A Method to My Deterrence: Perspectives on Disaster from Kubrick, Ellsberg, and Wohlstetter Anonymous College

“Though this be madness, yet there is method in’t,” is inherently Shakespearean in nature, and translates to the well known contemporary idiom “There’s a method to my madness.”(2.2. 223). While the structure of nuclear diplomacy ventures far beyond the times of Hamlet, the doctrine behind “madness,” is still very much contained across individuals in control of such armament. The day-old question of “how much power is too much for one man?,” is one that enters the minds of countless historiographers when assessing leaders in positions of nuclear power. This question, one that divides the mortal from the immortal, looms on minds of strategists of all different schools of historiographical thought. It’s what links the minds of Stanley Kubrick, Daniel Ellsberg, and Albert Wohlstetter together. Despite the fact that each of the aforementioned architects of creative thought are separated in the essence of their respective fields, they’re all entrenched in the same life-staking intellectual dilemma of nuclear warfare within the mid 20th century. The questioning of nuclear deterrence is itself one that puts a user in an indomitable position, yet it’s also one that each Kubrick, Ellsberg, and Wohlstetter are willing to explore when...