According to Jonathan Schell, the defining characteristic of the 20th century was the uncontrolled acceleration of humankind’s capacity for self-destruction: where does this leave us at the start of the new millennium? Pointing to the dangers presented by the 30,000 nuclear weapons still in existence, the unraveling of the ABM treaty and the arrival of nuclear weapons in South-Asia, amongst other disastrous developments, Schell suggests that the world now faces an inescapable choice between annihilation and rapid proliferation.