Speculations

'Countless academic nuclear strategists like nothing better than to write lengthly treatises on whether this or that technological development, way of deploying nuclear weapongs, or doctrine will make nuclear war more or less likely. In practice their speculations have proved almost entirely irrelevant, because they were never put to the test. All the strategists can do is play with words, sometimes supplemented with mathematical equations few people can understand and which may be even less relevant to any kind of reality than words are.'

Creveld, M. van. 2008. The culture of war. New York: Ballantine books, 286