Nuclear Dilemmas

Harvard FAS

This first-year seminar explores major issues in nuclear weapons history and policy. Did the use of atomic bombs by the United States against Japan end the Second World War? Have nuclear arsenals prevented a direct conflict between nuclear powers since 1945? Why have some countries pursued nuclear arsenals while others have not? Could society survive a nuclear war in any meaningful sense, and should we prepare for that possibility? What harms has the pursuit of nuclear weapons caused to…