#  Benjamin Wilson discusses his new book in a recent interview with The Harvard Gazette  

 





**Cold War arms-control pioneers perhaps weren’t peacemakers we thought they were**

The problem, according to Benjamin Wilson, was the chief proponents of that early brand of arms control, an elite group of science advisers, “wore a progressive face” but ended up **“**protecting existing structures and domestic arrangements, foreclosing the possibility of more radical transformations.”

That’s the argument **Wilson**, an associate professor of the history of science, makes in his new book, “**Strange Stability: How Cold War Scientists Set Out to Control the Arms Race and Ended Up Serving the Military-Industrial Complex**.”



 

November 04, 2025

 

 

[In this edited interview](https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2025/11/cold-war-arms-control-pioneers-perhaps-werent-peacemakers-we-thought-they-were/?utm_source=SilverpopMailing&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20Gazette%2020251105%20(1)&spMailingID=36090502&spUserID=MjA5MjgxNDEyNTYS1&spJobID=3023161395&spReportId=MzAyMzE2MTM5NQS2), Wilson discusses the doctrine of “strategic stability” and the downside of the American cultural myth of the independent scientist who saves society from itself.



 

 

 



 

 

 Share on:- [     Facebook ](#)
- [     Twitter ](#)
- [     Linkedin ](#)