Your editorial on ”The 50 percent solution” makes some good points. As you say, simply reducing arsenals does not necessarily reduce the danger of nuclear war. ”The key is what is left.” And, I would add, what remains permissible to build.
You grant that Star Wars has no real ability to protect cities and state that the best strategic reason for considering such a system is the protection of vulnerable land-based missile silos, ”which can be protected more readily by arms control.” Exactly. Instead of a science fiction fantasy at a cost of hundreds of billions, why not a bilateral nuclear weapons freeze, preventing any breakout of existing treaties or development of any new and more threatening nuclear weapon systems? This then could be the base from which to begin the desirable stability-increasing cuts.
