security, and it is a threat to Israel's national security. We cannot afford to have a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region of the world.

That is potentially putting us all in the target hairs now is the reactivation of a new nuclear arms race. This arms race and this cold war is potentially hotter than it's been at any time in my lifetime.

I think it's yet to be seen how that is going to shape up. But I can tell we all know that President-elect [Donald] Trump doesn't like the Iran deal, thinks it's a terrible document, thinks it will create a nuclear arms race in the Middle East, which it already is beginning to do.

Our tolerance of the intolerable found a low threshold as early as the late 1950s with the grotesque excesses of McCarthyism, which destroyed so many honest lives, and then with the insane nuclear arms race and confrontations.

Without a deal [with Iran], the international sanctions regime will unravel with little ability to reimpose them. With this deal, we have the possibility of peacefully resolving a major threat to regional and international security. Without a deal, we risk even more war in the Middle East and other countries in the region would feel compelled to pursue their own nuclear programs, threatening a nuclear arms race in the most volatile region in the world.

Why I oppose the nuclear-arms race: I prefer the human race.

The arms race is a race between nuclear weapons and ourselves.

I most sincerely wish that the world in which we live be free from the threat of a nuclear holocaust and from the ruinous arms race. It is my cherished desire that peace be not separated from freedom which is the right of every nation. This I desire and for this I pray.

Somehow we must transform the dynamics of the world power struggle from the negative nuclear arms race which no one can win to a positive contest to harness man's creative genius for the purpose of making peace and prosperity a reality for all of the nations of the world.

Instead of starting a new nuclear arms race, now is the time to reclaim our Nation's position of leadership on nuclear nonproliferation efforts.

The chief task was to stop the arms race before it brought utter disaster. However, after the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, any rationale for having nuclear weapons disappeared.

But scientists on both sides of the iron curtain played a very significant role in maintaining the momentum of the nuclear arms race throughout the four decades of the Cold War.

The emotional security and political stability in this country entitle us to be a nuclear power.

We must shift the arms race into a 'peace race'.

I think that Iran with a nuclear weapon is extremely destabilizing. I think it could precipitate a nuclear arms race in the region.

If you go on with this nuclear arms race, all you are going to do is make the rubble bounce.

The nuclear arms race is like two people sitting in a pool of gasoline spending all their time making matches.

...convince all nuclear powers, including those which have been more reluctant up to now, of the necessity to respect the "vital interests" of all peoples and to become fully aware of the profound truth of the following conclusion which the United Nations approved by unanimity four years ago: "Mankind is confronted with a choice: we must halt the arms race and proceed to disarmament or face annihilation".

The alternative, no limits on Iran's nuclear program, no inspections, an Iran that's closer to a nuclear weapon, the risk of regional nuclear arms race, and the greater risk of war - all that would endanger our [American] security.

I agree that we need a working relationship with Russia to deescalate a nuclear arms race, to resolve the crisis in Syria.

So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride - the temptation blithely to declare yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.

We will stop Iran from becoming a nuclear power. We will stop that nuclear arms race that could happen in the Middle East. We will also make that Putin knows we have brigades in eastern Europe to make sure we deter his aggression. Peace through strength works.

In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.

In science it often happens that scientists say, "You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken..."

As a military man who has given half a century of active service I say in all sincerity that the nuclear arms race has no military purpose. Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons. Their existence only adds to our perils because of the illusions they have generated. There are powerful voices around the world who still give credence to the old Roman precept - if you desire peace, prepare for war. This is absolute nuclear nonsense.

My activities, for which I gratefully accept this Award, are today what they have been for over thirty-five years and will be for the rest of my life: to counter governmental secrecy about the nuclear arms race that threatens the survival of life on earth; and to help build a world movement that will prevent a first use since Nagasaki of nuclear explosions, prevent or end interventions that could lead to such an event, and bring about a world free of nuclear weapons.

The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.

The weapons of war must be abolished before they abolish us.

Long before the terrifying potential of the arms race was recognized, there was a widespread instinctive abhorrence of nuclear weapons, and a strong desire to get rid of them.