The simple treatment of complex issues in the nuclear world has created dangerously selfdeceptive and sterile views of such conflict. "Calculations" of missile duels and other possible strategic interactions have led to analytic self-deception where the more simplified the calculation, the greater the distance between the atrocious abstraction and the incomprehensible reality for which it serves as a disguise. "Fictionalizing" about deterrence and its variants has led to intellectual and moral self-deception where the focus of the fiction has diverted attention and action from other likely ways in which a nuclear conflict could be initiated, such as accidents, conventional wars, or terrorism. Besides reexamining old and diversionary patterns of thought and action--"cultural strait jackets"--we need more fundamental investigations into ways in which the weapons of modem war might be made less dangerous, procedures to make crises "'reversible," and improved and creative mechanisms for reducing and limiting the spread of nuclear weapons.
EDITORIAL NOTE
The termination of war is obviously a last resort step taken after invaluable quantities of blood and treasure have been wasted. Preventing war is clearly preferable---especially so in our taut and dangerous world. To extend and draw the full circle from the disquieting arguments presented in Foster and Brewer's contribution to this issue, we conclude with a hopeful, poignant plea whose successful execution might allay the frightening prospect of trying to terminate a future nuclear war. Fred Ik16, the Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, outlined his program for prevention in a somewhat different form for the Joint Harvard/MIT Arms Control Seminar; however, the program's broader implications demand more widespread attention. While these comments were originally made in February 1974, their urgency has only increased with the passage of time.
GB/EB Current thinking on nuclear war and arms control within the American intellectual community often seems limited. Various lines of action must be pursued to supplement our present efforts to prevent nuclear war. Hopefully, the following comments will stimulate new thinking about these matters, thinking that will inform and facilitate new and urgently needed action initiatives.