marlowe fulminates:

Containment is a very risky strategy. I'm not inclined to stop worrying and love the Bomb. I want that missile defense. ABMs, lasers, or both - whatever we can get half-perfected and deploy first. Then we can tell all these assholes to go to hell.

And as a wicked Third World despot or--horrors!--a perfidious Frenchman, shall I lob an ICBM at the US metropolis of my choice, easily trackable back to its mobile launcher, inviting the incineration of my capital, or might I be tempted to the safer and vastly less expensive course of secreting my nuke in a cargo container full of marijuana (to name just one commodity our doughty border guardians have had imperfect success in interdicting) and detonating it in New York Harbor--or Chesapeake Bay--without that embarrassing audit trail? And which asshole will you then in your wrath consign to hell from behind your impenetrable shield, little Phil?

cordially,