Ariel Karn

“Follow your inner moonlight; don't hide the madness.”
― Allen Ginsberg

“Nuclear posture is the incorporation of some number and type of nuclear warheads and delivery vehicles state's overall military structure, the rules and procedures governing how those weapons are deployed, when and under what conditions they might be used, against what targets, and who has the authority to make those decisions. Nuclear posture is best thought of as the operational, rather than the declaratory, nuclear doctrine of a country; while the two can overlap, it is the operational doctrine that generates deterrent power against an opponent. To put it bluntly, states care more about what an adversary can credibly do with its nuclear weapons than what it says about them.”
― Vipin Narang, Nuclear Strategy in the Modern Era: Regional Powers and International Conflict

“We think deterrence works. The problem is that, notwithstanding the confident claims of countless theorists, including those reviewed here, we do not really know why nuclear bombs have not been dropped since 1945, or at the very least, we cannot prove our theories and instincts. Was it good statesmanship? Was Kenneth Waltz right, and nuclear weapons really are the great stabilizers? Or perhaps it was just luck? As is often said about the inadvisability of testing nuclear deterrence failures, we have never run the experiment, and we hope we never will.”
― Francis J. Gavin, Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy

“Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn't matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don't think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn't stop you from doing anything at all.”
― Richard P. Feynman