Abstract
The chapter passionately argues in favour of nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament as vital objectives to save humanity from certain catastrophe. The fact is that a nuclear weapon is not a weapon in the conventional semantic sense. It is not a rational means to a rational end; it is an instrument of unlimited, universal destruction. Hence, the threat or the actuality of a nuclear war is not a rational instrument of national policy but rather an instrument of suicide and genocide. This also makes nuclear disarmament utterly different from the conventional one.
Originally published in David Carlton and Carlo Schaerf, eds., Arms Control and Technological Innovation (London: Croom Helm, 1977): 256–264.
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Notes
- 1.
Samuel Glasstone, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (Washington, DC: US Atomic Energy Commission, 1957).
- 2.
Robert S. McNamara, “Defense Arrangements of the North Atlantic Community,” Department of State Bulletin 47 (9 July 1962): 64–70.
- 3.
Abraham Lincoln, “Letter to Albert G. Hodges, 4 April 1864,” in The Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln, eds. Roy P. Basler, Marion Dolores Pratt and Lloyd A. Dunlap (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1953): 88–93.
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Morgenthau, H.J. (2018). The Fallacy of Thinking Conventionally about Nuclear Weapons. In: Foradori, P., Giacomello, G., Pascolini, A. (eds) Arms Control and Disarmament. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62259-0_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-62259-0_6
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