Sam Harris

It really is out of Dr. Strangelove that we got into this situation.

So let's talk about proliferation and why it hasn't proceeded further than it has.

We've got nine countries now that have nuclear weapons.

If I'm not mistaken, that's the US, Russia, China, the UK, France, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea.

But many others have toyed with developing them.

And South Africa even had a stockpile at one point and then dismantled it in 89.

And then obviously Ukraine and Belarus and Kazakhstan had weapons that were Soviet weapons that they...

gave back when the Soviet system collapsed.

How do you interpret the fact that, I mean, this is not a successful story of total non-proliferation, but at one point it was imagined that many more countries were going to go nuclear very quickly.

So what happened?

Then-

What do you think about the logic of deterrence here?

Because when you look at a country that really has become a global malefactor like North Korea, the reason why North Korea has been immune to retribution or outside meddling

apart from its quasi-alliance with China, is the fact that it now can... I guess in part, there's a conventional answer here.

It could just blanket South Korea with artillery shells.

But the fact that it's nuclear seems to be part of the picture here.

And it's just a reason why it's unthinkable to respond to its provocations with force

I guess another example would be Pakistan.

Now, it's like as much as we might want to respond to something there, it might have been several moments over the last 20 years where it would have seemed warranted.

It's in a different category given the fact that it has nuclear weapons.