Is nuclear war inevitable?Recent events have reminded us that it is impossible to avoid uncertainties and risks.
The goal of gradually reducing the role of nuclear weapons remains equally important. A bomb in the basement has certain risks, but not as big as bombs on the front line, writes American political scientist Joseph Nye in an article by PJ.
Joseph NyeThe debate over nuclear weapons has revived in the West.
Last year, when the UN treaty on the total prohibition of nuclear weapons came into force, none of the nine states in the world possessing such weapons was among the 86 countries that signed the treaty. How can these States justify the possession of weapons that endanger all of humanity?
This is a relevant question, but it must be considered together with another: if America had signed this treaty and destroyed its nuclear arsenals, would it have been able to further restrain Russia in Europe? If the answer is "no", then one should think about another question: is nuclear war inevitable?
This is not a new question. In 1960, British scientist and writer Charles Percy Snow came to the conclusion that nuclear war would begin within the next decade with "mathematical certainty". This was probably an exaggeration, but many believed that Snow's prediction would be correct if the war started within a century. In the 1980s, leaders of the campaign for the "Freezing of nuclear Weapons," including Helen Caldicott, echoed Snow, warning that the build-up of nuclear weapons "will make nuclear war a mathematical certainty."
Proponents of a ban on nuclear weapons often state that if you flip a coin once, the chances of tails falling out will be 50%; but if you flip it ten times, then the chances that it will fall out at least once increase to 99.9%. If within the next 40 years the chances of a nuclear war are equal to 1%, then in eight thousand years these chances will increase to 99%. Sooner or later we won't be lucky. And even if we halve these risks every year, we will never be able to reduce them to zero.
However, in the case of nuclear weapons, such a metaphor about tossing a coin is misleading, because it evaluates unrelated probabilities, while real people's relationships are more like a game of cheating dice. What happened after the first throw changes the chances of the next one. In 1963 – immediately after the Cuban Missile crisis – the probability of a nuclear war was lower, because in 1962 its chances were higher. Simple averaging laws are not always applicable to complex human relationships. And in principle, the right decisions of people can reduce the likelihood of a negative outcome.
The chances of starting a nuclear war are determined by both unrelated and interdependent probabilities. A completely random war may correspond to a coin toss model, but such wars are extremely rare, and any randomness may be limited. Moreover, if an accidental conflict is limited in nature, it may trigger actions in the future that will further limit the likelihood of a larger war. And the longer this period lasts, the higher the chances that the situation will change. In eight thousand years, people may have much more pressing problems than nuclear war. We just don't know what the interdependent probabilities might be. However, if we rely on the post-war history in our analysis, we can conclude that the annual probability will not be the highest.
It is known that during the Caribbean crisis, US President John F. Kennedy estimated the probability of a nuclear war in the range from 33% to 50%. But it was not necessarily about unlimited nuclear war. From interviews with participants of those events held on their 25th anniversary, we learned that, despite the enormous superiority of American nuclear arsenals, Kennedy was deterred by even the most minimal prospect of nuclear war. And the final result can hardly be called a clean victory for America; it was a compromise that provided for the tacit withdrawal of American missiles from Turkey.
Sometimes the argument of mathematical inevitability is used to promote the idea of unilateral nuclear disarmament. To reinterpret the slogan of the Cold War, it is better for future generations to be red than dead. However, it is impossible to ban knowledge about nuclear weapons, and it will be incredibly difficult, to put it mildly, to coordinate the abandonment of these weapons by nine (or even more) countries with nuclear weapons and ideologically so different. Unilateral steps without reciprocity can strengthen the aggressors' positions, which will increase the likelihood of a sad endgame.
We simply have no idea what distant future generations will consider useful, what risks they will consider acceptable, or what people will appreciate in eight thousand years. Our moral obligations to them force us to be very attentive to the issue of survival, but to complete this task does not require a complete absence of risks. We must ensure that future generations have approximately the same access to important values, including equal chances of survival. This is very different from attempts to aggregate the interests of people unknown to us in future centuries into some unknowable sum in the present. Risk will always be an unavoidable component of human life.
Nuclear deterrence is based on the paradox of applicability. If the weapon is completely inapplicable, it cannot restrain anyone. But if they are too much, then a nuclear war can begin with all the accompanying destruction. Given this paradox of applicability and interrelated probabilities in human relations, we cannot find an unambiguous answer to the question of what exactly constitutes "fair deterrence". The policy of nuclear deterrence is not completely wrong or completely correct. Our acceptance of the containment policy must contain certain conditions.
According to the traditional theory of just war, which we have inherited over the centuries, three important conditions must be met: fair and proportionate motives, limitations in means, a prudent assessment of all consequences. Based on these conditions, I formulated five nuclear maxims. In terms of motives, we must understand that self–defense is a fair but limited motive. In terms of means, we should never treat nuclear weapons as conventional weapons, and we should minimize damage to innocent people. As for the consequences, we must reduce the risks of nuclear war in the near future and try to reduce our dependence on nuclear weapons over time. A bomb in the basement has certain risks, but not as big as bombs on the front line.
The events in Ukraine have reminded us that it is impossible to avoid uncertainties and risks. The goal of gradually reducing (but not abolishing) the role of nuclear weapons remains as important as ever. Richard Garvin, who designed the first hydrogen bomb, calculated that "if this year the probability of starting a nuclear war is 1%, and if every year we manage to reduce it to 80% of the level of last year, then the cumulative probability of starting a nuclear war for all time will be 5%." With this probability, we can live based on morality.
