21/02/2022
WAR — A Message for Our Time
Bertrand Russell
"It is true that the threat of war can still be used, but only by a lunatic.
Unfortunately, some people are lunatics...
I have never been a complete pacifist and have at no time maintained that all who wage war are to be condemned. I have held the view, which I should have thought was that of common sense, that some wars have been justified and others not. What makes the peculiarity of the present situation is that, if a nuclear war should break out, the belligerents on either side and the neutrals would be all, equally, defeated. This is a new situation and means that war cannot still be used as an instrument of policy. It is true that the threat of war can still be used, but only by a lunatic. Unfortunately, some people are lunatics..."
— Bertrand Russell, Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare (1959), Appendix II: Inconsistency? p. 103
