"Lives in the Balance does a remarkable job of integrating vast amounts of information about nuclear weapons and the Cold War, and it does so with a rare degree of common sense and skepticism about the conventional wisdom. Moti Nissani's interdisciplinary approach provides many fascinating insights and speculations about the psychology and politics of American foreign policy and about what may be necessary to create more humane policies in the future."-William A. Schwart...

Democracy may be capable of rational actions, but only if given a chance. Humanitarians should give it that chance by concentrating their scarce energies and resources on those defects in our way of doing politics which make otherwise sane human beings vote against their interests and convictions. The struggle against deep-seated structural flaws in our political system must precede the struggles against their terribly important surface manifestations. For the time being...