The U.S. administration’s dream of banishing nuclear weapons draws on a long history. Some suggest the fundamental question of whether such weapons should even exist was largely bypassed. Moreover, various well-known outcomes ascribed to the use or threat of atomic weapons, such as the Japanese surrender and the Cuban missile crisis, have subsequently been shown to be due more to conventional factors than to the bomb. A mystique surrounds nuclear weapons, so the discourse has often been characterized by wishful thinking or an exaggerated sense of their impact. As the wish to do away with nuclear arms grows while at the same time they proliferate to unstable actors, reasoned military thinking regarding their actual military utility must offset fanciful speculation