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The John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy

Nuclear Weapons and the Nature of Politics

June 8-10, 1984

Introduction
Schedule

Introduction

The conference will focus on selected aspects of the question of whether nuclear weapons change the nature of politics as it was understood by theorists and practiced by the statesmen of the past. We are confident that this philosophical question, unlike some of the issues of immediate policy that it bears on, should conduce to a genuinely open discussion without predictable partisan or ideological divisions.

Conference Schedule

Friday, June 8
10:00-12:00

Would nuclear war endanger civilization or even the species and does that possibility require us to subordinate all considerations of freedom or equality to survival and drop any notion of a just war?

Paper: Albert Wohlstetter
Response: Bryan Hehir

3:00-5:00

What effect have nuclear weapons had on Western attitudes and conduct toward the U.S.S.R? Do we think and act toward it differently from how we did and would toward similar societies without nuclear weapons?

Paper: Stephen Sestanovich
Response: Helmut Sonnenfeldt

Saturday, June 9
10:00-12:00

What effects should and do nuclear weapons have on domestic governance? Must constitutional processes give way to technocracy or emergency activism?

Paper: Jeremy Stone
Response: Paul Wolfowitz

3:00-5:00

What effect have nuclear weapons had on public opinion or morale? Have they produced fear at the expense of will or reason? Have they replaced national patriotism with global citizenship?

Paper: Leon Wieseltier
Response: Abram Shulsky

Sunday, June 10
10:00-12:00

What effect should and do nuclear weapons have on willingness to use conventional force? Have they kept the peace? Have they inhibited necessary military action or preparation?

Paper: Richard Betts
Response: Charles Fairbanks

2:00-4:00

What effect should and do nuclear weapons have on alliances? Can any nation be committed to nuclear war for another?

Paper: Joseph Joffe
Response: Pierre Hassner

4:00-5:00

General Discussion

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©1999, 2000 The John M. Olin Center for Inquiry into the Theory and Practice of Democracy, University of Chicago
Revised: January 2nd, 2000
http://olincenter.uchicago.edu/nucweapons_1984.html