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Originally Posted by beyelzu
Einstein was a hell of a scientist but that doesnt make him a great philosopher. I think that it is naive to think diplomacy will always be the answer and that weapons will not be need.
I think that you can prevent and prepare for war.
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I couldn't agree more. Diplomacy falls flat when there is no credible threat behind it to act as an enforcement mechanism. Another way of stating it is that without armed force in reserve, diplomacy has no teeth.
As for simulataneously preventing and preparing for war, one need look no further than the Cold War to see an instance of this being successful. Of course, my example refers only to its success
in preventing nuclear war between the United States and Western Europe on one side and the Soviet Bloc on the other. It says nothing about the tragic consequence of the world's witnessing the proliferation of nuclear weapons to other nation states, possibly to rogue terrorist groups, within the U.S. and the former Soviet Union, and to the enormous threat to everyone that the existence of the weapons themselves poses.
However nutty it may have been, the policy of mutual assured destruction (MAD) that both sides adopted worked to prevent a nuclear first strike by either side. I submit that the arms race and the MAD policy is an instance of simultaneously preparing for and preventing a war.
Einstein was wrong in this instance.
Cool Hand