The global community currently faces a nuclear arms crisis comparable to the Cold War, an expert author in nuclear weapons said. Michael Krepon, who wrote ‘Better Safe than Sorry: The Ironies of Living with the Bomb,’ spoke to about 20 people at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Wednesday about his book and current nuclear threats as part of an ongoing seminar series by the Security Studies Program. He opened with two questions about the number of nuclear weapons built by the U.S. and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War – which was 125,000 – versus the number of actual explosive accidents involving armed nuclear U.S. aircraft, which was only 30. He said these two questions have led him to a third, the subject of his book. ‘How in the world did we manage to get through the Cold War without a terrible detonation in anger, by accident or by miscalculation?’ he asked. In 1989, Krepon co-founded the Henry L. Stimson Center, a nonprofit organization based in Washington, D.C. that promotes peace and security worldwide. The group deals with arms control and nuclear war risks, through analyzing the Cold War and recent nuclear conflicts. Krepon, director of the Space Security and South Asia programs, is known for his knowledge on weaponry, nuclear proliferation and weapons of mass destruction. In his new book, Krepon discusses many reasons for the relatively non-destructive outcome of the Cold War: good fortune, deterrence, arms control and containment, and possibly ‘divine intervention.’ He said although today’s nuclear age has similarities, it is still different from the one of several decades ago. ‘[Today’s era is] the one that we worry about weakness rather than strength, the one where we worry about non-state actors as well as state,’ he said. ‘Can we get through the second nuclear age with a similar result?’ He compared Kim Jong-Il of North Korea and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran to Cold War-era communist leaders Mao and Stalin. North Korea and Iran are currently major players on the world’s unstable nuclear stage, just as Mao’s China, and Stalin’s Soviet Union, once were. The attendees asked a variety of questions concerning current nuclear weaponry issues, some reflecting upon the conflict between Israel and Iran. Many said nuclear weaponry was an important topic to remain informed on. ‘I’ve been attending this forum off and on for about 15 years,’ James Schneider, a Bostonian who sells newspapers in Bunker Hill mall, said. Paloma Badet, a cadet in the French Saint Cyr army, similar to West Point in the U.S., said she thinks both the issue and program highly relevant. ‘I am in my last year, so I will study here for a term at MIT in the Security Studies Program,’ she said. ‘Everything, especially with Iran interests me very much,’ she said. Deborah Berman, a Ph.D. candidate in the Security Studies Program, said the seminars helped to heighten awareness of the topic. ‘It’s a very important policy issue,’ Berman said. ‘It’s one that doesn’t seem to receive as much academic treatment.’