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Unironically, it does seem worth spending the entire GDP of Hawaii on a 1 / 6 chance of intercepting an ICBM, if there's a nontrivial chance that you're likely
by JoshuaDavid 6y ago
Unironically, it does seem worth spending the entire GDP of Hawaii on a 1 / 6 chance of intercepting an ICBM, if there's a nontrivial chance that you're likely to have a small number of ICBMs incoming towards cities. Other than second-order effects where anything which breaks MAD increases the risk of nuclear war, but I hope a 1/6 chance of interception of one missile wouldn't be significant enough to change the balance of power enough to make nuclear war more likely.
- door99 6y agoThere's a better solution that's free, and in fact saves money: complete nuclear disarmament, which the United States is the primary obstacle to.
- JoshuaDavid 6y agoUnilateral nuclear disarmament seems like possibly not the best idea from the standpoint of minimizing the risk of nuclear strikes.
- door99 6y agoI didn't say unilateral, although I support that as well. The United States is the only country ever to use nuclear weapons, and is also one that I reside in. If I lived in Russia or China, I would advocate for unilateral disarmament in those countries as well. Nuclear weapons are an absolute horror and should be completely eliminated from this planet. The United States (unlike China) does not even have a "No first use" policy -- it reserves the ability to use nuclear weapons aggressively or pre-emptively.
- meddlepal 6y agoSo we can return to a world of conventional warfare amongst powerful counties? Worked out great for WWI and WWII. Ill take nuclear deterrence any day over that hell.
- randmeerkat 6y ago“Hawking's rationale was that humankind would eventually fall victim to an extinction-level catastrophe - perhaps sooner rather than later. What worried him were so-called low-probability, high impact events - a large asteroid striking our planet is the classic example. But Hawking perceived a host of other potential threats: artificial intelligence, climate change, GM viruses and nuclear war to name a few. In 2016, he told the BBC: "Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next thousand or 10,000 years.” http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43408961 http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-43408961 The problem with deterrence is that it works until it doesn’t.
- GreenWatermelon 6y agoYeah, and without deterrence it will be a 100% chance of a variable hell of endless wars and tens of millions of casualties. I'll bet on no one wanting their country obliterated by agitating another nuclear power.
- door99 6y ago> Yeah, and without deterrence it will be a 100% chance of a variable hell of endless wars and tens of millions of casualties. There are political choices other than "constantly threaten extinction" and "constantly fight large-scale conventional wars".
- door99 6y agoThere are many, many factors other than nuclear weapons preventing large-scale conventional war between powerful countries, and if those factors changed, I can assure you conventional war would return, even in a world with nuclear weapons.
- WalterBright 6y agoNuclear armaments were looked at initially as a way to save money.
- ethbr0 6y agoI would much rather live in a world where there are viable options for responding to a handful of ICBMs that don't involve escalation. Effectively, a credible ballistic missile defense + an arms treaty that caps the number of interceptors leaves relative great power parity stable. But it does eliminate the "rogue state" or "rogue silo" threat. And arguably, makes them less attractive to pursue in the first place, thereby furthering non-proliferation. If you're Iran, are you going to suffer all the economic pain of breaking sanctions, in return for a non-credible threat?
- tasogare 6y agoHow many aggression wars did Iran starts in modern times? How many the US did? At least three. Your definition and example of a rogue state needs some correction.
- marta_morena_28 6y agoDoes it? What if the US had Iran's military and Iran had US' military? The wars conducted by US are questionable at best and a poor example of how developed nations should behave. However, looking at the worst sides of a developed nation and comparing them to the best sides of a dictator state, isn't quite adding up.
- iaw 6y ago"Rogue state" [0] is actually a defined term that Iran qualifies for because of its efforts to proliferate nuclear weapons. Also, Iran has participated regularly in proxy wars including the one in Yemen with Saudi Arabia [1] so your thesis about aggression wars is a little misleading when they've participated in a proxy civil. Note that recently Israel claimed credit for killing an Al Qaeda leader who was living openly in Iran. I think Iran is too often scapegoated in the Western world but I also want to be realistic about where Iran is really at fault. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_state https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_state [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_proxy_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iran%E2%80%93Saudi_Arabia_prox...
- 6y ago
- burrows 6y ago> Other than second-order effects where anything which breaks MAD increases the risk of nuclear war Does this apply to classified projects?
- JoshuaDavid 6y agoSince generally classified projects leak, I'd say "yes".
- burrows 6y agoWhile I think this view makes a lot of sense. I imagine that many government officials disagree.
- boomboomsubban 6y agoWe could just send North Korea the money each year and I'd bet have a much lower chance of getting any US city hit by a nuclear bomb.