“Think of Niagara Falls. Think of the onrushing current as the river pours itself toward the massive cascade. Imagine a lone swimmer a hundred yards or so upstream, desperately stroking against the current to keep from being swept over the precipice. That swimmer is President Obama, the river is the world, and the falls is the threat of unchecked nuclear weapons. Henry James used the image of Niagara to describe the rush into World War I: ‘the tide that bore us along.’ Hannah Arendt defined the wars of the 20th century as events ‘cascading like a Niagara Falls of history. …’ But now the image has entered the lexicon of strategic experts who warn of a coming ‘cascade of proliferation,’ one nation following another into the deadly chasm of nuclear weapons unless present nuclear powers find a way to reverse the current.” (03/15/10)