Almost 10 years ago, the NYRB blog hosted a debate about nuclear deterrence. There are lots of great names here, but I especially like this line from Jeremy Bernstein:

The notion of having an “independent deterrent” may sound sensible until one looks into what in the British case this actually is: one submarine wandering around submerged. When I read about this I kept thinking of the Beatles song, “We all live in a yellow submarine.”