War & Peace Quote by Mohamed ElBaradei

ElBaradei is doing what good nuclear diplomacy always does: making the “choice” sound like what it is, a habit. The phrasing “weapon of choice” deliberately borrows the language of consumer preference and addiction, flattening the supposed gravitas of deterrence into something routine, even casual. It’s a quiet indictment: as long as major powers treat nukes as normal tools of security, they teach everyone else the same lesson.

The key move is his focus on policy contagion. He isn’t arguing proliferation happens because “bad actors” wake up evil; he’s arguing it’s structurally incentivized. “Security bind, if you like” is a diplomat’s soft pedal, but the subtext is sharp: insecurity is produced by the current order, not merely endured within it. By adding “or perceive themselves to be,” he widens the net. In nuclear politics, perceptions are the battlefield; states don’t need to be objectively threatened to pursue the bomb, only convinced they are. That line also undercuts the moral sorting of nations into responsible and irresponsible. Fear is not a cultural defect; it’s a rational response to a system that rewards maximal deterrence.

Context matters: as IAEA Director General, ElBaradei spent years watching nonproliferation norms get preached while nuclear states modernized their arsenals and elevated nuclear threats in strategic doctrine. His intent is to shift the conversation from enforcement to credibility. If you want fewer nuclear states, he implies, stop signaling that nuclear weapons are the ultimate membership card for survival.