John Mearsheimer

But people did not listen to me then either.

There's no question that the presence of nuclear weapons makes it much less likely, I'm choosing my words carefully here, much less likely that a great power would aggress against another great power.

It doesn't take that possibility off the table, but it makes it much less likely because of the reasons that you articulated.

But with regard to nuclear use,

It's an interesting question how you think about nuclear use in a mad world.

I mean, your point that we're in a mad world is, that's mad capital M-A-D as well as M-A-D, small letters.

But let's stick to the capital letters.

We're in a world of mutual assured destruction.

There's no question that in that world,

it's unlikely that nuclear weapons would be used.

But the way you use nuclear weapons in that world is you use them for manipulation of risk purposes, demonstration effect.

You put both sides out on the slippery slope.

Now, what exactly am I saying here?

Let me talk about NATO doctrine during the Cold War.

We lived in a mad world.

United States and Soviet Union, or the Warsaw Pact and NATO, both had an assured destruction capability, so you had mutual assured destruction.

If the Warsaw Pact were to invade Western Europe, and here we're talking about West Germany,

and NATO was losing the war, we said that we would use nuclear weapons.

How would we use nuclear weapons given that we were in a mad world?

The argument was that we would use a handful of nuclear weapons against the Warsaw Pact, not necessarily against their military forces.