Word: sherwin
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...Sherwin: Reagan's been a big help...
...Sherwin: Yes, it has a meaning, and the meaning is tied to the point that I was making--it's called nuclear diplomacy, atomic diplomacy, or nuclear blackmail, that sort of thing. The fear is that the side with more, with a superiority, will be willing to threaten more. It's a vague, general perception that has specificity, that is in a sense contrary to theory and in a sense beyond the bounds of history....It's a problem in cultural anthropology, and we don't want the Soviets to be superior...
...research centers--including the CSIA--are not without their critics. Some of the more literal experts in the arms control field point to the Center for Strategic and International Studies at Georgetown as being an overly enthusiastic proponent of hard-line strategies. Martin Sherwin a visiting professor in Harvard's graduate American history program, divides research centers into two categories: those that criticize government policy constructively without trying to undermine it and those that make "too much of an effort to find creative uses for nuclear weapons...
...problem is that these centers have intensely personal characters, so you don't know how they will grow and orient themselves," says Sherwin, an expert on the history of the arms race. He explains that in the Cold War climate of the 1950s and 1960s, many scholars strove to show how broadly nuclear weapons could be used by the United States, especially as a deterrent to Soviet aggression in Europe. Sherwin is one of a growing number of experts who questions the effectiveness of deterrence over the long term as U.S. and Soviet nuclear arsenals bulge and the danger...
...most helpful thing [a research center] can do is to be a serious critic," says Sherwin. "You don't always have to say bad things, but you also don't have to share the assumptions of people whose work you are evaluating...