Participants: Jason Fields, Matthew Gault, Thomas Nichols

Nuclear-tipped missiles and bombs have hovered over the world’s head for more than 70 years. As long as 60 years ago, two great nations had developed the capability to destroy the entire world. The only question, it sometimes seemed, was whether the United States or the Soviet Union would be the first to hit the button.

Tensions ebbed and flowed, China and a short list of other nations joined the nuclear club, but the balance of terror remained. A strategy of mutually assured destruction (MAD) kept everyone “safe.”

But then the Berlin Wall fell…

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For more on this subject, check out:

No Use: Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security, by Thomas Nichols

Space, Security and the New Nuclear Triad