So there was a guy from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace on NPR this morning, and he said something that I thought was utterly bone-headed, so I thought I'd share.

He said in terms of nuclear weapons, the world is a safer place now, and the standard he used was that there are fewer overall weapons today than there were during the Cold War.

Uh. How do I get one of these sweet Think Tank jobs?

The likelihood of a nuclear attack seems much greater to me, since it is not the sheer number of weapons that should be the primary consideration, but the number of actors with weapons, and the nature of their regimes.

Also, with vastly more sophisticated communication channels cheaply available, and an increasingly globalized world, non-state actors have become much more empowered to deliver weapons of mass destruction, including the possibility of nukes.

Anyway, the guy's analysis seemed dumb and shallow. One could make a reasonable argument that we're safer now, but not with the criteria he was using.