Nuclear Weapons Preserve Peace, Nobel Laureate Says

A 2005 Nobel laureate in economics said yesterday that the possibility of a nuclear exchange could keep countries from engaging in military hostilities, the Associated Press reported (see GSN, Oct. 7).

“I think what we have learned is that peace may be kept not by reducing the level of armaments but by maintaining the level of armaments,” said Robert Aumann, co-winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences with colleague Thomas Schelling.

“The peace was kept in the long dark years of the Cold War, because ... 24 hours a day, there were airplanes in the air carrying nuclear weapons,” he said.

Aumann and Schelling developed “game theory.” While the theory can help explain traditional war, Aumann acknowledged that analyzing the “anonymous ... untraceable” threat of terrorism is more complex.

“I’m afraid it’s going to get worse before it gets better, and frankly I don’t know what to do with it,” he said (Mattias Karen, Associated Press/Sci-TechToday.com, Dec. 7).

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