A Realist's Nightmare: Enduring Warnings of Dr. Strangelove

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@article{1716762,
      author = {Roshni Mehta},
      title = {A Realist's Nightmare: Enduring Warnings of Dr. Strangelove},
      journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
      year = {2026},
      volume = {9},
      number = {10},
      pages = {2485-2488},
      issn = {2456-8880},
      url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1716762.pdf},
      abstract = {Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (1964) operates as far more than political satire. Examined through the theoretical lenses of classical realism, the security dilemma, and mutually assured destruction (MAD), it reveals itself as a systematic critique of the assumptions underpinning nuclear deterrence. This article argues that the film functions as a 'realist nightmare'  a world in which rational deterrence logic is fatally undermined by human irrationality, bureaucratic dysfunction, and the paradoxes of automated destruction. Six decades later, the structural dynamics Kubrick dramatised  nuclear rivalry, great-power competition, and technological escalation remain disturbingly contemporary.},
      month = {April},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV9I10-1716762}
  }