Topic: How To Invest

What is Pat’s commentary for the week of April 25, 2023

Article Excerpt

From time to time, Putin and his associates mutter dark threats that if the West pushes Russia too far, Russia may respond with nuclear weapons. Nobody can predict these things, but my guess is that this is pure bluster. The nuclear threat seemed much more real in the 1960s. The best analysis I’ve come across came from Herman Kahn (1922-1983). After publishing a couple of books on the nuclear threat—On Thermonuclear War in 1960 and Thinking about the Unthinkable in 1962—Kahn established his reputation as one of the top experts in the field. In 1962, Kahn published what he described as a 16-step escalation ladder. (By 1965, he had expanded the ladder to 44 steps.) These were lists of the steps that countries would take before things got bad enough to spark a nuclear war. It’s not light reading, but it’s reassuring. Beyond that, I think it’s a mistake to dwell on the risk that the Ukraine war could turn into World War…