Quite interesting to read this two years after it was first published. I am wondering: Do you still think we are not in the kind of escalation that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons? I mean, Russia ia now under attack itself, a limited portion of its territory has been occupied by Ukrainian forces, the use of Western long-range weapons is probably going to be authorized that could hit Moscow. Don't you think all this could be perceived as an existential threat to the Russian leadership?
Thank you for the always interesting and insightful essays.
No, I think the difference is that the West is weaker than it was two years ago, and Russia is stronger, while Ukraine is on its last legs. Whilst Russia sees the war as a whole as an existential one, the Ukrainian invasion and even the use of longer-range western weapons are essentially nuisances, and don't change very much, except to make the Russians angrier.
There is another cultural meme which may have contributed to the fear of sudden nuclear annihilation: the mad leader whose actions cannot be explained rationally. Hitler is the main exponent. Putin is the new exponent of this idea.
In the efforts to keep the western population on side, which involve hiding the west’s share of responsibility from view, proper analysis of the various inter-national conflicts of interest is avoided. In this case, the only explanation for events the leaders have recourse to is the supposed rabid madness of the opponent. As a corollary, the population have no way of gauging how real and immediate the threat of the use of nuclear weapons really is and it is routinely overstated and overestimated.
I do not think that the Chinese are focused on an ability to destroy Moscow , but rather on Washington DC . The recent build up in their Nuclear capability is a response to the perceived threat from the USA . Moscow is an ally not a rival . There has been speculation that the rapid advances which China has made in Hypersonic Delivery Systems may be due to assistance from Russia .
Oh, I agree. One of the problems with trying to compress a 10,000 word essay into 3500 words is that nuances like this get left out. It's really a question of a comparator. Since the beginning, the Chinese-Russian nuclear relationship has been extremely one-sided, and the Chinese have very much been the junior partner. I don't see the two countries as allies, so much as having overlapping interests. But the ability to reach the Moscow Criterion, even if never remotely to be used, does change the quality of the relationship. I agree about the US: that's why most new Chinese ICBM programmes are mobile; the US, of course, doesn't have an ABM system of any importance.
I would classify the relationship between Russia and China less as a community of interests and more as a community of destiny. In fact, I am convinced that both countries would defend each other.
I haven't read her book I'm afraid, though I have seen some interviews. She's a journalist with an interest in the subject but she has never been involved with either the technical or the political aspects of nuclear weapons. Her N Korean scenario is essentially fictional in that it strings together series of worst-case but not impossible incidents. But in reality, the Russians would immediately detect the launch of a NK missile against the US (assuming NK has the capability to do this accurately, which is a matter of some debate.) There would be urgent messages between Washington and Moscow. If the missile detonated anywhere useful (not certain) then any US response would be by an SSBN in the Pacific: there would be no need to fly anywhere near Russia. Moreover, the Russians would see from the launch trajectory that the missile was not aimed at them.
Nuclear war is inevitable if, in each given year, there is a non-zero chance of nuclear weapons being fired by mistake. If the risk is 0.1%, then there is a roughly 50% chance of nuclear war breaking out within about 675 years; if the risk is 1%, then 50% probability is reached after about 70 years.
Disregarding that, the article rests on the double assumption that MAD exists and that it leads to rational calculations on the part of decision makers. Both of these assumptions can be questioned. The launch codes to the American nuclear arsenal are presently in the hands of a person who clearly suffices from bouts of intellectual impairment, given that they haven't been taken away from him. We are also witnessing the ongoing shelling of a nuclear power plant in the proxy war between NATO and Russia that's being fought in Ukraine. How can the assumption of rational decision making be upheld under such circumstances? As for MAD, the Russians are clearly worried that their nuclear arsenal might not survive a nuclear first strike, or not that it might not be survivable enough for the US not to believe that their anti-missile defenses would be able to cope with whatever the Russians might still be able to fire in retaliation. The US might even believe that a very small number of Russian warheads getting through would be both survivable and a worthwhile price to pay for what they could consider a winning outcome. It's not about real technical capability, it's about what each side believes - two different things. Believes are also shaped by ideologically grounded wishful thinking, and that is clearly something that is currently on a steep increase in the West in connection with the war in Ukraine.
My whole point, I think, was that nuclear wars don't just "happen." Quite a lot of writing about them sees them as what used to be called Acts of God, or like major disasters or epidemics. They aren't: they are an extreme case of strategic escalation when one side believes that its very existence is threatened. If the US, or Russia or any other country ever reaches that point, then there is a very serious possibility at least of the threat of nuclear war. But it's not something that can be mathematically predicted, and I don't think there's an identifiable arithmetical "chance" of nuclear war at any given point. It doesn't work like that, because it's the equivalent of arguing that if there's a 0,1% chance (or whatever) of aliens visiting Earth, then such a visit is inevitable after a given number of yeas. But the question is, of course, whether there are any aliens. And as I think I made clear, theories such as MAD are nice intellectual constructs but they don't reflect real life.
Just like with many other complex situations that have discrete outcomes, the probability of a nuclear war by accident does not have to be predicted or computed to know that it exists. Then the conclusion that nuclear war by accident is inevitable over the long run is, by itself, inevitable. It's unknown what this long run means, of course. The real gist of the argument is that the probability is too high to be ignored unlike, for example, the risk of earth being hit by a large asteroid, a risk that humanity is ignoring for all practical purposes. Given this insight, dealing with the risk of nuclear war, requires taking measures to reduce it constantly until it becomes near zero, preferably by abolishing nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, everything seems to be pointing in the other direction - nuclear war is becoming ever more likely. Hence the proposition that nuclear war is "an extreme case of strategic escalation when one side believes that its very existence is threatened" is precisely what can be questioned.
Excellent essay. If there's a nuclear exchange, it will be between India and Pakistan or India and China, or a combination of the three. If any of the parties have the ground forces necessary, and do take their territorial claims to the limit, that's where it will start.
We haven't seen a world with nuclear weapons suffer destabilization of the scale that's on the horizon--something like the Great Depression, plus multiple pandemic diseases, plus gargantuan migration, plus famine, plus commodities shortages, plus an energy crisis.
Would your arguments pass muster in such a world? As the prosperity pie shrinks, I suspect there will be a lot of conflict and therefore more occasions where these weapons could conceivably be used, if only out of desperation or paranoia.
There was a lot of concern about this kind of thing thirty years ago, at the end of the Cold War., but in the end nothing happened. The possibility of accidents then was greater, simply because the stockpiles were so much higher, especially at the tactical level. There were also lots of scare stories about terrorists stealing suitcase bombs and exploding them. But in the end, nuclear weapons are very difficult to use: to arm one takes a lot of training and experience. Likewise with strategic weapons, you can't simply point them in another direction: there's a mass of stuff in the warheads that only deep specialists can even understand. Whilst I'm not complacent, I don't think this is that much of a risk.
Wouldn't you agree that the coming fruition of the Limits of Growth--possible serious collapse--portends a crisis worse than the end of the cold war?
In the midst of very serious crises, there's a tendency for irrational regimes to come to the fore. Maybe irrational's the wrong word. Perhaps it's more along the lines of "unpredictable" or "unfamiliar". For example, let's say there's a revolution in India, bringing a new, aggressive clique to power in an unstable world context. Shouldn't we expect Pakistan to be rather jumpy, perhaps jumpy enough to react ominously to new Indian regime acts they would have taken in stride if perpetrated by the old Indian regime (if only because they "knew" the old Indian regime)?
Am I making sense? Historically, things could get very topsy-turvy politically as large crises of decline play out. Capitals move. Governments transform. Civil Wars break open. New blood leaks in. Ideologies morph.
It seems to me opportunities for nuclear exchange increase as crises escalate such transformations. For a given opportunity, the risk is small, but if instability multiplies them, as I expect it might--the idea gives me a sinking feeling.
I agree that this is an issue, but it's one that needs very careful teasing out. There are a number of strands, at least (1) Accidental damage to warhead stockpiles (warheads are generally stored separately from delivery systems)(2), Sub-state actors (eg the military) might to try to use them independently of political control and (3) existing or future governments might be forced to threaten or use them in circumstances we can't foresee. I rule out nuclear terrorism or some kind of unauthorised launch largely because the actual command and control of nuclear weapons is extremely complex and there are many actors involved. If you somehow steal a nuclear capable aircraft, you would still have to get hold of a warhead, arm it, fuel it, prepare the aircraft, find the target and many other things.
Of all the major nuclear powers, Pakistan is actually the one I would most worry about, because of the influence of the military and the influence of religion within the military. That said, it's generally accepted that Pakistan sees its nuclear weapons as as second-strike deterrent, and a way of addressing India's massive conventional superiority. The warheads on most Pakistan systems are low-yield (10-50K reportedly) and any kind of unprovoked attack on India would simply lead to Pakistan being annihilated.
Well, this essay rests on the assumption that whoever is making decisions in the West is rational and connected to Reality. Or that there is even someone in charge. I am not so hopeful.
It's not so much rationality (and certainly not game-theory rationality) so much as that even stupid people are unlikely to set out on a gratuitous and unnecessary course of action with inevitably disastrous results for them, and to do so in large numbers.
Thanks for the clarity. As in so many areas where military doctrine and politics overlap, there is a shocking lack of real understanding among commentators about the real purpose and motivation behind possession nuclear weapons. I think we are on our way to a world where a small nuclear deterrent will be the norm among most mid-sized powers (and may may simply use ambiguity over whether they possess them or not).
Of value to Americans now are Russian rocketry delivery systems, all sizes and kinds, not the explosives in them. US delivery systems are development decades behind Russian. That includes wunderwaffe HIMARS.
By Congressional and Executive fiat, US weapons development is to console manufacturers -- not only American ones -- whose maximum profit arrives from pushing out existing stuff rather than engineering new, not to guarantee US homeland defense or even success in possible foreign intrusions. There is no will for victory of US arms or preservation of US sovereignty in official Washington D.C. today, elected or appointed.
US surface fleet, for example, is an incompetent mess. Carriers are obsolete weapons systems presenting now as abattoirs for sailors and visuals for fan boys of military porn. Littoral ships are sent to junk just barely after joining the fleet. US main battle tanks are so laden now with bolt-ons that they cannot pass bridges in countries where they might be needed in use.
I cite these conditions to contest the assessment that people in D.C. are aware of the facts of nuclear conflict, facts accurately laid forth in this essay. USG, i.e. today, the IC, are hiring for pink plus hair, transgender cross-dressers, lesbian allies and partners, catamites, pederasts, and idiot savants. Female civilian think tank careerists of indeterminant gender, lacking military experience, run DOD. These are Hedley Lamarr employees. Individuals of these descriptions are unaware of the facts of nuclear conflict and will obdurately work from impulses not pacific even if they were aware of those facts. Their entire being shouts, "Ignore reality, implement ideology!"
My counsel: God only knows the enormity of what is afoot and what to do about it. Our duty at this time is to sketch out and test, by all means available, what is humanly and nationally beneficial on the other side, once its energy is spent, of this rolling disaster the same God, for reasons known only to Him, has seen fit to throw over us.
A really great article. Which I generally agree with. MAD -- assures us that nuclear war is exactly that "mad", "madness". Since the world dies. In the 20th Century there WERE a few near misses. In each case, which we know about -- since there may have been more unreported. https://www.sciencealert.com/near-misses-nuclear-war-history-cold-war-radar-missiles Since then, the technology has improved-- but so has targeting. The Russians can shoot down American missiles with S500 and S550 systems; but the Americans are vulnerable to Russian (and Chinese) hypersonic weapons. Miniaturization has led to smaller and smaller nuclear weapons for tactical use. But such use envisions a WWII type war in Europe. The use of those weapons would still produce a lot of radiation. That is, more small nukes = one biggy. IMO, nukes are just not practical. Even the American use of DU weapons done long-term enviironmental and genetic damage. You will notice that Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons are dual -use. The CAN carry nuclear warheads but in practice they carry conventional weapons whose effectiveness is enhanced by kinetic energy. So, why are nuclear weapons such a big thing? When talking about war, the usual mistake-- one which the Americans make-- is to see everything framed by WWII. In terms of THAT war, the Americans say, "See what our little A bombs did to Japan-- we got bigger ones now". Fine, but would the Americans have used those bombs, if the Japanese had them too -- and delivery systems for them? Nuclear weapons are to US military types as dicks are to jocks -- something to flaunt, not to use. The WWII "frame" has other implications. For example, the US military spends trillions on carriers, which are the modern equivalent of Japanese battleships -- huge floating targets -- and good only against goat herders. The military is always talking about a Chinese D-Day type assault on Taiwan. Not going to happen. The Chinese could take Taiwan without such an assault, using the Russian strategy in Ukraine. Take out radars, suppress air defenses, destroy foritifications and fixed assets from the air. "Kettle" the island. If you look at my substack site (news forensics) you can see various articles on this. https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/china-wins-the-us-loses
Thanks, I'd just slightly quibble with the S-500 point. Yes, it's demonstrated a theoretical capability against ICBMs, but there's huge qualitative difference between that and successfully knocking out 99,9% of a massive first strike of missiles coming from all directions and supported by penetration aids. The US Star Wars programme eventually perished because it was technically just impossible, and it seems to me that ABM defence at scale is going to be so for the foreseeable future.
Yes, I think you are right. Even if the S500 could knock down 90% of incoming ICBMs, the remaining 10% would destroy their targets - and, if nuclear -- the world. Their is no "defense" in a nuclear war-- everybody loses. Conventional explosive and kinetic energy warheads in hypersonic missiles are, however, very feasible and have already shown their usefulness in the SMO. I also think it is a mistake to assume that the Russian military is fully modernized. They still have a lot of old equipment, which is still useful, of course, but has it limitations. The Moskva, for example, should have been scrapped years ago. It wasn't hit by a missile; it clearly WAS a fire on board. Aging faulty wiring? How knows. And the recent secondary airfield explosion in the Crimea was not sabotage or a missile strike but poor maintenance and operation. . Did I say I find your articles really, really GOOD? I hope so.
Thank you for your writings, particularly for this text. I feel a tad less concerned. ;) Still there are two points I find unsettling:
What about small, tactical nukes? When the Ukrain war began, this was my immediate worry: if the west would support Ukraine beyond whatever serious red lines Russia has, wouldnt they be tempted to use just one tactical nuke to give the west one last, big warning? Couldnt things really get out of hand then?
And: what about the quality, the competence of western politicians at this point? I think, you yourself, over at different blog, found some not so friendly words to describe the kind of people who are currently making careers in politics, specially in foreign politics. Rather ideologes than experts.
Well, even a tactical nuclear weapon needs a target! I think the Russians, whose intelligence services are pretty good, correctly assessed before the invasion that NATO would be incapable of responding militarily to the invasion, because their forces are now so weak. I don't know whether they fully expected the sheer hysteria of the political reaction, but I suspect they had discounted it in advance. So apart from arms deliveries, which will probably prolong the war a bit and certainly increase the number of dead, the West is essentially a spectator. By an amusing (?) consequence, the West's deliveries of equipment and especially missiles and ammunition, which can' t be replaced for years, have actually led to it being militarily weaker than it was a year ago. Clever that.
Yes, I agree totally about the idiots and children in charge; But I think the most likely result is that western governments (some of them anyway) simply fall apart under the strain, because they can't cope. Keep your fingers crossed that nothing worse happens.
A well written essay and I appreciated its perspective. I do think you should continue this as a series and write about India/Pakistan and Israel as the next installments.
However whilst I agree that most scenarios as presented in fiction etc don't seem to present plausible reasons for nuclear escalation, my concern these days are not with Russia and the West but China and the West.
Because there we seem to have many of the ingredients necessary for escalation:
- Existential concerns: for China, Taiwan IS a part of it. It doesn't really matter what Americans or Brits on the street or in high office think about Taiwan as being a part of China or not, what matters here is what China thinks and what they are willing to do to defend what they consider their territorial integrity. Couple that with a desire to avoid another 1895 (when Taiwan was taken from China), another century of humiliation and another 1931-1945 (against Japan) and you have China's analogue to the USSR's 1941 lens through which it based its military doctrine
- Misunderstanding: as noted above, many in the West discount China's views on Taiwan and tend to view it through the lens of 1938-1939 and Hitler. So China is characterised as having designs on its neighbours and that Taiwan (which implicitly is not a part of China under that characterization) would just be the start rather than China attempting to finish off a civil war.
Here we get to the issue of a spark in that while the US has no formal defence treaty with Taiwan, that in itself isn't technically needed as the US had no formal defence treaty with Kuwait in 1990 nor with South Korea in 1950 (having withdrawn all US forces from Korea in 1949). China would be well aware of that (especially as they fought in Korea) and also aware of the US actively intervening in another civil war (Yugoslavia) in defence of their favoured side (the Kosovo rebels). China won't soon forget that one given their embassy was bombed in disputed circumstances. So it is quite possible that the US may intervene to defend Taiwan, perhaps on the assumption that the war would be limited in scope and that fighting may only really happen in and around Taiwan and maybe some of the supporting areas in Japan and Guam.
Now sure I don't think the West is going to exchange San Francisco, Birmingham or Marseille for Taipei, but I doubt any nuclear exchange would start that way especially given that a war over Taiwan presents opportunities for nuclear weapons to be used (initially) against almost solely military targets (and thud allow for "clean" use). I'm thinking about nuclear weapon use at sea or (more likely) against the Chinese built up bases in the Spratly Islands. Here again we see the potential for misunderstanding as China considers them rightful and sovereign Chinese territory whereas the US considers them disputed and additionally views them as artificial anyway since many have been dumped up to make land for bases.
So could we not see a situation where China invades Taiwan to bring about reunification, the US intervenes on the side of Taiwan (along with some allies like Japan, Australia and the UK to some extent) and gets an unwelcome surprise in the form of the Chinese taking out a carrier (or two!) and putting many US bases from Diego Garcia around to Guam and Japan out of action for a bit due to missile strikes. Then being on the backfoot and much like with Line Omega, the US decides to use tactical nuclear weapons against a Chinese held Spratly island base. At that point the reasoning is quite logical: artificial Island, no civilians, only a tactical nuke anyway and at the same time a statement of resolve as with Line Omega scenarios. From there China's no-first-use nuclear doctrine kicks in as it envisions using nukes in response to nukes being used against China. And the Spratly Islands are China as far as they are concerned.
Would they nuke Los Angeles in response? I highly doubt that, but they could nuke an equivalent target such as Wake Island (a US island with no local native civilian population and used by the US military at times) or Diego Garcia (no natives on those islands since they were relocated ages ago to make way for the US base and if the UK was involved it serves the dual purpose of demonstrating that China would not back down from striking the UK either in addition to striking a military only target with a US base).
The problem arises about what happens after. There are quite a few Spratly Island the US can then hit "in response to the Chinese response" but after China hits Wake and Diego Garcia the only real options left are places like Guam in which case tens of thousands of American citizens are then nuked (still less than San Francisco or LA but...). If that happens then we could see the kind of spiral of 1914-1918 or that Clausewitz warned against.
Granted I do recognize that in that kind of scenario there would be at least 4 or 5 opportunities to de-escalate (before America would use a tactical nuke, after the first nuke, after the first Chinese nuke, after the second American nuke and after the attack on Guam and after the attack on perhaps an equivalent Chinese target with a civilian population like Dongshan Island off Fujian), however my worry is that, as you outlined with World War I and Conrad, the utilisation of the opportunities to de-escalate will turn on what personalities are in the hot seat. Will we have our own Conrad and who might that be?
Ukrainian leadership proven itself immune to intimidation (even when that immensely increased costs imposed on their country), and as this writing says intimidation is main component of nuclear threat - not their actual use.
There are no targets in Ukraine where tactical nukes would make sense on Russian side without intimidation component. Devastation comparable to tactical nukes is achievable by conventional means, and it doesn't come with unwanted radiation side-effects. Given that Russia is in conquest mode it wouldn't want to deal with that.
Russia is also far from being pushed into Soviet-like "existential struggle" there - their finances are stable, and their economy does fair bit better then initial post-sanctions projections.
Quite interesting to read this two years after it was first published. I am wondering: Do you still think we are not in the kind of escalation that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons? I mean, Russia ia now under attack itself, a limited portion of its territory has been occupied by Ukrainian forces, the use of Western long-range weapons is probably going to be authorized that could hit Moscow. Don't you think all this could be perceived as an existential threat to the Russian leadership?
Thank you for the always interesting and insightful essays.
No, I think the difference is that the West is weaker than it was two years ago, and Russia is stronger, while Ukraine is on its last legs. Whilst Russia sees the war as a whole as an existential one, the Ukrainian invasion and even the use of longer-range western weapons are essentially nuisances, and don't change very much, except to make the Russians angrier.
There is another cultural meme which may have contributed to the fear of sudden nuclear annihilation: the mad leader whose actions cannot be explained rationally. Hitler is the main exponent. Putin is the new exponent of this idea.
In the efforts to keep the western population on side, which involve hiding the west’s share of responsibility from view, proper analysis of the various inter-national conflicts of interest is avoided. In this case, the only explanation for events the leaders have recourse to is the supposed rabid madness of the opponent. As a corollary, the population have no way of gauging how real and immediate the threat of the use of nuclear weapons really is and it is routinely overstated and overestimated.
One quibble ,
I do not think that the Chinese are focused on an ability to destroy Moscow , but rather on Washington DC . The recent build up in their Nuclear capability is a response to the perceived threat from the USA . Moscow is an ally not a rival . There has been speculation that the rapid advances which China has made in Hypersonic Delivery Systems may be due to assistance from Russia .
Oh, I agree. One of the problems with trying to compress a 10,000 word essay into 3500 words is that nuances like this get left out. It's really a question of a comparator. Since the beginning, the Chinese-Russian nuclear relationship has been extremely one-sided, and the Chinese have very much been the junior partner. I don't see the two countries as allies, so much as having overlapping interests. But the ability to reach the Moscow Criterion, even if never remotely to be used, does change the quality of the relationship. I agree about the US: that's why most new Chinese ICBM programmes are mobile; the US, of course, doesn't have an ABM system of any importance.
I would classify the relationship between Russia and China less as a community of interests and more as a community of destiny. In fact, I am convinced that both countries would defend each other.
Hi, Your argument makes some valid and apparently underappreciated points.
It also stands in serious conflict with the much more detailed study of your colleague Annie Jacobsen (2024).
How do you view her book?
What are, in your eyes, the flaws of the case she presents?
I haven't read her book I'm afraid, though I have seen some interviews. She's a journalist with an interest in the subject but she has never been involved with either the technical or the political aspects of nuclear weapons. Her N Korean scenario is essentially fictional in that it strings together series of worst-case but not impossible incidents. But in reality, the Russians would immediately detect the launch of a NK missile against the US (assuming NK has the capability to do this accurately, which is a matter of some debate.) There would be urgent messages between Washington and Moscow. If the missile detonated anywhere useful (not certain) then any US response would be by an SSBN in the Pacific: there would be no need to fly anywhere near Russia. Moreover, the Russians would see from the launch trajectory that the missile was not aimed at them.
Nuclear war is inevitable if, in each given year, there is a non-zero chance of nuclear weapons being fired by mistake. If the risk is 0.1%, then there is a roughly 50% chance of nuclear war breaking out within about 675 years; if the risk is 1%, then 50% probability is reached after about 70 years.
Disregarding that, the article rests on the double assumption that MAD exists and that it leads to rational calculations on the part of decision makers. Both of these assumptions can be questioned. The launch codes to the American nuclear arsenal are presently in the hands of a person who clearly suffices from bouts of intellectual impairment, given that they haven't been taken away from him. We are also witnessing the ongoing shelling of a nuclear power plant in the proxy war between NATO and Russia that's being fought in Ukraine. How can the assumption of rational decision making be upheld under such circumstances? As for MAD, the Russians are clearly worried that their nuclear arsenal might not survive a nuclear first strike, or not that it might not be survivable enough for the US not to believe that their anti-missile defenses would be able to cope with whatever the Russians might still be able to fire in retaliation. The US might even believe that a very small number of Russian warheads getting through would be both survivable and a worthwhile price to pay for what they could consider a winning outcome. It's not about real technical capability, it's about what each side believes - two different things. Believes are also shaped by ideologically grounded wishful thinking, and that is clearly something that is currently on a steep increase in the West in connection with the war in Ukraine.
My whole point, I think, was that nuclear wars don't just "happen." Quite a lot of writing about them sees them as what used to be called Acts of God, or like major disasters or epidemics. They aren't: they are an extreme case of strategic escalation when one side believes that its very existence is threatened. If the US, or Russia or any other country ever reaches that point, then there is a very serious possibility at least of the threat of nuclear war. But it's not something that can be mathematically predicted, and I don't think there's an identifiable arithmetical "chance" of nuclear war at any given point. It doesn't work like that, because it's the equivalent of arguing that if there's a 0,1% chance (or whatever) of aliens visiting Earth, then such a visit is inevitable after a given number of yeas. But the question is, of course, whether there are any aliens. And as I think I made clear, theories such as MAD are nice intellectual constructs but they don't reflect real life.
Just like with many other complex situations that have discrete outcomes, the probability of a nuclear war by accident does not have to be predicted or computed to know that it exists. Then the conclusion that nuclear war by accident is inevitable over the long run is, by itself, inevitable. It's unknown what this long run means, of course. The real gist of the argument is that the probability is too high to be ignored unlike, for example, the risk of earth being hit by a large asteroid, a risk that humanity is ignoring for all practical purposes. Given this insight, dealing with the risk of nuclear war, requires taking measures to reduce it constantly until it becomes near zero, preferably by abolishing nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, everything seems to be pointing in the other direction - nuclear war is becoming ever more likely. Hence the proposition that nuclear war is "an extreme case of strategic escalation when one side believes that its very existence is threatened" is precisely what can be questioned.
Excellent essay. If there's a nuclear exchange, it will be between India and Pakistan or India and China, or a combination of the three. If any of the parties have the ground forces necessary, and do take their territorial claims to the limit, that's where it will start.
We haven't seen a world with nuclear weapons suffer destabilization of the scale that's on the horizon--something like the Great Depression, plus multiple pandemic diseases, plus gargantuan migration, plus famine, plus commodities shortages, plus an energy crisis.
Would your arguments pass muster in such a world? As the prosperity pie shrinks, I suspect there will be a lot of conflict and therefore more occasions where these weapons could conceivably be used, if only out of desperation or paranoia.
There was a lot of concern about this kind of thing thirty years ago, at the end of the Cold War., but in the end nothing happened. The possibility of accidents then was greater, simply because the stockpiles were so much higher, especially at the tactical level. There were also lots of scare stories about terrorists stealing suitcase bombs and exploding them. But in the end, nuclear weapons are very difficult to use: to arm one takes a lot of training and experience. Likewise with strategic weapons, you can't simply point them in another direction: there's a mass of stuff in the warheads that only deep specialists can even understand. Whilst I'm not complacent, I don't think this is that much of a risk.
Wouldn't you agree that the coming fruition of the Limits of Growth--possible serious collapse--portends a crisis worse than the end of the cold war?
In the midst of very serious crises, there's a tendency for irrational regimes to come to the fore. Maybe irrational's the wrong word. Perhaps it's more along the lines of "unpredictable" or "unfamiliar". For example, let's say there's a revolution in India, bringing a new, aggressive clique to power in an unstable world context. Shouldn't we expect Pakistan to be rather jumpy, perhaps jumpy enough to react ominously to new Indian regime acts they would have taken in stride if perpetrated by the old Indian regime (if only because they "knew" the old Indian regime)?
Am I making sense? Historically, things could get very topsy-turvy politically as large crises of decline play out. Capitals move. Governments transform. Civil Wars break open. New blood leaks in. Ideologies morph.
It seems to me opportunities for nuclear exchange increase as crises escalate such transformations. For a given opportunity, the risk is small, but if instability multiplies them, as I expect it might--the idea gives me a sinking feeling.
I agree that this is an issue, but it's one that needs very careful teasing out. There are a number of strands, at least (1) Accidental damage to warhead stockpiles (warheads are generally stored separately from delivery systems)(2), Sub-state actors (eg the military) might to try to use them independently of political control and (3) existing or future governments might be forced to threaten or use them in circumstances we can't foresee. I rule out nuclear terrorism or some kind of unauthorised launch largely because the actual command and control of nuclear weapons is extremely complex and there are many actors involved. If you somehow steal a nuclear capable aircraft, you would still have to get hold of a warhead, arm it, fuel it, prepare the aircraft, find the target and many other things.
Of all the major nuclear powers, Pakistan is actually the one I would most worry about, because of the influence of the military and the influence of religion within the military. That said, it's generally accepted that Pakistan sees its nuclear weapons as as second-strike deterrent, and a way of addressing India's massive conventional superiority. The warheads on most Pakistan systems are low-yield (10-50K reportedly) and any kind of unprovoked attack on India would simply lead to Pakistan being annihilated.
But then ...
Well, this essay rests on the assumption that whoever is making decisions in the West is rational and connected to Reality. Or that there is even someone in charge. I am not so hopeful.
It's not so much rationality (and certainly not game-theory rationality) so much as that even stupid people are unlikely to set out on a gratuitous and unnecessary course of action with inevitably disastrous results for them, and to do so in large numbers.
Irresponsible shelling of the Zaporozhie NPP, by UA, represents by far bigger nuclear disaster danger imo
Thanks for the clarity. As in so many areas where military doctrine and politics overlap, there is a shocking lack of real understanding among commentators about the real purpose and motivation behind possession nuclear weapons. I think we are on our way to a world where a small nuclear deterrent will be the norm among most mid-sized powers (and may may simply use ambiguity over whether they possess them or not).
Of value to Americans now are Russian rocketry delivery systems, all sizes and kinds, not the explosives in them. US delivery systems are development decades behind Russian. That includes wunderwaffe HIMARS.
By Congressional and Executive fiat, US weapons development is to console manufacturers -- not only American ones -- whose maximum profit arrives from pushing out existing stuff rather than engineering new, not to guarantee US homeland defense or even success in possible foreign intrusions. There is no will for victory of US arms or preservation of US sovereignty in official Washington D.C. today, elected or appointed.
US surface fleet, for example, is an incompetent mess. Carriers are obsolete weapons systems presenting now as abattoirs for sailors and visuals for fan boys of military porn. Littoral ships are sent to junk just barely after joining the fleet. US main battle tanks are so laden now with bolt-ons that they cannot pass bridges in countries where they might be needed in use.
I cite these conditions to contest the assessment that people in D.C. are aware of the facts of nuclear conflict, facts accurately laid forth in this essay. USG, i.e. today, the IC, are hiring for pink plus hair, transgender cross-dressers, lesbian allies and partners, catamites, pederasts, and idiot savants. Female civilian think tank careerists of indeterminant gender, lacking military experience, run DOD. These are Hedley Lamarr employees. Individuals of these descriptions are unaware of the facts of nuclear conflict and will obdurately work from impulses not pacific even if they were aware of those facts. Their entire being shouts, "Ignore reality, implement ideology!"
My counsel: God only knows the enormity of what is afoot and what to do about it. Our duty at this time is to sketch out and test, by all means available, what is humanly and nationally beneficial on the other side, once its energy is spent, of this rolling disaster the same God, for reasons known only to Him, has seen fit to throw over us.
A really great article. Which I generally agree with. MAD -- assures us that nuclear war is exactly that "mad", "madness". Since the world dies. In the 20th Century there WERE a few near misses. In each case, which we know about -- since there may have been more unreported. https://www.sciencealert.com/near-misses-nuclear-war-history-cold-war-radar-missiles Since then, the technology has improved-- but so has targeting. The Russians can shoot down American missiles with S500 and S550 systems; but the Americans are vulnerable to Russian (and Chinese) hypersonic weapons. Miniaturization has led to smaller and smaller nuclear weapons for tactical use. But such use envisions a WWII type war in Europe. The use of those weapons would still produce a lot of radiation. That is, more small nukes = one biggy. IMO, nukes are just not practical. Even the American use of DU weapons done long-term enviironmental and genetic damage. You will notice that Chinese and Russian hypersonic weapons are dual -use. The CAN carry nuclear warheads but in practice they carry conventional weapons whose effectiveness is enhanced by kinetic energy. So, why are nuclear weapons such a big thing? When talking about war, the usual mistake-- one which the Americans make-- is to see everything framed by WWII. In terms of THAT war, the Americans say, "See what our little A bombs did to Japan-- we got bigger ones now". Fine, but would the Americans have used those bombs, if the Japanese had them too -- and delivery systems for them? Nuclear weapons are to US military types as dicks are to jocks -- something to flaunt, not to use. The WWII "frame" has other implications. For example, the US military spends trillions on carriers, which are the modern equivalent of Japanese battleships -- huge floating targets -- and good only against goat herders. The military is always talking about a Chinese D-Day type assault on Taiwan. Not going to happen. The Chinese could take Taiwan without such an assault, using the Russian strategy in Ukraine. Take out radars, suppress air defenses, destroy foritifications and fixed assets from the air. "Kettle" the island. If you look at my substack site (news forensics) you can see various articles on this. https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/china-wins-the-us-loses
Thanks, I'd just slightly quibble with the S-500 point. Yes, it's demonstrated a theoretical capability against ICBMs, but there's huge qualitative difference between that and successfully knocking out 99,9% of a massive first strike of missiles coming from all directions and supported by penetration aids. The US Star Wars programme eventually perished because it was technically just impossible, and it seems to me that ABM defence at scale is going to be so for the foreseeable future.
Yes, I think you are right. Even if the S500 could knock down 90% of incoming ICBMs, the remaining 10% would destroy their targets - and, if nuclear -- the world. Their is no "defense" in a nuclear war-- everybody loses. Conventional explosive and kinetic energy warheads in hypersonic missiles are, however, very feasible and have already shown their usefulness in the SMO. I also think it is a mistake to assume that the Russian military is fully modernized. They still have a lot of old equipment, which is still useful, of course, but has it limitations. The Moskva, for example, should have been scrapped years ago. It wasn't hit by a missile; it clearly WAS a fire on board. Aging faulty wiring? How knows. And the recent secondary airfield explosion in the Crimea was not sabotage or a missile strike but poor maintenance and operation. . Did I say I find your articles really, really GOOD? I hope so.
Thank you for your writings, particularly for this text. I feel a tad less concerned. ;) Still there are two points I find unsettling:
What about small, tactical nukes? When the Ukrain war began, this was my immediate worry: if the west would support Ukraine beyond whatever serious red lines Russia has, wouldnt they be tempted to use just one tactical nuke to give the west one last, big warning? Couldnt things really get out of hand then?
And: what about the quality, the competence of western politicians at this point? I think, you yourself, over at different blog, found some not so friendly words to describe the kind of people who are currently making careers in politics, specially in foreign politics. Rather ideologes than experts.
Well, even a tactical nuclear weapon needs a target! I think the Russians, whose intelligence services are pretty good, correctly assessed before the invasion that NATO would be incapable of responding militarily to the invasion, because their forces are now so weak. I don't know whether they fully expected the sheer hysteria of the political reaction, but I suspect they had discounted it in advance. So apart from arms deliveries, which will probably prolong the war a bit and certainly increase the number of dead, the West is essentially a spectator. By an amusing (?) consequence, the West's deliveries of equipment and especially missiles and ammunition, which can' t be replaced for years, have actually led to it being militarily weaker than it was a year ago. Clever that.
Yes, I agree totally about the idiots and children in charge; But I think the most likely result is that western governments (some of them anyway) simply fall apart under the strain, because they can't cope. Keep your fingers crossed that nothing worse happens.
A well written essay and I appreciated its perspective. I do think you should continue this as a series and write about India/Pakistan and Israel as the next installments.
However whilst I agree that most scenarios as presented in fiction etc don't seem to present plausible reasons for nuclear escalation, my concern these days are not with Russia and the West but China and the West.
Because there we seem to have many of the ingredients necessary for escalation:
- Existential concerns: for China, Taiwan IS a part of it. It doesn't really matter what Americans or Brits on the street or in high office think about Taiwan as being a part of China or not, what matters here is what China thinks and what they are willing to do to defend what they consider their territorial integrity. Couple that with a desire to avoid another 1895 (when Taiwan was taken from China), another century of humiliation and another 1931-1945 (against Japan) and you have China's analogue to the USSR's 1941 lens through which it based its military doctrine
- Misunderstanding: as noted above, many in the West discount China's views on Taiwan and tend to view it through the lens of 1938-1939 and Hitler. So China is characterised as having designs on its neighbours and that Taiwan (which implicitly is not a part of China under that characterization) would just be the start rather than China attempting to finish off a civil war.
Here we get to the issue of a spark in that while the US has no formal defence treaty with Taiwan, that in itself isn't technically needed as the US had no formal defence treaty with Kuwait in 1990 nor with South Korea in 1950 (having withdrawn all US forces from Korea in 1949). China would be well aware of that (especially as they fought in Korea) and also aware of the US actively intervening in another civil war (Yugoslavia) in defence of their favoured side (the Kosovo rebels). China won't soon forget that one given their embassy was bombed in disputed circumstances. So it is quite possible that the US may intervene to defend Taiwan, perhaps on the assumption that the war would be limited in scope and that fighting may only really happen in and around Taiwan and maybe some of the supporting areas in Japan and Guam.
Now sure I don't think the West is going to exchange San Francisco, Birmingham or Marseille for Taipei, but I doubt any nuclear exchange would start that way especially given that a war over Taiwan presents opportunities for nuclear weapons to be used (initially) against almost solely military targets (and thud allow for "clean" use). I'm thinking about nuclear weapon use at sea or (more likely) against the Chinese built up bases in the Spratly Islands. Here again we see the potential for misunderstanding as China considers them rightful and sovereign Chinese territory whereas the US considers them disputed and additionally views them as artificial anyway since many have been dumped up to make land for bases.
So could we not see a situation where China invades Taiwan to bring about reunification, the US intervenes on the side of Taiwan (along with some allies like Japan, Australia and the UK to some extent) and gets an unwelcome surprise in the form of the Chinese taking out a carrier (or two!) and putting many US bases from Diego Garcia around to Guam and Japan out of action for a bit due to missile strikes. Then being on the backfoot and much like with Line Omega, the US decides to use tactical nuclear weapons against a Chinese held Spratly island base. At that point the reasoning is quite logical: artificial Island, no civilians, only a tactical nuke anyway and at the same time a statement of resolve as with Line Omega scenarios. From there China's no-first-use nuclear doctrine kicks in as it envisions using nukes in response to nukes being used against China. And the Spratly Islands are China as far as they are concerned.
Would they nuke Los Angeles in response? I highly doubt that, but they could nuke an equivalent target such as Wake Island (a US island with no local native civilian population and used by the US military at times) or Diego Garcia (no natives on those islands since they were relocated ages ago to make way for the US base and if the UK was involved it serves the dual purpose of demonstrating that China would not back down from striking the UK either in addition to striking a military only target with a US base).
The problem arises about what happens after. There are quite a few Spratly Island the US can then hit "in response to the Chinese response" but after China hits Wake and Diego Garcia the only real options left are places like Guam in which case tens of thousands of American citizens are then nuked (still less than San Francisco or LA but...). If that happens then we could see the kind of spiral of 1914-1918 or that Clausewitz warned against.
Granted I do recognize that in that kind of scenario there would be at least 4 or 5 opportunities to de-escalate (before America would use a tactical nuke, after the first nuke, after the first Chinese nuke, after the second American nuke and after the attack on Guam and after the attack on perhaps an equivalent Chinese target with a civilian population like Dongshan Island off Fujian), however my worry is that, as you outlined with World War I and Conrad, the utilisation of the opportunities to de-escalate will turn on what personalities are in the hot seat. Will we have our own Conrad and who might that be?
Ukrainian leadership proven itself immune to intimidation (even when that immensely increased costs imposed on their country), and as this writing says intimidation is main component of nuclear threat - not their actual use.
There are no targets in Ukraine where tactical nukes would make sense on Russian side without intimidation component. Devastation comparable to tactical nukes is achievable by conventional means, and it doesn't come with unwanted radiation side-effects. Given that Russia is in conquest mode it wouldn't want to deal with that.
Russia is also far from being pushed into Soviet-like "existential struggle" there - their finances are stable, and their economy does fair bit better then initial post-sanctions projections.