The Nuclear Garden Path

The logic of nuclear deterrence and its false assurances of safety

- JEAN DRÈZE

“GENTLEMEN, YOU CAN'T FIGHT IN HERE. This is the War Room!” This is just one of the iconic lines for which the 1964 film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is fondly remembered. The scene takes place in the “War Room” where the president of the United States and his advisors are desperately trying to avert the outbreak of nuclear war. As they meet, nuclear bombers unleashed by a deranged commander are heading towards the Soviet Union. It is when two participants nearly come to blows that the president—masterfully played by Peter Sellers—admonishes them in those words.

The film, directed by Stanley Kubrick, is a satirical comedy. It exposes the recklessness of nuclear games and of the ageing men who play or plan them. The subject is grim and may be regarded as unfit for a parody. But, the genre is quite effective in con-veying the enormities that surround it. Red Alert, the book that inspired the film, is dead serious. So was Kubrick’s purpose. He read a lot of nuclear-strategy literature before making the film, apparently conclud-ing from it that “nobody really knew anything and the whole situation was absurd.” He expected the film to cause an uproar and to prompt some rethinking about nuclear strategy. That seemed all the more likely as the film was released soon after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when nu-clear war was narrowly averted. Alas, no decisive rethinking happened, and the sinister games continued.

One of the central characters in