The War Ledger Quotes

“Nuclear weapons ought to put the governing elites and mass publics of nations which are potential victims in fear for their lives. And we shall assume that they do. But the reader should be aware that we have by way of proof for this assertions very little and contradictory evidence. We know much less that we should.

We do not know that nuclear weapons will generate sufficient fear to deflect the aggressor from his course. We do not know how to establish a priori the point at which damage will be thought by the potential victim to have reached unacceptable proportions. We do not have firm evidence that terrorizing potential victims does deflect them, as it is alleged to, from their aggression; very different conclusions can be drawn from evidence than those propose by the proponents of deterrence theory.

This last matter is particularly serious, and the answer to the question is raises strikes at the heart pf the belief that nuclear blackmail works”
― A.F.K. Organski, The War Ledger

“But the experts do not seem to know much more. It is appalling how little is really known, or, at least, how little is known by those who have to make decisions affecting peace and war. Think a moment about the questions to be treated in this book - beginnings, outcomes, and consequences of war – and think about the performance of leaders in recent military conflicts. For example, the leaders of the major powers at the beginning of World War I did not realize that a war was coming or the nature of the war their nations were going to have to fight. The comment made by one German general on the behavior of British soldiers, << they fight like lions but they are led by asses,>> should not, in justice, be restricted to the British alone. Did French, Italian, or heaven help us, Russian leaders perform any better in World Wars I or II? Stalin, even after being told by both Roosevelt and Churchill that the USSR was about to be invaded, refused to believe that Hitler would violate the 1939 pact and was immensely surprised when he did.”
― A.F.K. Organski, Jacek Kugler , The War Ledger