veto privileges, was anti-communist and aligned with the US at this time. The USSR counter-proposal insisted that America eliminate its own nuclear weapons first before considering any proposals for a system of controls and inspections. Although the Soviets showed further interest in the cause of arms control after they became a nuclear power in 1949, and particularly after the death of Stalin in 1953, the issue of the Soviet Union submitting to international inspection was always a thorny one, upon which many attempts at nuclear arms control stalled. Crucially, the Baruch Plan suggested that none of the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council would be able to veto a decision to punish culprits. Because of the difficulties in monitoring and policing, as well as Stalin's ambition to develop atomic weapons, although negotiations over the Baruch Plan and the Soviet counter-proposal continued in the UNAEC until 1948, the Plan was not seriously advanced later than the end of 1947. Throughout the negotiations, the USSR was fast-tracking its own atomic bomb project and the United States was continuing its own weapons development and production. With the failure of the Plan, both nations embarked on accelerated programs of weapons development, innovation, production, and testing as part of the overall nuclear arms race of the Cold War. Bertrand Russell urged control of nuclear weapons in the 1940s and early 1950s to avoid the likelihood of a general nuclear war, and initially felt hopeful when the Baruch Proposal was made. In late 1948 he suggested that "the remedy might be the threat of immediate war by the United States on Russia for the purpose of forcing nuclear disarmament on her." Later he thought less well of the Baruch Proposal as "Congress insisted upon the insertion of clauses which it was known that the Russians would not accept." In his 1961 book Has Man a Future?, Russell described the Baruch plan as follows: Historical importance Scholars such as David S. Painter, Melvyn Leffler, and James Carroll have questioned whether or not the Baruch Plan was a legitimate effort to achieve global cooperation on nuclear control. The Baruch Plan is often cited as a pivotal moment in history in works promoting internationalizing nuclear power or revisiting nuclear arms control. In philosopher Nick Bostrom's 2014 work Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies, he cited the Baruch Plan as part of an argument that a future power possessing superintelligence