Chapter 10 Chicken and the Cuban Missile Crisis Summary and Analysis

Although Bertrand Russell had famously advocated preemptive nuclear war against the Soviets he later, famously, disavowed that original proposal. When Russell originally advocated preemptive war, the United States had a monopoly on nuclear weapons. Russell saw that if both the United States and the Soviet Union possessed nuclear weapons, an all-out nuclear war could lead to a complete atomic holocaust that would encompass the entire world. Russell advocated threatening the Soviets with an attack if they did not agree to join a world government. Once the Soviets had nuclear weapons, and especially once the nuclear arsenal were composed of hydrogen bombs, the plan became ineffective. Russell then became a vocal advocate of complete nuclear disarmament.

Although many at the time considered nuclear warfare to be a kind of prisoner's...