Nuclear risk

Sergei Karaganov's thinking on nuclear disarmament (Analysis, 5 May) is muddled and unclear. He accepts that nuclear weapons are clearly immoral but he believes that these weapons have saved humanity from itself.

Nuclear weapons did not prevent the Vietnamese War, the Rwandan civil war, the Sudanese war, or the various wars which arose from the abolition of Yugoslavia or countless other wars around the globe.

The existence of nuclear weapons nearly caused global warfare at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and they could easily cause global warfare starting in the Middle East. There is no evidence nuclear weapons have ever prevented any war, anywhere.

But then, Sergei Karaganov is an economist, not a logician; so perhaps he is applying the risk management techniques which have been operated by the world's bankers.

BRIAN D ALLINGHAM

Magdala Crescent

Edinburgh