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war, warfare

Thursday 2nd of October 2025

2024 Endorsement War hawks wanting war with Iran Vote for Trump — he'll bring it on, baby!  ★ ★ ★ Kwiplers say I really think they're crazy, don't U  © 2024 Kwiple.com
Artificial intelligence China, Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo. Elon Musk, 5:33 AM - Sep 4, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Artificial intelligence If any major military power pushes ahead with AI weapon development, a global arms race is virtually inevitable, and the endpoint of this technological trajectory is obvious: autonomous weapons will become the Kalashnikovs of tomorrow. “Autonomous Weapons: An Open Letter from AI & Robotics Researchers,” Future of Life Institute, July 28, 2015 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Autocrats say War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four © 2023 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Estimated percentage of Americans for whose entire lives the United States has been at war: 21 For the majority of whose lives the United States has been at war: 46 Harper's Index, December 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
By the numbers Factor by which more Americans died in school shootings than in combat last year: 3 Harper's Index, August 2019 © 2019 Kwiple.com
Cold War 2.0 [L]oose talk of a US-China conflict is no longer far-fetched. Countries do not easily change their spots: China is the middle kingdom wanting  redress for the age of western humiliation; America is the dangerous nation seeking monsters to destroy. Both are playing to type. The question is whether global stability can survive either of them insisting that they must succeed. The likeliest alternative to today's US-China stand-off is not a kumbaya meeting-of-minds, but war. Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus Just between June and November [2021], 163,000 Covid-19 deaths in the US alone could have been prevented by vaccination, estimates the Kaiser Family Foundation.  That’s nearly double all the American deaths in war in Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq combined — and the unvaccinated continue to die, pointlessly. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, January 13, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Cyber warfare The good news about cyber warfare is that it can never rival the damage caused by nuclear weapons. The bad news is that it is permanent war. Edward Luce, The Retreat of Westsern Liberalism  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Death Death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war. Donald Rumsfeld © 2016 Kwiple.com
Democracy After each war there is a little less democracy to save. Brooks Atkinson © 2024 Kwiple.com
Democracy The combination of a would-be authoritarian and a major crisis can, therefore, be deadly to democracy. Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, How Democracies Die  [because of “rally ’round the flag” effects] © 2018 Kwiple.com
Democracy It is impossible to excel at disinformation and democracy at the same time. Thomas Rid, Active Measures © 2022 Kwiple.com
Foreign relations Jaw, jaw, is better than war, war. Harold Macmillan © 2020 Kwiple.com
Government For decades we have attacked it, redirected it, outsourced it, and filled it with incompetents and cronies. Yes, it still works well enough when we need it to blow up some small country, but those branches of it designed to help out Americans of “lower socioeconomic status,” as the scientists would put it, are now bare. Thomas Frank, Rendevous with Oblivion © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun violence All developed nations regulate firearms more stringently than we do; compared with the citizens of twenty- two other high-income countries, Americans are ten times more likely to be killed by guns. In the past fifty years alone, more civilians have lost their lives to firearms within the United States than have been killed in uniform in all war in American history. Adam Hochschild, New York Review of Books, April 5, 2018 © 2018 Kwiple.com
Gun violence [S]ince 1975, more Americans have  died from guns — including suicides, murders and accidents —  than in all the wars in United States history, going back to the American Revolution. … [W]e continue to lose 45,000 lives a year to guns. That's 123 lives lost a day. Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, May 25, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Ignorance Our army manned the air, it rammed the ramparts, it took over the airports, it did everything it had to do, and at Fort McHenry, under the rockets' red glare, it had nothing but victory. Donald Trump on the War of 1812 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Iraq War As you know, you go to war with the army you have, not the army you might want or wish to have a later time. Donald Rumsfeld, 2004, response to a soldier who asked why, nearly two years after the start of the war, soldiers had to pick through landfills to find scrap metal to up-armor vehicles with needed protection against IEDs (improvised explosive devices) © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiple dictionary chickenhawk (chik'ən hôk'), n. A person, usually Republican, who clamors for war but never volunteered or served on active duty in any war for which s/he was eligible for service. Also called a freeloader  or sponger. © 2015 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say If guns don't kill people, send soldiers to war without them © 2015 Kwiple.com
Luck For journalists who cover conflict zones, luck is like a blind trust fund. You can make withdrawals, but not deposits, and you never know how much is left. Allen Pizzey © 2017 Kwiple.com
Nukes  The atomic bomb was the turn of the screw. It made the prospect of future wars unendurable. It has led us up those last few steps to the mountain pass and beyond there is a different country. J. Robert Oppenheimer © 2023 Kwiple.com
Nukes By taking nuclear blackmail seriously, we have actually increased the overall chances of nuclear war.  If nuclear blackmail enables a Russian victory, the consequences will be incalculably awful. If any country with nuclear weapons can do whatever it likes, then law means nothing, no international order is possible, and catastrophe beckons at every turn. Countries without nuclear weapons will have to build them, on the logic that they will need nuclear deterrence in the future.  Nuclear proliferation would make nuclear war much more likely in the future. Timothy Snyder, New York Times, May 6, 2022, on Russia's threats to use nuclear weapons to guarantee a win in its war with Ukraine © 2023 Kwiple.com
Nukes The president of the United States for 50 years is followed at all times, 24 hours a day, by a military aide carrying a football that contains the nuclear codes that he would use and be authorized to use in the event of a nuclear attack on the United States. He could launch the kind of devasting attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress. He doesn't have to check with the courts. Dick Cheney, 2008 [It's a briefcase, not a football.] © 2016 Kwiple.com
Nukes Russia's nuclear talk is itself the weapon. … Russian propagandists want us to think that nuclear powers can never lose wars, on the logic that they could always deploy nuclear weapons to win. This is an ahistoric fantasy. Nuclear weapons did not bring the French victory in Algeria, nor did they preserve the British Empire. The Soviet Union lost its war in Afghanistan. America lost in Vietnam and in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Israel failed to win in Lebanon.  Nuclear powers lose wars with some regularity. Timothy Snyder, New York Times, May 6, 2022, on Russia's threats to use nuclear weapons to guarantee a win in its war with Ukraine © 2023 Kwiple.com
Nukes The spectre of nuclear war is back 25 years after the world believed it had been buried by the end of the cold war. Financial Times, November 16, 2016 © 2016 Kwiple.com
Peace Si vis pacem, para bellum [If you want peace, prepare for war] Roman saying © 2017 Kwiple.com
Planning Plans are useless, planning is essential. Dwight Eisenhower, after planning teh D-Day invasion © 2019 Kwiple.com
Reich wingers say They say we can't kill our way out of war. Really? Tell that to the Nazis. Oh wait, you can't because they're dead. We killed them. Sarah Palin © 2015 Kwiple.com
Resisters say They got money for war but can't feed the poor Placard, Los Angeles International Women's Day March, March 8, 2017 © 2017 Kwiple.com
Selfie I never went on TV one time during the [2016 presidential] campaign. Not once. You know why? Because politics is war. General Sherman would never have gone on TV to tell everyone his plans. I'd never tip my hand to the other side. Steve Bannon © 2016 Kwiple.com
Selfie  I know things I don't want to know – like how small a body gets when it is burned to death. Marie Colvin, war correspondent  © 2018 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say Countries having a McDonald's don't go to war with each other  © 2015 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say  In every single war that America has fought we have never asked for land afterwards ‐ except for enough to bury the Americans who gave the ultimate sacrifice for that freedom we went in for. Kevin McCarthy, 8:36 PM – Nov 26, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Sleepers at the wheel say Our weapons are so smart they only kill the bad guys  © 2016 Kwiple.com
Snapshot You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and will have war. Neville Chamberlain portrayed by Winston Churchill © 2020 Kwiple.com
State of the union They’ve kind of had it with wars and forever wars. Mark Milley, on Americans, quoted in Financial Times, March 1, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
State of the union c War — our biggest jobs program © 2016 Kwiple.com
Trust  You can trust a marine with your life, but not your money or your wife. Marine Corps saying © 2018 Kwiple.com
Ukraine It is impossible to win a war — or make enough headway to reach a favourable settlement — if you are limited to fighting the invader on your own soil. Edward Luce, Financial Times, December 13, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats say  If I say do it, they're going do it. Donald Trump, when asked what he would do if the US military refused to follow the [illegal] order he vowed to issue to kill ISIS family members in reprisal for attacks © 2018 Kwiple.com
War All war is absurd. For thousands of years, human beings have chosen to settle their differences by obliterating one another. And when we are not  obliterating one another, we spend an enormous amount of time coming up with better ways to obliterate one another the next  time around. It's all a little strange, if you think about it.  Malcolm Gladwell, The Bomber Mafia  © 2021 Kwiple.com
War An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile hoping it will eat him last. Winston Churchill © 2023 Kwiple.com
War As awkward as it is to say, part of the trauma of war seems to be giving it up. Sebastian Junger, Tribe: On Homecoming and Belonging © 2016 Kwiple.com
War Combat space is shrinking. War space is expanding. Chinese strategic doctrine © 2022 Kwiple.com
War Earth that never doubts nor fears, Earth that knows of death, not tears, Earth that bore with joyful ease Hemlock for Socrates, Earth that blossomed and was glad ’Neath the cross that Christ had, Shall rejoice and blossom too When the bullet reaches you. Charles Sorley, “All the Hills and Vales Along” © 2015 Kwiple.com
War The first lesson is that you can't lose a war if you have command of the air, and you can't win a war if you haven't. Gen. Jimmy Doolittle © 2023 Kwiple.com
War The future use of military forces, driven by autonomous systems, weaponized algor-  ithms, and hypersonic weapons, highlights the potential for a more destructive form of warfare in the twenty-first century. However, as the Russians and Chinese have demonstrated over the past decade, if objectives can be achieved without violence, most actors will do so. New ways of using information operations, lawfare, and deniable military and para- military activities offer different pathways to achieve strategic outcomes for state and nonstate actors. Mick Ryan, War Transformed  [2022] © 2022 Kwiple.com
War The god of war has gone over to the other side. Adolf Hitler, after the Battle of Stalingrad © 2015 Kwiple.com
War Happy is the city which in time of peace thinks of war Inscription in the Venetian armory © 2024 Kwiple.com
War Homo sapiens  was born armed. Alex Roland, War and Technology  © 2024 Kwiple.com
War I know that I shall meet my fate Somewhere among the clouds above; Those that I fight I do not hate, Those that I guard I do not love; My county is Kiltartan Cross, My countrymen Kiltartan's poor, No likely end could bring them loss Or leave them happier than before. Nor law, nor duty bade me fight, Nor public men, nor cheering crowds, A lonely impulse of delight Drove to this tumult in the clouds; I balanced all, brought all to mind, The years to come seemed waste of breath A waste of breath the years behind In balance with this life, this death. William Butler Yeats, “An Irish Airman Foresees His Death” © 2016 Kwiple.com
War I think that Americans – and this is not true just now, but over the years – are not fundamentally opposed to war. They're fundamentally opposed to losing wars. Tom Cotton © 2016 Kwiple.com
War  If a democracy does not trust its troops, then it shouldn't go to war. Jim Mattis, Call Sign Chaos: Learning to Lead © 2019 Kwiple.com
War If you could hear at every jolt, the blood Come gurgling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,— My friend, you would not tell with such high zest To children ardent for some desparate glory, The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. Wilfred Owen, “Dulce Et Decorun Est” © 2015 Kwiple.com
War [I]f you think the mission your country keeps sending you on is pointless or impossible and that you're only deploying to protect your  brothers and sisters in arms from danger, then it's not the Taliban or al-Qaeda or ISIS that's trying to kill you, it's America. Phil Klay, The Atlantic, May 2018 © 2016 Kwiple.com
War If you're gonna have rules for war, you should just have a rule that says no war. Other than that, we have to win. Ben Carson © 2015 Kwiple.com
War In modern times, when major powers invade smaller countries, they usually end up losing.  America failed in Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq — and also beat humiliating retreats after smaller military interventions in Somalia and Lebanon. The Soviet Union failed in Afghanistan; and Russia is now failing in Ukraine. … The few exceptions to the rule that great powers lose small wars seem to occur when the fighting and objective are clearly limited. If the conflict is genuinely a “special military operation” (to use Putin’s disingenuous term for  the invasion of Ukraine), then success is possible. In the 1991 Gulf war, the US-led coalition restricted its goals to expelling Saddam Hussein's Iraq from Kuwait.  Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, May 16, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
War In our heart of hearts believing Victory crowns the just, And the braggarts must Surely bite the dust, Press we to the field ungrieving, In our heart of hearts believing Victory crowns the just. Thomas Hardy, “Men Who March Away” © 2015 Kwiple.com
War In the early 20th century, the ratio of deaths in wars was roughly eight soldiers to every civilian. By the end of the 20th century, this was reversed. One soldier died for every eight civilians. We must reverse the meaning of that horrible American euphemism collateral damage. It is dead and injured soldiers  who are now the collateral damage of war. Civilian casualties are the main event. Fintan O'Toole, March 17, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
War In this country, “shared sacrifice” means putting a yellow ribbon around the oak tree an then going shopping. Alpha, an Air Force colonel attending the National Defense University, quoted by Edward Luce in Time to Start Thinking  © 2017 Kwiple.com
War It is hard to command forces to act in support of a delusion. Lawrence Freedman, Foreign Affairs, July/August 20 © 2023 Kwiple.com
War It is not coincidental that the few full-scale international wars that still take place in the world, such as the Iraq invasion of Kuwait, occur in places where wealth is old-fashioned material wealth. The Kuwaiti sheikhs could flee abroad, but the oil fields stayed put and were occupied. Yuval Noah Harari, Sapiens © 2016 Kwiple.com
War Let us not become so preoccupied with weapons that we lose sight of the fact that war itself is the real villain. Harry S. Truman © 2017 Kwiple.com
War Money is the artery of war. Peter the Great © 2023 Kwiple.com
War Not having to worry about the effects of wars — unless you enlist to fight in them — has nearly become a birthright of being American. Stephen Wertheim, New York Times, December 2, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
War Once soldiers derived their moral authority from their courage; but if they are not now putting themselves in harm's way on our behalf, will that affect their standing among civilians? Will they find themselves increasingly sidelined as leaner states outsource vital tasks to private security firms? Or will the consequence be, as has happened to some extent already in the US, that society itself is remilitarised through the reemployment in domestic policing of veterans and the surplus equipment they carried? Mark Mazower © 2017 Kwiple.com
War Profits and death grow marginal: Only the mourning and the mourned recall The wars we lose, the wars we win; And the world is — what it has been. Randall Jarrell, "The Range in the Desert" © 2023 Kwiple.com
War Soldier, in a curious land All across a swaying sea, Take her smile and lift her hand – Have no guilt of me. Soldier, when were soldiers true? If she's kind and sweet and gay, Use the wish I send to you – Lie not lone till day! Only for the nights that were, Soldier, and the dawns that came, When in sleep you turn to her Call her by my name. Dorothy Parker, “War Song,” 1944 © 2017 Kwiple.com
War Such is the redeeming feature of war; it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social organizations that have outlived their vitality. Karl Marx, “Another British Revelation” © 2023 Kwiple.com
War  Though the object of being a Great Power is to be able to fight a Great War,  the only way of remaining a Great Power is not to fight one. A. J. P. Taylor © 2022 Kwiple.com
War War is a condition; warfare is an activity. Alex Roland, War and Technology  © 2024 Kwiple.com
War War is to a man what motherhood is to a woman. Benito Mussolini © 2021 Kwiple.com
War War is too important to be left to the generals. Georges Clemenceau © 2019 Kwiple.com
War War is waged by men; not by beasts, or by gods. It is a peculiarly human activity. To call it a crime against mankind is to miss at least half its significance; it is also a punishment of a crime. Frederic Manning, The Middle Parts of Fortune  © 2016 Kwiple.com
War War is what happens when language fails. Margaret Atwood, The Robber Bride   © 2023 Kwiple.com
War War makes rattling good history; but Peace is poor reading. Thomas Hardy, The Dynasts © 2021 Kwiple.com
War War used to end by defeating the enemy's army, now war ends by defeating the enemy's people. None of us knew that before this war, and we had to learn it for the first time. Erich Ludendorff, German general during World War I © 2024 Kwiple.com
War We make war that we may live in peace. Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics © 2024 Kwiple.com
War We [you] may not be interested in war, but it is interested in us [you]. Attributed to Fannie Hurst [Leon Trotsky] © 2022 Kwiple.com
War Weapons are like money: no one knows the meaning of enough. Martin Amis, Einstein's Monsters © 2017 Kwiple.com
War With few exceptions, most historical game changers in the military profession have been cognitive, not physical. … The material of war will continue to be an important success factor, but the brains and will of humans will continue to decide the outcome of war. Mick Ryan, War Transformed © 2022 Kwiple.com
War A world of great powers that are optimistiic about the future will have arenas of confrontation, but little war. These confident great powers will invest in resources designed to attract as well as coerce, suggesting a contested but relatively pacific world. A world of pessimistic great powers, however, will lead to an emphasis on military capabilities and a temptation to engage in preventive action. Militarized disputes are far more likely in a pessimistic world, where the role of force matters the most. Daniel W. Drezner, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
War You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye Who cheer when soldier lads march by, Sneak home and pray you'll never know The hell where youth and laughter go. Siegfried Sassoon, “Suicide in the Trenches” © 2015 Kwiple.com
War crimes It [Russia's “special military operation” in Ukraine] is going on strictly in accord- ance with the plans and the purposes that were established beforehand. … We have a concept of domestic security and it's public. You can read all the reasons for nuclear arms to be used. So if it is an existential threat for our country, then it can be used in accordance with our concept. Dmitry Peskov, Putin's press secretary, March 13, 2022, interview with CNN, well after Russian started bombing houses, apartment buildings, schools, maternity wards, food markets, etc. © 2022 Kwiple.com
Warfare Future wars will no longer be about who can mass the most people or field the best jets, ships, and tanks. Instead, they will be dominated by increasingly autonomous weapons systems and powerful algorithms. … … as global urbanization draws more people into cities and nonstate actors pivot to urban guerrilla tactics, the decisive battlefields of the future will likely be  densely populated areas. Such fighting is far more deadly and far more resource- intensive. It will therefore require even more robotic weapons. Mark Milley and Eric Schmidt, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Warfare The improvised explosive device (IED) is the ultimate counter technology. Alex Roland, War and Technology  © 2024 Kwiple.com
Warfare In the worst-case scenario, AI warfare could even endanger humanity. War games conducted with AI models from OpenAI, Meta, and Anthropic have found that AI models tend to suddenly escalate to kinetic war, including nuclear war, compared with games conducted by humans. Mark Milley and Eric Schmidt, Foreign Affairs, September/October 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Warfare [T]he technologies of warfare are more effective than ever before, but there is less warfare in the world, based on casualties as a percentage of population, than ever before. Where this will lead is impossible to predict. Alex Roland, War and Technology  © 2024 Kwiple.com
Warfare Technology and warfare are essentially material. They are communal processes for manipulating the physical world to serve human purposes. Technology seeks to bend the material world in pursuit of human goals.  Warfare sseks to bend human behavior by  the threat or applicaiton of physical force. The two phenomena share a physical and material affinity. Alex Roland, War and Technology  © 2024 Kwiple.com
Warfare  Technology can make war more efficient. But if both sides have the technology, even a highly efficient war is likely to involve enormous costs in blood, metal and treasure. Armies without size and depth to absorb losses and  remain viable on the battlefield may find that no amount of digital wizardry or tactical nous can save them. The Economist, July 8-14, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
Warfare  Ukraine serves as a rejoinder to the idea that technology always trumps mass, that quality can replace quantity. General Sir Patrick Sanders, head of the British army, put it acerbically last year:  “You can't cyber your way across a river.” The Economist, July 8-14, 2024 © 2024 Kwiple.com
 
Warfare You can't say civilization don't advance . . . for in every war they kill you in a new way. Will Rogers © 2024 Kwiple.com