"In times of peace, the war party insists on making preparation for war. As soon as prepared for, it insists on making war"
About this Quote
Robert M. La Follette distills a pattern he saw in American politics: a faction gains influence by invoking danger, demands military buildup in the name of safety, and then uses that very readiness as a springboard to launch war. Preparation, instead of being a brake on conflict, becomes its accelerator. Once resources, industries, and rhetoric are aligned around the prospect of fighting, the political and psychological costs of not fighting grow too high for the hawks who engineered the buildup.
La Follette spoke as a Progressive reformer, Wisconsin governor and U.S. senator known as Fighting Bob, who resisted the United States entry into World War I and defended civil liberties during wartime repression. In 1917 he warned that calls for preparedness were not neutral safeguards but a pipeline to intervention, fueled by the interests of munitions makers, bankers, and expansionists who stood to profit or gain power. He saw how a permanent war footing creates its own constituency: generals with plans to test, factories with contracts to fulfill, newspapers primed with alarm, and politicians who can brand dissent as weakness. The logic becomes circular: we must prepare because war is likely, and war is likely because we have prepared.
His insight reaches beyond his era. Europe’s pre-1914 arms races, driven by naval buildups and mobilization timetables, made crisis management brittle and war almost automatic. Decades later, Dwight Eisenhower would warn of the military-industrial complex, echoing La Follette’s concern that institutional and economic incentives can normalize militarism. The dynamic he identified also narrows democratic debate: once the machinery is in motion, it is easier to escalate than to pause and reassess, and dissenters face charges of disloyalty.
La Follette’s challenge is not naive pacifism but a demand for vigilant civilian control, transparency about interests, and diplomacy that does not begin with the assumption that readiness requires use. Peace, for him, required resisting the momentum that preparation can create.
La Follette spoke as a Progressive reformer, Wisconsin governor and U.S. senator known as Fighting Bob, who resisted the United States entry into World War I and defended civil liberties during wartime repression. In 1917 he warned that calls for preparedness were not neutral safeguards but a pipeline to intervention, fueled by the interests of munitions makers, bankers, and expansionists who stood to profit or gain power. He saw how a permanent war footing creates its own constituency: generals with plans to test, factories with contracts to fulfill, newspapers primed with alarm, and politicians who can brand dissent as weakness. The logic becomes circular: we must prepare because war is likely, and war is likely because we have prepared.
His insight reaches beyond his era. Europe’s pre-1914 arms races, driven by naval buildups and mobilization timetables, made crisis management brittle and war almost automatic. Decades later, Dwight Eisenhower would warn of the military-industrial complex, echoing La Follette’s concern that institutional and economic incentives can normalize militarism. The dynamic he identified also narrows democratic debate: once the machinery is in motion, it is easier to escalate than to pause and reassess, and dissenters face charges of disloyalty.
La Follette’s challenge is not naive pacifism but a demand for vigilant civilian control, transparency about interests, and diplomacy that does not begin with the assumption that readiness requires use. Peace, for him, required resisting the momentum that preparation can create.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
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