"It is inconceivable that even the gang who runs Russia would be willing to take on war, but one always has to remember that there seemed to be no reason in 1939 for Hitler to start war, and yet he did, and he started it with a world practically unprepared"
About this Quote
Forrestal is doing the grim work of a security realist: puncturing the soothing belief that adversaries only act when it "makes sense" to us. The opening phrase - "It is inconceivable" - is a deliberately baited hook. He voices the comforting consensus, then undercuts it with the one comparison designed to end an argument: 1939. The rhetorical move is simple and brutal. If you think rational calculation prevents catastrophe, history has receipts.
The sting sits in his language. Calling Soviet leadership "the gang who runs Russia" isn’t just insult; it’s a framing device that strips the USSR of legitimacy and recasts geopolitics as organized coercion. That makes their potential aggression feel less like a policy choice and more like criminal impulse - something that might erupt even when "inconceivable". Forrestal’s subtext is that deterrence can’t rely on predicting motives; it must assume worst-case capacity.
Context matters: Forrestal, as the first U.S. Secretary of Defense in the early Cold War, is speaking from the trauma of American unpreparedness in World War II and the dawning fear that the next surprise could be nuclear. The reference to "a world practically unprepared" is not nostalgia; it’s a budget argument with a moral charge. He’s legitimizing permanent vigilance - and the political costs that come with it - by invoking the last time democracies mistook disbelief for strategy.
The sting sits in his language. Calling Soviet leadership "the gang who runs Russia" isn’t just insult; it’s a framing device that strips the USSR of legitimacy and recasts geopolitics as organized coercion. That makes their potential aggression feel less like a policy choice and more like criminal impulse - something that might erupt even when "inconceivable". Forrestal’s subtext is that deterrence can’t rely on predicting motives; it must assume worst-case capacity.
Context matters: Forrestal, as the first U.S. Secretary of Defense in the early Cold War, is speaking from the trauma of American unpreparedness in World War II and the dawning fear that the next surprise could be nuclear. The reference to "a world practically unprepared" is not nostalgia; it’s a budget argument with a moral charge. He’s legitimizing permanent vigilance - and the political costs that come with it - by invoking the last time democracies mistook disbelief for strategy.
Quote Details
| Topic | War |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
More Quotes by James
Add to List
