Herman Kahn quotes - page 2

The widespread diffusion of nuclear weapons would make many nations able, and in some cases also create the pressure, to aggravate an on-going crisis, or even touch off a war between two other powers for purposes of their own. (Herman Kahn)
It is immoral from almost any point of view to refuse to defend yourself and others from very grave and terrible threats, even as there are limits to the means that can be used in such defense. View quote
Herman Kahn
A total nuclear freeze is counterproductive - especially now, when technology is rapidly changing and the Soviets have some important strategic advantages. View quote
Herman Kahn
A healthy and fully functioning society must allocate its resources among a variety of competing interests, all of which are more or less valid but none of which should take precedence over national security. View quote
Herman Kahn
Only those who are ideologically opposed to military programs think of the defense budget as the first and best place to get resources for social welfare needs. View quote
Herman Kahn
New developments in weapon systems during the 1950s and early 1960s created a situation that was most dangerous, and even conducive to accidental war. View quote
Herman Kahn
I am against the whole cliche of the moment. View quote
Herman Kahn
There was no race - but to the extent that there was an arms competition, it was almost entirely on the Soviet side, first to catch up and then to surpass the Americans. View quote
Herman Kahn
In a world which is armed to its teeth with nuclear weapons, every quarrel or difference of opinion may lead to violence of a kind quite different from what is possible today. View quote
Herman Kahn
Anything that reduces war-related destruction should not be considered altogether immoral. View quote
Herman Kahn
Actually, even with tested missiles, results of attacks are not really mathematically predictable. The probability of extreme variations in performance, the upper and lower limits, cannot be calculated accurately. But laymen or narrow professionals persist in regarding the matter as a simple problem in engineering and physics. (Herman Kahn)
Few people differentiate between having 10 million dead, 50 million dead, or 100 million dead. It all seems too horrible. View quote
Herman Kahn
As far as patriots and nationalists are concerned, I believe that the Homicide Pact system has many of the same drawbacks as the Doomsday Machine, though not in so extreme a form. The major advantage of the Homicide Pact is that one is not in the bizarre situation of being killed with his own equipment; while intellectuals may not so distinguish, the policy makers and practical men prefer being killed by the other side. It is just because this view no longer strikes some people as bizarre that it is so dangerous. View quote
Herman Kahn
The next picture is a Goliath with four arms, reading a book, lofting a 1000-pound dumbbell, aiming a pistol at a target, painting a picture. The enemy can do everything. "He's a giant, seven feet tall with four arms, each with two biceps. Each arm can, of course, be used simultaneously." View quote
Herman Kahn
The final outcome of benevolent, informed, and intelligent decisions may turn out to be disastrous. But choices must be made; dies must be cast. View quote
Herman Kahn
In addition to the obvious dangers, there is another subtle but by no means minor disadvantage to a pure deterrence posture: the threat of mutual suicide is a very uninspiring concept, no matter how logical it may seem. If it happened to involve explicitly the annihilation of all humanity it would also be totally immoral; one doubts if it could long remain an important part of United States policy. View quote
Herman Kahn
Even though it is the ultimate in Type I Deterrence, the Doomsday Machine is an unsatisfactory basis for a weapon system. It is most improbable that either the Soviet or U. S. governments would ever authorize procuring such a machine. The project is expensive enough so it would be subject to a searching budgetary and operational scrutiny-a scrutiny which would raise questions it could never survive. View quote
Herman Kahn
Even if military advantages were not to be had by deliberately limiting attack to counterforce targets, I suspect that most governments would still prefer to observe such limits. Almost nobody wants to go down in history as the first man to kill 100,000 people. View quote
Herman Kahn
The emphasis is deliberate. This deterrent is more efficient since in most practical cases deterrents destroy populations-not decision makers. View quote
Herman Kahn
I'm against ignorance. View quote
Herman Kahn
He ambles along the platform."Lots of times people say about systems analysis, why don't you guys do an experiment? What the hell are you sitting here figuring things? Why don't you go out and run an experiment? Well we'd love to run experiments,but there are two difficulties. One, in realistic experiments, people get shot down. That's not the major difficulty. We're willing to do it." The audience laughs. "We are. The real difficulty is we're talking weapons which aren't in existence yet." (Herman Kahn)
The difference between megaton and kiloton is very large, in some ways larger than the difference between kiloton and ton. Megaton weapons are comparable to gross forces of nature, such as earthquakes and hurricanes. View quote
Herman Kahn
Here is another form of deterrence which, while not a Doomsday Machine, is still an"ultimate" of a sort. This could be called the Homicide Pact Machine, an attempt to make a failure of Type I Deterrence mean automatic mutual homicide. The adherents to this somewhat more practical device hope to divide the work of deterrence in a natural way: We destroy the enemy and the enemy destroys us, neither of us cheating by buying any effective Counterforce as Insurance for our respective societies. The Homicide Pact Machine is clearly more satisfactory to both humanitarians and neutrals than the Doomsday Machine and both should make the distinction. View quote
Herman Kahn
In any case, the thought of a catastrophe or holocaust unleashed by accidental (i.e. nonhistorical) causes might be very unsettling to any Marxists who had a passionate belief in a deterministic theory of history. Instead of saying "It is inevitable that we will take over the world in fifty years", this Marxist would have to add, "Always assuming some capitalist fool doesn't press the button." View quote
Herman Kahn
I'm against sloppy, emotional thinking. View quote
Herman Kahn