Politics & Power Quote by Ely Culbertson

Culbertson’s line plays like a sly twist on the familiar wartime promise: if we can win the war, we can win the peace. The kicker is the opening clause, “God and the politicians willing,” which sounds pious on the surface but reads as an indictment. God is the traditional alibi; politicians are the practical gatekeepers. Pairing them suggests that peace is less a moral inevitability than a negotiated product, hostage to ambition, elections, and the machinery of state.

“Declare peace upon the world” deliberately echoes “declare war,” flipping the grammar of conquest into the language of harmony. It’s an aggressive verb for a supposedly gentle outcome, and that tension is the point. Culbertson implies that American power could be used not just to defeat enemies but to impose stability - a kind of benevolent hegemony. The phrase “and win it” drives the irony home: peace, like war, becomes something to be won, claimed, scored. It’s idealism translated into the competitive mindset of geopolitics.

The context matters: Culbertson wrote in an era when U.S. global leadership was expanding through two world wars and the early architecture of international order. His subtext is both hopeful and wary. The United States “can” do it - but only if the people who invoke God and the people who trade in power decide that peace serves their interests. Peace isn’t portrayed as a dawn; it’s a policy choice with consequences.