The rule of law in place of force, always basic to my thinking, now takes on a new relevance in a world where, if war is to go, only law can replace it.
War
Many young men in the 1960s and 1970s came to reject some of the traditional ideas about manhood that many of their fathers tried to pass down – like unquestioning respect for authority even when that might mean killing and dying for questionable or unjust causes such as the Vietnam War.
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
Throughout this evolution from left to right, Beard always detested war. Hence his writings were slanted to show that the military side of history was insignificant or a mere reflection of economic forces.
The lesson of the Cuban Missile Crisis is plain: Strength prevents war; weakness invites it. We need a commander-in-chief who understands that – and who won’t leave us facing a foe who thinks he doesn’t.
Misery, mutilation, destruction, terror, starvation and death characterize the process of war and form a principal part of the product.
Ralph Miliband was a socialist intellectual of great integrity. He belonged to a generation of socialists formed by the Russian revolution and the Second World War, a generation that dominated left-wing politics for almost a century.
The poets who have written the best poems about war seem to be the poets whose countries have experienced an invasion or vicious dictatorships.
When all the world is overcharged with inhabitants, then the last remedy of all is war, which provideth for every man, by victory or death.
There never was a war that was not inward.