Nuclear war is a bit of a paradox. It’s a real possibility, because many states now have nuclear weapons and act as if their use is possible. Yet nuclear war is also too undesirable to be considered a real possibility, and most of us ignore it, choosing not to live in constant fear. We have to stop ignoring it and settle on the fact of its being a real possibility. There have been many close calls.
Four countries have SLBMs, submarine launched ballistic missiles with nuclear tips: the U.S., Great Britain, Russia and China. They are stealthy, making them hard to locate. They are becoming more stealthy. We do not have to go into numbers and details to agree with the conclusion of experts: “What can be said for sure is that both the Russian and U.S. submarine groups may presently cause an irrecoverable damage to any opponent, thereby ensuring strategic deterrence.” China can now or within a handful of years be in the same category.
Each country is able to wipe out the other and destroy most of us anywhere on Earth in a nuclear war.
We have to worry about such things as human accidents, machine lapses and accidents, human and machine miscalculations, human misunderstandings, human error, human passions and human madness. We cannot rely on the abstract idea of rational deterrence.
The chances of nuclear war can’t be calculated, but the results are so bad that even very low chances can’t be ignored. If deterrence requires a willingness to destroy most human beings on Earth, it’s a bleak and dismal long-term strategy.
Nuclear war is unthinkable, but we have to think about it. Long-term security cannot be achieved under a nuclear deterrent because of the non-zero chances of war from any number of causes. What alternative is there except to make peace our firm and clear aim among all the nuclear states? How else can we create the conditions essential to taking all those steps that create peace and reduce the chances of nuclear war?
2:05 pm on April 8, 2018
