ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to give substance and contour to the new public challenge to nuclear weapons technologies and policies. The opening essay by Robert Jay Lifton explores the psychological dimensions of past acquiescence to increasing reliance on nuclear weapons for political and military purposes, of past failure to confront squarely the meaning and dangers of specific nuclear weapons programs. The legal community needs to give its urgent attention to the study and implementation of the international law relating to nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons lead to what could be called a form of technological terrorism. The existence of a nuclear armamentarium provokes a sense of still greater loss and insecurity and the embrace of more and more weapons. The danger of the situation is clear; but how to prevent the use of nuclear weapons, how to assess deterrence and how to delineate moral responsibility in the nuclear age are less clearly seen or stated.
