ABSTRACT
Raymond Aron's decision to intervene in the crucial strategic debate at the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War was in line with his engagement in the Resistance during his London exile, but at odds with his intention to resume his academic career at the university on returning to Paris. According to Raymond Aron, "the totalitarian regime results from total war and accepts its law, but aims at shortening its duration". Each crisis taught the adversaries the rules of the bipolar competition, which excluded direct confrontation between the armed forces of the two super-powers. Step by step, the nuclear revolution found its place in the strategic equation as the parties came to understand that atomic weapons were not the decisive weapon that could impose imperial unification and were useless as military, political, and diplomatic tools in the Cold War.
