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Tag Archives: nuclear risk
Playing Russian Roulette in Ukraine
The risk of the war in Ukraine escalating to a full-scale nuclear war is far greater than our nation realizes. While it is impossible to quantify that risk precisely, I estimate that it is roughly comparable to pulling the trigger … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged nuclear risk, russia, stanford, ukraine, war and peace
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Our Book’s Website is now Live
My wife Dorothie and I have developed a website devoted to our soon-to-be-released book, A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home & Peace on the Planet, which just went live. The deep connection between the book and this site’s theme of Defusing the Nuclear Threat is explained in my March 1 post here: The Turing Award, Nuclear Risk, and Recapturing True Love. Please sign up for updates on that effort. People on that list will get notices about the book’s release, discounts that might be available, and most importantly, how to participate in this effort. Thanks very much. Continue reading
A New Map for Relationships: Chapters 4, 5 & 6
For reasons explained in my March 1 blog post, I’m posting draft chapters of my forthcoming book with my wife Dorothie: A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet. We felt pressed to maintain the interest created by the ACM Turing Award announcement (mentioned in that March 1 post), so these are from a draft manuscript, and the final version will hopefully be even better. That post also has links to earlier chapters, and will be updated with links as new chapters are added. Continue reading
A New Map for Relationships: Chapters 2 & 3
For reasons explained in my March 1 blog post, I’m posting draft chapters of my forthcoming book with my wife Dorothie: “A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet.” In my last post of chapter 1, I had mistreated Dorothie in a way that caused her to storm out of our car and, when she returned, rip up the map I was holding. The story has a happy ending, with the two of us breaking into laughter at the insanity of our actions, and then working to piece together the jig saw puzzle that our map had become – producing yet more laughter.
This time I’m posting chapters 2 and 3, on personal and international relationship maps. I felt it was important to get to chapter 3 so that readers will see the connections between improving one’s marriage or other personal relationship, ending needless wars, and making the nuclear threat become a nightmare of the past. Continue reading
A New Map for Relationships: Chapter 1
My last blog post announced that my wife Dorothie and I will be using my half of the $1 million ACM Turing Award to further our work on building a more peaceful, sustainable world. Our initial thrust will be to bring attention to a new approach described in our forthcoming book, A New Map for Relationships: Creating True Love at Home and Peace on the Planet. That approach combines a concern for global issues with improving one’s marriage or other intimate relationship. It worked wonders for us, while nothing else had dented our cycle of seemingly endless fights. We also found that working on both the personal and global dimensions simultaneously accelerated our progress on each of them. We hope to have the book ready in time for the formal conferral of the ACM Turing Award in June, and in the meantime hope to excite interest by posting some chapters of the book here. Chapter 1 is immediately below, and watch here for additional installments. Continue reading
The Turing Award, Nuclear Risk, and Recapturing True Love
It has just been announced at 10 AM this morning that my colleague Whitfield Diffie and I will be receiving this year’s ACM Turing Award and the $1,000,000 that comes with it – one reason it’s sometimes called “the Nobel Prize of computing.” But what does my former life in cybersecurity, which is the reason for the award, have to do with defusing the nuclear threat – the theme of this blog? And what does either of those have to do with recapturing true love – the last part of this post’s title? This and my next few blog posts will explain, so stay tuned. Continue reading
Five Things America Needs to Learn
Harvard Prof. Stephen Walt has an excellent article in Foreign Policy that I highly recommend you read in its entirety. Although its title is “The Top 5 Things the Next American President Needs to Know About Foreign Policy,” ordinary Americans need to learn these as well because, until enough of us do, the president will be unable to act on them out of fear of the political consequences. Here are Prof. Walt’s key points, excerpted from his article: Continue reading
Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet: Part 3
My last blog post recommended amending Article V of the NATO Charter so that only unprovoked attacks on one NATO nation would be considered an attack on them all. If it turns out that Turkey’s shooting down a Russian jet on November 24 was unwarranted, do we really want to start World War III should Russia shoot down a Turkish fighter in a future such encounter? Continue reading
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Tagged critical thinking, ISIS, martin hellman, nuclear risk, nuclear war, oil smuggling, russia, stanford, Turkey, war and peace
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Turkey Shoots Down Russian Jet: Part 2
Yesterday’s post noted that none of the seven major news outlets I had looked at regarding Turkey’s shooting down a Russian fighter mentioned the nuclear dimension to the risk. Today’s New York Times and Wall Street Journal coverage bring the number to nine. They also provide some important details that help explain what happened. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged martin hellman, NATO, nuclear risk, nuclear war, russia, stanford, syria, Turkey
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Turkey Shoots Downs Russian Jet: What Happens Next?
Today’s news that Turkish fighters shot down a Russian jet, killing at least one of the pilots, is unlikely to lead to a nuclear crisis … but there is a chance that it could. If Russia had shot down one of the Turkish planes – or were to do so in a future such encounter – we would be bound by Article 5 of the NATO Treaty to treat it the same as an attack on one of our own aircraft. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged cuban missile crisis, martin hellman, NATO, nuclear risk, nuclear war, nuclear weapons, russia, syria, Turkey, war and peace
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Defusing the Nuclear Threat 