Rethinking Nuclear Weapons - Pragmatic solutions to nuclear weapons

I am convinced that to avoid nuclear war it is not sufficient to be afraid of it. It is necessary to be afraid, but it is equally necessary to understand. And the first step in understanding is to recognize that the problem of nuclear war is basically not technical but human and historical. If we are to avoid destruction we must first of all understand the human and historical context out of which destruction arises.

– Freeman Dyson

History has a bad name when it comes to nuclear weapons. People who talk about arms races and people who talk about deterrence sometimes draw examples from the past – arms races in the 1920s or cases of deterrence from ancient history. But in the main, people who think about nuclear war believe history has little to teach them. Herman Kahn put … Read More »