Science Quote by George Wald

The sly force of Wald's line is in its false innocence: "And, you see" performs politeness while smuggling in an indictment. A scientist, not a pamphleteer, he frames the claim like an observation from the lab bench. Then he drops the diagnosis: in modern political language, "defense" has become the universal solvent that dissolves responsibility.

The intent is less to argue about any single conflict than to expose a rhetorical adaptation. "Wars of defense" sounds morally hygienic. It implies reluctance, necessity, even virtue. Wald is pointing at the trick where aggression gets laundered through the vocabulary of survival. Once every war is defensive by definition, the category stops describing reality and starts functioning as a permission slip. You're not conquering; you're "responding". You're not expanding power; you're "protecting interests". The sentence is short because the mechanism is simple: rename the act, and the public's moral math changes.

The subtext is also about credibility. Coming from a scientist, the line carries the quiet accusation that the public is being asked to accept political myths with the same trust it grants to expert knowledge. Wald's era - the world wars, the Cold War, nuclear brinkmanship - made "defense" an especially potent alibi, because existential fear was no longer metaphorical. When annihilation is imaginable, preemption can be sold as prudence. Wald's warning is that this rhetorical arms race doesn't just justify wars; it makes them easier to start, because no one has to confess to wanting one.