Einstein on inevitability of war

From Wise Nano

Albert Einstein was not optimistic about our ability to avoid war. Here are some quotes (found at BrightStarSound:

“The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one. One could say that it has affected us quantitatively, not qualitatively. So long as there are sovereign nations possessing great power, war is inevitable. That is not an attempt to say when it will come, but only that it is sure to come. That was true before the atomic bomb was made. What has been changed is the destructiveness of war. I do not believe that civilization will be wiped out in a war fought with the atomic bomb. Perhaps two-thirds of the people of the Earth might be killed. But enough men capable of thinking, and enough books, would be left to start again, and civilization could be restored.” — Albert Einstein, from Atlantic Monthly, Boston, Nov. 1945 and Nov. 1947. As told to Raymond Swing.

Albert Einstein, when asked what weapons would be used in the Third World War: “I don’t know. But I can tell you what they’ll use in the Fourth — rocks.” (From an interview with Dr. Alfred Werner in Liberal Judaism, April-May 1949)

A war using weapons made with advanced nanotech might be more "limited" than a nuclear war. Contrary to fiction, gray goo is not a good weapon. So the weapons used will be more precise and controllable, and it's possible that the chosen military strategy will involve only limited destruction.

But by the same token, there will not be a clear line between "acceptable" and "too much." During the past fifty years, many non-nuclear wars have been fought, including proxy wars between nuclear powers, because no one would use nukes first. But it will be easy to ramp up by stages--rapid stages--to the use of weapons as lethal and horrible as nukes.