Tyler Cowen: commitment

Transcript context

…Yes, no, okay. Again, we’re intellectualizing here. Doesn’t what you are suggesting really underscore this idea that this is madness to even have these arsenals that are capable of such things? Now remember, I’m not a peace activist. That’s not my job. My job is, as a national security reporter, to tell you the story of what would happen, what could happen in nuclear war: a scenario, not nuclear war: the only scenario. The takeaway, I believe, is that more nuclear weapons make us less safe, and I think you might be saying the same thing. The word madness doesn’t have much force with me. My life is a lot of different kinds of madness. I’ve heard people say marriage is madness. A lot of social conventions seem to me to be madness. The question is getting the least harmful form of madness out there. Then, I’m not convinced that those who wish to disarm have really made their case. Certainly, saying nuclear war is madness doesn’t persuade me. If anything, if enough people think it’s madness, we won’t get it, and it’s fine to have the nuclear weapons. Which is precisely the fundamental, I think, underpinning of deterrence. There’s no question that . . . Of course, your Schelling schooling is sneaking through here because this is exactly that idea. Again, this is a puzzle because, “Deterrence will hold, deterrence will hold, deterrence will hold.” That is what the Defense Department says time and time again. But if you look deep enough, as I did, you find number two at Stratcom saying, “If it doesn’t hold, it all unravels.” So, we can talk about madness. What is madness? Is marriage madness? Certainly, nuclear war unfolding, unraveling. The unraveling of deterrence is madness. It’s madness because it ends civilization for what, for why?…

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