Three physicists on cooperation between rivals, from fusion to nuclear restraint
October 5, 2026 · 17 min read
Dennis Whyte shows that rival powers have shared fusion science since the Cold War and still build ITER together, while Carlo Rovelli and Max Tegmark point to the treaties, weapons bans and individual acts of restraint that kept nuclear rivals from destroying each other. Together they argue that cooperation between enemies has a real record, and they are frank about its costs: slow megaprojects and far too much reliance on luck.
The rules, numbers and steps worth keeping in front of you.
- Whyte: fusion research was declassified because both sides were stuck on the physics.
- Whyte: Western scientists accepted the Soviet tokamak result only after a British team measured it with a laser.
- Whyte: Reagan and Gorbachev chose a fusion project, later ITER, as a symbol when treaty talks stalled.
- Whyte's warning: ITER's seven partners are like seven chefs in the kitchen, and one planetary attempt is too few.
- Whyte: SPARC was designed by 20 to 25 people in about two years, using knowledge built for ITER.
- Rovelli: living together on the planet matters more than overpowering your enemy.
- Rovelli: the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with both sides stepping back.
- Tegmark: Vasili Arkhipov refused the third vote needed to launch a nuclear torpedo.
- Tegmark: nuclear war has nearly happened about a dozen times, and luck is not a long-term strategy.
- Meselson's rule, via Tegmark: verification need not be perfect; one percent is usually enough.
- Tegmark: the biological weapons ban has held for 50 years, largely through stigma.
- Tegmark: algorithms should never make life or death decisions.
- Steps: open hard problems up, verify by measurement, find a shared project, then run several small attempts.
This is the short form. The full insight has every expert's reasoning, their own words and the sources.