The West as a whole in the early 1990s became obsessed with a 'peace dividend' that would be spent over and over again on any number of soft-hearted and sometimes soft-headed causes. Politicians forgot that the only real peace dividend is peace.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- Thatcher criticizes the idea that peace allows for spending on social causes, asserting peace itself is the only dividend.
- In plain terms
- Politicians wanted to spend peace time on soft causes but the real gain from peace is peace itself.
- What can you take from it?
- Peace is the primary benefit of stability, not the funding for social programs.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- What is the true value of peace?
- Should peace funds go to security or social programs?
Another view
This ignores that peace can enable necessary social investments that improve long-term security.
More from Margaret Thatcher
I should therefore prefer to restrict my guidelines to the following:
Permalink to quote #69 Never believe that technology alone will allow America to prevail as a superpower.
Permalink to quote #71 The habit of ubiquitous interventionism, combining pinprick strikes by precision weapons with pious invocations of high principle, would lead us into endless d…
Permalink to quote #68
Related quotes
I believe with all my heart that our first priority must be world peace, and that use of force is always and only a last resort, when everything else has faile…
Ronald ReaganRonald Reagan quote #21 Let us recollect that peace or war will not always be left to our option; that however moderate or unambitious we may be, we cannot count upon the moderation, …
Alexander HamiltonAlexander Hamilton quote #32 We are not isolationists except in so far as we seek to isolate ourselves completely from war. Yet we must remember that so long as war exists on earth there w…
Franklin Delano RooseveltFranklin Delano Roosevelt quote #44