Former Defense Secretary William Perry: Why we must describe doomsday to keep it from happening.

The William J. Perry Project is a nonprofit organization that the former US Defense Secretary founded in 2013 to engage and educate the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons in the 21st century. Here, Perry also discusses specific changes in US policy - including a pledge that the country would not use nuclear weapons first in a conflict - that he believes will preserve US national security while reducing nuclear risk. It didn't help us in Iraq.So my first point, John, is that we got into that policy from the Cold War, when whether or not it was a good policy, it at least was a policy that made some sense. If we had a no-first-use policy and were serious about it, that particular scenario for blundering into an accidental nuclear war would go away. B JM: b Of course, that part of a no-first-use policy - implying that you don't have a launch-on-warning policy, either - has been heavily criticized from particularly Republican quarters, but even other quarters as: How many US cities are you going to sacrifice before you fire back?. [Extracted from the article]