The global superpower and nuclear peer that was the other party, the Soviet Union, has been out of business for over a decade.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center For Security Policy

He was also aware of a more immediate risk in those cold-war days: a smaller visitor (such as the one that had exploded over Siberia in 1908, flattening 2, 000 square miles of forest) might be mistaken by either superpower for a nuclear detonation and trigger Armageddon.

ECONOMIST: Gene Shoemaker

The usual riposte, of course, is that such superpower restraint is necessary if others aspiring to possession of nuclear weapons are to be dissuaded from acquiring them.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center for Security Policy | ��The Limitation Of Nuclear Materials As A Means Of Controlling Armaments��