Thank you for this, Justin. Two comments, though. One, the conversation does not dig into the causes of the breakdown of the nuclear arms limitation treaties. Jessica T. Mathews, in the New York Review of Books of October 17 ("The Race That Can’t Be Won"), notes that the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and that the US Senate never ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, even though Russia ratified it in 2000 as did 177 other countries. Is it indeed behaviour on the part of the US that has led to this breakdown? (I seem to recall that it was claimed that the Russians were violating the Treaty but that may well have been Western propaganda.)
Two, I'm not keen on reading "fiction based on facts." That type of literature can change minds alright (perhaps more persuasively than a straight-facts book) but what part is one to believe? The danger is that the reader may conclude that nothing is real or descends into relativism.
One: I think there is ample blame to go around. I am far from an expert on nuclear policy, but I think the going consensus is: All parties have a very mixed record over the past half-century, but things were at least trending slowly in the right direction. (NK and Iran excepted.) Yes, the U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty, but it kept up New START and the other agreements. Russia has now fully blown up all bilateral/international collaboration on this.
Two: I agree with the skepticism. But I do appreciate that the narrative is used in service of a clear point — that world powers need to talk to each other, and that it is normal people who make up our systems, and they are both fallible and capable of humanity in a way that superstructures are not. I certainly prefer that message than the normal ethos of spy fiction: That we need extraordinary men to save us from far-reaching and unseen evil.
Thank you for this, Justin. Two comments, though. One, the conversation does not dig into the causes of the breakdown of the nuclear arms limitation treaties. Jessica T. Mathews, in the New York Review of Books of October 17 ("The Race That Can’t Be Won"), notes that the US withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and that the US Senate never ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, even though Russia ratified it in 2000 as did 177 other countries. Is it indeed behaviour on the part of the US that has led to this breakdown? (I seem to recall that it was claimed that the Russians were violating the Treaty but that may well have been Western propaganda.)
Two, I'm not keen on reading "fiction based on facts." That type of literature can change minds alright (perhaps more persuasively than a straight-facts book) but what part is one to believe? The danger is that the reader may conclude that nothing is real or descends into relativism.
One: I think there is ample blame to go around. I am far from an expert on nuclear policy, but I think the going consensus is: All parties have a very mixed record over the past half-century, but things were at least trending slowly in the right direction. (NK and Iran excepted.) Yes, the U.S. withdrew from the ABM Treaty, but it kept up New START and the other agreements. Russia has now fully blown up all bilateral/international collaboration on this.
Two: I agree with the skepticism. But I do appreciate that the narrative is used in service of a clear point — that world powers need to talk to each other, and that it is normal people who make up our systems, and they are both fallible and capable of humanity in a way that superstructures are not. I certainly prefer that message than the normal ethos of spy fiction: That we need extraordinary men to save us from far-reaching and unseen evil.