David Carr is his usual pessimistic self concerning the possibility of nuclear war between Pakistan and India. I am my usual (cautiously) optimistic self. As I said to David face-to-face over the weekend, and as he said I should stick up here, there is one huge difference between nuclear weapons and the previous sort. Nuclear weapons can kill Presidents, Prime Ministers and Generals, as well as the lower ranks. Would World Wars One and Two have proceeded as they did if, every time you (one of the grand fromages) launched your Grand Offensive from the safety of your French Chateau or your German or British or Russian command bunker, there was a one in five chance that you personally would die a horrible death. Would the Cold War have remained throughout its duration so cold without nuclear weapons concentrating the minds of the Great People?
