How does deterrence failure compare to deepwater drilling failure?

[bananas]

From Martin Hellman's blog:

http://nuclearrisk.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/does-deterrence-work/

Does Deterrence Work?
Posted on May 25, 2010 by Nuclear Risk

My last post cited research coming out of Air Force think tanks that argued we could reduce our current nuclear arsenal by roughly 95% and still possess a highly credible deterrent. An even more basic question also deserves attention: Does deterrence work?

Deterrence may make us more cautious, but unless it works perfectly forever, it doesn’t work as intended. Given that there have been a number of near misses, nuclear deterrence is like the economic bubble that recently popped and the Deepwater Horizon oil spill — a disaster waiting to happen. Hopefully, we will learn to pay more attention to early warning signs before catastrophe strikes one last time.

Martin Hellman
Member National Academy of Engineering
Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering, Stanford University

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About Nuclear Risk
I am a professor at Stanford University, best known for my invention of public key cryptography -- the technology that protects your credit card. But, for almost 30 years, my primary interest has been how fallible human beings can survive possessing nuclear weapons, where even one mistake could be catastrophic.

[kristopher]

1. K&R