What’s wrong with this analysis, if anything?
There’s a couple of issues here: On point 3, it’s been a long time since I looked into this, so…
2 responses to “The increasing risk of nuclear war”
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Imaginative paraphrase in King’s spirit, not an actual quotation from Dr. King:
What is missing here is not factual sobriety, but distance from the framework itself. The analysis shows, clearly enough, how deterrence becomes more fragile: arms control decays, decision times shrink, dual-use systems deepen uncertainty, and new technologies heighten the danger. But it still reasons within the assumptions of deterrence. It asks how a system of organized nuclear terror might be made less unstable, not whether reliance upon such a system is itself a sign of moral failure. And that is the deeper question. The issue is not only whether this arrangement can be managed more safely. It is whether a civilization can still call itself sane while grounding its security in permanent preparations for mass death. A society that names this peace has already surrendered too much. https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/national-committee-sane-nuclear-policy-sane
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There’s a couple of issues here:
On point 3, it’s been a long time since I looked into this, so the science may have shifted. But at the time I did look into it, my impression was that we just don’t know what the real probability of a nuclear winter is, or what the consequences would be if it occurred. I don’t mean that it *wouldn’t* be caused by a 250 warhead exchange, I mean that we just *don’t know*, even though a number of scientists were loudly claiming that we did. In particular, studies depended on unjustified assumptions about how much ash would make it into the upper atmosphere. But like I said, this was a while back, so I may be out of date.
On point 4, while this is strictly-speaking true, we actually know relatively little about nuclear decision-making. At least in the US, the force is structured to allow us to absorb a first strike and still retaliate, so the president would not need to make a decision in only 15 minutes. That’s (part of) why we have those hideously expensive ballistic missile submarines, instead of only using much cheaper silo-based ICBMs – to ensure that the president can wait until we know for sure what’s happening.
On point 5, when I looked into this, it was really unclear how close we actually came to a nuclear war in the 80s. The Russians have incentive to exaggerate on this point. But similarly to point 3, it’s been a while since I did, so I may be out of date.
So I guess my assessment is that while I overall mostly agree with the linked article, the picture is murkier and less certain than they would suggest.
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