This is a podcast from the archives of the BBC wreath lectures.

This lecture in the series The Two-Eged Sword, given by Lawrence Martin, was originally broadcast in 1981.

Most of us alive today have spent by far the greater part of our adult life in the so-called nuclear age.

This makes it all too easy for us to forget

how little experience we have

of this radically new strategic world.

Some time ago, an eminent scientist,

once one of the highest officials

in the British Defence Establishment,

was kindly trying to make an inroad,

however shallow,

into my obvious incapacity

to appreciate the vastness

of the universe. Think of this, he urged me. If the world were reduced to the size of a

football, the oceans would scarcely make it feel damp. We need a metaphor like that, I feel,

to make us realize how early we live in the nuclear age when measured on the scale

of history.

With such a reminder, we might observe a decent humility about the diagnosis we make and the

prescriptions that we offer.

The danger of overconfidence in one's own analysis is aggravated by a surprising familiarity in the superficial

appearance of the contemporary strategic world. If we look around, we see alliances, wars,

threats of war, subversion, and let's not fail to notice a good deal of what passes for peace.

...