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"The Russians aren't dedicated world dominationists. You know, they just sort of want it on account of a sentimental way, you know, but not like 'By God, we got to have it!' It just doesn't make sense for them to really push too hard, you know, but just to push easy."

— Herman Kahn

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More quotes by Herman Kahn

Few people differentiate between having 10 million dead, 50 million dead, or 100 million dead. It all seems too horrible.

The final outcome of benevolent, informed, and intelligent decisions may turn out to be disastrous. But choices must be made; dies must be cast.

The difference between megaton and kiloton is very large, in some ways larger than the difference between kiloton and ton. Megaton weapons are comparable to gross forces of nature, such as earthquakes and hurricanes.

(The emphasis is deliberate. This deterrent is more efficient since in most practical cases deterrents destroy populations—not decision makers.)

Even if military advantages were not to be had by deliberately limiting attack to counterforce targets, I suspect that most governments would still prefer to observe such limits. Almost nobody wants to go down in history as the first man to kill 100,000 people.

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Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Herman Kahn (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.