To domesticate or not to domesticate is, I think, the question about nuclear weapons. To deter attack upon your nation and its allies by possessing nuclear weapons has been much like protecting your house and neighborhood against a rival neighborhood by keeping a wild and ferocious beast chained in your basement. The wildness and ferocity of the beast may either persuade potential attackers to keep their distance or convince them that you will never actually unchain the beast for fear he will destroy you before, while, or after destroying your attackers.

Picture the beast as a hungry tiger. The initial credibility problem is made worse by two additional factors. Now, the people in the rival neighborhood also have wild tigers – perhaps even bears – chained in their basements, and it seems likely that if we ever unchained our tigers against them they would unleash theirs against us. The increased imprudence of releasing our tigers raises further doubts about whether we would do it. The other factor is that, as far as anyone can tell, a lot of the tigers are basically man-eaters. One might have hoped that if both sides released their tigers, the tigers would just fight each other. It seems more likely, however, that the tigers will largely ignore each other and rampage through one or the other neighborhood, slaughtering whoever is at home.

What seems to be needed, then, are smart tigers. The tigers need to be domesticated to the extent of learning to obey a few commands. Then they can be taught that, when released, they are not to roar through the streets killing people, but are to engage the enemy tigers.