A war hawk, or simply hawk for short, is a term used in politics for someone favoring war in a debate over whether to go to war, or whether to continue or escalate an existing war. War hawks are the opposite of war doves. The terms are derived through analogy with the birds of the same name: hawks are predators which attack and feed on other animals, whereas doves mostly eat seeds and fruit, and are historically a symbol of peace.
Read more about War Hawk: Historical Group, Variations of The Term
Famous quotes containing the words war and/or hawk:
“I have agreed to go into the service for the war ... [feeling] that this was a just and necessary war and that it demanded the whole power of the country; that I would prefer to go into it if I knew I was to die or be killed in the course of it, than to live through and after it without taking any part in it.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“The hawk is aerial brother of the wave which he sails over and surveys, those his perfect air-inflated wings answering to the elemental unfledged pinions of the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)