Nuclear Weapons in a Post-Christian World
Nine countries possess about 15,000 nuclear weapons, reports the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. These weapons have become almost an afterthought as leaders of Russia and United States talk about modernizing nuclear arsenals - until crises emerge, such as the recent series of provocative tests from North Korea. The strategic analysis that goes into determining need for such weapons and national priorities may be missing a moral dimension, suggests Paul Bracken, professor of management and political science at Yale. He describes a decline of such a worldview in politics, especially in the United States and Europe, and he notes that Christianity lacks the authority it once had during the years of the Cold War: “This decline of authority means that calculations of self-interest in international politics bear almost all of the weight for restraint and shaping world order.” Bracken reviews the history of theologians who deb