That’s because most of the near misses are classified. Ellsberg wrote on a few such cases in The Doomsday Machine. Deterrance can’t accidentally work, because it might accidentally not work.
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A couple times I almost added that one to the cart, but I think I need to be in a better place first. Do you recommend it?
I think I read in it the space between my library sending me the “your books are due” reminder, and actually returning my books, so unfortunately, I wasn’t able to give it my full attention. Sorry.
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Yeah, well, I could name quite a few nations that haven’t been invaded even though they did not have nukes.
Would that count as counter-evidence?
At the very least that is evidence that nuclear weapons are not the only thing one can do to avoid an invasion.
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Actual nuclear deterrence requires a countervalue arsenal; a few dozen nukes at most.
The USA does not have a countervalue arsenal; it has a counterforce one. Thousands of nukes.
This is not a weapon designed for deterrence; it’s designed for intimidation and first-strike aggression.
Socialism does not mean “when the government does stuff”.
The Nazi regime exerted heavy influence over all aspects of the German economy. Every capitalist empire in history was built upon a foundation of massive subsidy to the corporate plutocracy.
Socialism is about majority control of the economy. Yes, that tends to lead to public expenditure upon social welfare, but that is an epiphenomenon, not the core feature.
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Since the whole arrangement is based on fear, it couldn’t work without occasional near-breakdowns to maintain that fear. It’s a staggeringly undesirable setup by design, so the question of whether it works can’t be decided on the basis of whether anyone feels comfortable with it. The plan is for everyone to be terrified and no one to be nuked.
Of course it’s not a good thing. It’s a nightmarish thing. But it has succeeded in not killing anyone for 70 years. So is it really insane to think atomic bombs render war unnecessary? Or do we only dismiss that because it would make us culpable for all the killing we’ve done in that time?
(for the record I’m not entirely decided about that, but I don’t think it’s easily shrugged off)
We’ll probably learn if conventional war between nuclear powers is possible sooner or later-- say China/India. And notions that it would not be would seem as strange as Friedman’s Capitalist Peace Theory.
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At the current time the China India conflict involves the protagonists bludgeoning each other to death with lumps of wood. So a little way away from nuclear conflagration.
But you have to start somewhere. /s
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Is this the same nuclear arsenal that relies on 7 inch floppy disks? Maybe they are upgrading to windows ME? Or a zip drive!
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If that were the case, literally everyone should have them.
Because if Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iran, Irak or Libya had nuclear weapons, the US would not have gone to war with them, right?
So maybe in the name of peace the US should give some of their nuclear weapons to those countries?
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I wish I remember the source but I was listening to someone pitching the refresh of the nuclear triad a few months ago. I was thinking to myself, “Why do we need land based icbms if we have sea and air on call 24/7?” Amazingly, the same question was asked. Their response was, “Well, the cost is just a rounding error compared to the other two. Might as well do it.”
I always wondered what that “rounding error” meant in dollars. I guess this article answers that because it’s only talking about ground based icbms.
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This is preposterous.
You could build a Doomsday Machine for a fraction of the cost.
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Having nuclear bombs is one thing. A reliable delivery system is a whole other ballgame
You mean in the name of peace the US should help them with that, too?
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Whoa whoa whoa. You’re ascribing the entire lack of nuclear war to deterrence. Based on what? What about the last 70 years of increased economic development, tightened trade relationships, improved diplomacy, the effects of soft power, decent foreign policy, increased expat work exchange, or literally thousands of other things that have kept nuclear powers from starting wars. If you’re talking specifically about the single data point of the Cuban Missile Crisis, for all we know Khrushchev always intended to remove the missiles and the whole thing was sabre rattling. We may never know why he truly backed down so we can’t say it was Mutually Assured Destruction that did it.
This is basically the ammosexual argument that “there would be no violence or crime if everyone carried guns because nobody would dare try anything”. Except of course we know the opposite is true. Tools for making violence worse don’t prevent violence. They just make violence worse. This idea that there’s a level of violence so abhorrent that no human would ever go there is a dangerous, unproven, and deeply conservative idea. Mutually Assured Destruction is a right wing power fantasy solution to foreign policy.
When has pouring gasoline on everything ever prevented someone from lighting a match sooner or later?
Isn’t a simpler answer to say there has been no nuclear war because since the invention of nuclear weapons we’ve been lucky enough to not have the next Hitler to come along? Just in case, isn’t it safer to keep from blanketing the world with the things?
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Circa 1998,
and Windows NT was a lot more reliable than WinME. The zip drives, on the other hand, had a state of the art click of death.
The floppy standard was 8 inch, not 7 inch.
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Missile silos are not only somewhat redundant, but as they are non-mobile they are easily targetted by the enemy. This means that if they are to be used in retaliation, they must be launched soon after incoming missiles are detected. In turn that greatly raises the risk of a false alarm leading to an accidental war.
Even if you accept the value of nuclear weapons as a deterrent, it seems like missile silos specifically represent a risk that outweighs this.
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ICBMs are the fastest to respond to a launch command - and they’re convenient sponges (450 silos, 50 or so command capsules and three air force bases) located far from major populations to suck up incoming warheads. That’s a shame - while Cheyenne and Minot are forgettable, Great Falls MT is an awesome little city!
The logic of the triad:
ICBMs are cheap (relatively) and fast.
Air carried weapons are showy and can be (sort of) recalled. Probably more politically useful than tactically, but it does get a nation’s attention when a few B-2s or B52-Hs enter the neighborhood.
Subs are slow to launch but survivable and will guarantee a bad day for anyone to dare a first strike.
Whether or not I agree with it doesn’t matter - I’m not in charge, but that’s the party line in support of the nuclear triad.
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I think that’s giving the warmongers too much credit
“We would never actually DO this” is the kind of thing nobody even pretends anymore
Tariffs, filibusters, Brexit, cages for little kids, if a tool exists somebody will use it sooner or later
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