The Return of the 20th Century Nuclear Shadow

Ed Luce: “The concept of mutually assured destruction, which took hold after 1962, is that each side has a clear window on the other’s routines and thinking. Most of the information-sharing that was put in place has been abandoned in the past decade. Putin has closed down cold war protocols and even accused Russian nuclear scientists who want to meet their US counterparts of being spies.”

“This means the two adversaries, which account for 90 percent of the world’s warheads, are far more ignorant of each other’s signaling than they were in the 1970s and 1980s. Ignorance, in this situation, is not bliss.”