Since the end of World War Two, the use of nuclear weapons has been America's-and the world's-worst nightmare. But they have never actually been used, despite the fact that an ever-increasing number of countries have obtained them. Our fear levels remain as high as ever today, but are they justified? Eminent international relations scholar John Mueller thinks not, and in his critically-acclaied book,
Atomic Obsession: Nuclear Alarmism from Hiroshima to Al-Qaeda (Oxford, 2009), he contends that our overriding concern about nuclear weapons borders on an obsession unsupported by either history or logic, with important policy implications.
John Mueller holds the Woody Hayes Chair of National Security Studies, Mershon Center, and is professor of Political Science at Ohio State University, where he teaches courses in international relations. He is the author of several classic works of political science and many editorial page columns and articles in The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, Reason, The Washington Post, and The New York Times. A frequent national television commentator, Mueller is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, has been a John Simon Guggenheim Fellow, and has received grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
