The Game Theory Analysis of Nuclear Weapons

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

Nado requires us to be willing to use nuclear weapons if the escalation gets to a certain point. If you have a policy that says, we will never use them, then what's the point of having hem? That's exactly right. Unless youare willing to s it, it doesn't work for you. Living with the notion that your own governmentis lling to set off a mushroom cloud as a russian tank column comes pouring across the the rhine isa nerve, racking way to live.

This conversation takes a deep dive into disruptions. How do things change? The question is critical to the historical study of any era but it is also a profoundly important issue today as western democracies find the fundamental tenets of their implicit social contract facing extreme challenges from forces espousing ideas that once flourished only on the outskirts of society. Not all radical groups are the same, and all the groups that the book explores take advantage of challenges that have already shaken the social order. They take advantage of mistakes that have challenged belief in the competence of existing institutions to be effective. It is the particular combination of an alternative ideological system and a period of community distress that are necessary conditions for radical changes in direction. As Disruption demonstrates, not all radical change follows paths that its original proponents might have predicted.