The dangers involved are now on clear display in the escalating crisis in North Korea as the United States seeks to strike a delicate balance between deterring an unknown adversary and reassuring a nervous ally. What's more, the drama plays out in full view of an international audience, some of whom are watching for clues about the utility of nuclear weapons in the 21st Century.

This week marks the 67th anniversary of Winston Churchill's 'Iron Curtain' address (actually named 'The Sinews of Peace'), which he called "the most important speech of my career". And he'd given one or two of those.

In his inauguration speech, Obama told the American people that ten years of war were coming to an end, with the withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan. He signalled that he now wanted to concentrate on domestic priorities.

The prediction made by right-thinking individuals during the 20th century that proliferation would be an inevitable consequence of the existence of nuclear weapons has come to bear.

Nuclear weapons could foster peace and relax tensions in this region that is riddled with potential conflict. What might sound overly optimistic or even foolish has in fact a lot of arguments and evidence backing it.

There was no Arab Spring - nor is there necessarily an Islamist Winter. Ongoing events in Syria, and recently across the Middle East, are the last in a long historic process of protest, opposition and revolution. But the outcome will not be democracy as we know it in the West.