ArgumentNuclear Alarmism: Proliferation and Terrorism
Alarmism about nuclear weapons is common coin in the foreign policy establishment, John Mueller writes. He notes that during the course of the Cold War, for example, the chief concern was that the weapons would somehow go off, by accident or by intention, devastating the planet in the process. More recently, the worry has been that terrorists would get their hands on nuclear weapons. Concerns about the dangers inherent in nuclear proliferation and in nuclear terrorism certainly seem overwrought, Mueller writes, concluding: “There may be reason for concern, or at least for interest and watchfulness. But alarm and hysteria (not to mention sleeplessness) are hardly called for.”
Alarmism about nuclear weapons is common coin in the foreign policy establishment,1 John Mueller writes for the CATO Institute. He notes that during the course of the Cold War, for example, the chief concern was that the weapons would somehow go off, by accident or by intention, devastating the planet in the process.
He adds:
In 1960, a top nuclear strategist declared it “most unlikely” that the world could live with an uncontrolled arms race for decades. And in 1979, political scientist Hans J. Morgenthau declared: “The world is moving ineluctably towards a third world war — a strategic nuclear war. I do not believe that anything can be done to prevent it. The international system is simply too unstable to survive for long.” In the 1980s, variously between 20 and 37 percent of the American population told pollsters that they held the potential for nuclear war to be the most important problem facing the country, even as creative activists at Brown University demanded that their health service should stockpile suicide pills for immediate dispensation in the event of a nuclear attack to those unfortunates who still remained unvaporized.2
In a 1982 New Yorker essay and a best‐selling book, both entitled The Fate of the Earth, Jonathan Schell passionately, if repetitively, argued the not entirely novel proposition that nuclear war would be terrible.3
After the United States and the Soviet Union called off their Cold War in 1989, nuclear concerns dwindled, even though thousands of the weapons continued to be retained. Ever resourceful, however, nuclear alarmists quickly shifted their focus. If big countries with large nuclear arsenals were now unlikely to bring about the end of the world, small ones with small arsenals could do the job. Or even tiny groups of diabolical terrorists. After all, it was essentially argued, since a group of them, armed with box cutters and a clever plan, took down two skyscrapers, they might soon advance to nuclear weapons and then use them to topple American society, the ascendency of the modern state, or civilization as we know it, either all at once or seriatim.4
Concerns about the dangers inherent in nuclear proliferation and in nuclear terrorism certainly seem overwrought, Mueller writes, concluding: “There may be reason for concern, or at least for interest and watchfulness. But alarm and hysteria (not to mention sleeplessness) are hardly called for.”
