Martin Hellman (of Diffie Hellman) fame maintains the Nuclear Risk web site and has written a very insightful piece on risk analysis of nuclear war entitled Soaring, cryptography and nuclear weapons
Hellman proposes that we need a third state scenario (instead current state – > nuclear war) where the risk of nuclear holocaust has been reduced by several orders of magnitude from today to an acceptable level.
This makes sense and it’s an intriguing idea as an exercise in risk analysis of information security and data protection to see if there is a third state of reduced risk that where the risk of data breach and major data loss events is reduced to acceptable levels.
That’s one thing that got me thinking.
The second thing is the quote from Fyodr Burlatsky, one of Khrushchev’s speechwriters and close advisors, as well as a man who was in the forefront of the Soviet reform movement:
In Krushchev’s eyes [America insisting on getting its way on certain issues] was not only an example of Americans’ traditional strong arm policy, but also an underestimation of Soviet might. … Khrushchev was infuriated by the Americans’ … continuing to behave as if the Soviet Union was still trailing far behind.
So here we are – 2009 and President Obama is insisting on getting his way on certain issues with the Iranians, who pose a serious nuclear threat to the world. But no only Ahmadenijad – the Russians and the North Koreans are also infuriated by the Americans’ … continuing to behave as if they are still trailing far behind.