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Michael Quinlan

Monday 2nd of March 2026

Nukes As in most insurance situations, the wider the coverage required, the higher the premium.  Michael Quinlan, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Nukes As late as possible, as early as necessary. NATO's strategy in case of an attack by Warsaw Pact countries as summarized by an unnamed participant in its Nuclear Planning Group (NPG) Quoted by Michael Quinlan in Thinking About Nuclear Weapons  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Nukes But if in the end the expectations were confounded and truly vital interests were indeed about to be overborne by non-nuclear means —heavy CW or BW attack, say, or trade strangulation— the idea that a nuclear power would let itself be overwhelmed simply because of an NFU promise is simply absurd.  Michael Quinlan, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons  CW = chemical weapons BW = biological weapons NFU = no first use, usually of nukes © 2017 Kwiple.com
Nukes Deterrence cannot exist if there is no possibility of use.  Michael Quinlan, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons  © 2017 Kwiple.com
Nukes There lies at the heart of deterrence in the nuclear age an inescapable paradox: the more seriously the possessor is believed capable in extremis  of using the armoury, the less likely it is that others will cause or allow circumstances to arise challenging its use. And the converse is also true.   Michael Quinlan, Thinking About Nuclear Weapons  © 2017 Kwiple.com
 
Nukes What, for example, might chemical or biological weapons by now be capable of had they and their delivery systems received the same investment of resources, across sixty years and more, as has been devoted to nuclear armouries? From this standpoint the advent of nuclear weapons may have been no more than the particular form first taken—perhaps to macabre advantage, in that its savage abruptness made the reality unmistakable— by an evolution that was anyway inexorable. The issues for strategy and statesmanship, and for ethics and law, need therefore to be recognized as not only novel, but also broad and basic. Michael Quinlan, 2009 © 2017 Kwiple.com