The prevention of nuclear war in a world of uncertainty

The simple treatment of complex issues in the nuclear world has created dangerously self-deceptive and sterile views of such conflict. Calculations of missile duels and other possible strategic interactions have led to analytic self-deception where the more simplified the calculation, the greater the distance between the atrocious abstraction and the incomprehensible reality for which it serves as a disguise. Fictionalizing about deterrence and its variants has led to intellectual and moral self-deception where the focus of the fiction has diverted attention and action from other likely ways in which a nuclear conflict could be initiated, such as accidents, conventional wars, or terrorism. Besides reexamining old and diversionary patterns of thought and action—cultural strait jackets—we need more fundamental investigations into ways in which the weapons of modern war might be made less dangerous, procedures to make crises reversible, and improved and creative mechanisms for reducing and limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.