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There's this concept in game theory that it's sometimes worth it to hurt yourself in order to hurt an uncooperative player. If you are always thinking "how do I

There's this concept in game theory that it's sometimes worth it to hurt yourself in order to hurt an uncooperative player. If you are always thinking "how do I minimize harm to myself" you get salamied to death. Same as in a poker game, you can't fold every time someone raises big, just because you don't know which times he actually has good cards. If you do he ends up with all your chips. Other thing is about MAD. At some point this hypothesis needs to be tested. Yes, as a child of the cold war I am well aware of the stories about there being a warhead with my city's name in Cyrillic painted on it, and the same with every city in Russia, in English. We're conditioned to think that as soon as the missiles are launched, countermissiles will also launch, and then we're all doomed, planet is handed over to cockroaches. I'm not sure it's true. For one, it's actually happened that missiles looked like they were in the air, and a Soviet guy decided it was best not to send missiles back, and we're all still here. I also get the feeling, from introspecting, that a lot of people would not actually press the button if they saw that radar picture. Would you make the world unlivable for little Russian kids? I'm not sure I would, and though I don't know how many people are making these decisions, my guess is it would be really freaking hard. Which bring me to my next point, and this will cause some consternation. How bad is it if a nuke or two goes off? We care that the whole world isn't turned to dust, but if we get another Hiroshima somewhere, apart from the enormous shock it would cause, it might stand a reasonable chance of ending whatever conflict it happened in, just like the actual two nuclear attacks in Japan. Is that totally crazy, or is MAD literally coded into the machines now? Maybe someone can enlighten me.

deleted 5y ago
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jbay808 5y ago
Aren't there also second-strike weapons, like nuclear submarines? As hesitant as soldiers might be to press the launch button just in response to a radar signal, they might find the conviction when they learn their hometown is gone.
trashtester 5y ago
Russia has a bit more than a couple of nukes, as does the US. I believe I've seen the numbers indicate that the present arsenals that are currently in service are too small to erase humanity, but they are definitely big enough to cause hundreds of millions to a few billions of deaths. If we consider the situation of just 1-2 warheads are used in a conflict, I think it really hard to gauge the effect on public perception, and I suppose it also depends on the circumstances. If for instance, they were used in an unprovoked terrorist attack, killing 2-4million in a city, the response could be like after 9/11, but x100. If they were used to stop a military aggressor, killing "only" 10k soldiers in the field, their may lose their mythical status, and this could be the opening of Pandora's box, increasing the probability that they are used in later conflicts.
- kodah 5y ago
  Personally, I think we are well past the point of nuclear armaments. I think, if there is war, it'll be a ground and air war that's like a sophisticated yet familiar chess game and a side war that is mostly anti-war propaganda, pro-Russia propaganda, misinformation, and attacks on IOT and public infrastructure that exhaust the citizenry out of watching the fighting.
  - DubiousPusher 5y ago
    Many people believed this kind of thing in July of 1914.
    - bb88 5y ago
      Exactly. When it comes to unloading your nuclear arsenal, it's not the war that's the problem -- it's the escalation.
  - csee 5y ago
    Then when Putin starts losing and faces a coup from disgruntled people at home? You sure that megalomaniac won't decide to go nuclear when pushed into a corner?
DubiousPusher 5y ago
There is absolutely no precedent in human history for two fairly equal powers engaging in a conflict and one side refusing in totality to use almost any weapon at its disposal and certainly not one that an enemy has already used. Japan did not nuke America back in 1945 because it did not have a nuke and had lost all air superiority.
- PolygonSheep 5y ago
  The Allies and Nazi Germany both refusing to use chemical weapons during WWII? They both had chemical weapons stockpiled but neither side wanted to go there after WWI.
  - czhu12 5y ago
    Bret Devereaux discusses this at length here: https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch... In short, we didn't stop using chemical weapons because of ethics (if thats the case, we should've given up landmines, which kill far more civilians). Rather, chemical weapons are expensive to operate and ineffective weapons in modern battlefields. Here is the relevant snippet from the blog: "During WWII, everyone seems to have expected the use of chemical weapons, but never actually found a situation where doing so was advantageous. This is often phrased in terms of fears of escalation (this usually comes packaged with the idea of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), but that’s an anachronism – while Bernard Brodie is sniffing around the ideas of what would become MAD as early as ’46, MAD itself only emerges after ’62). Retaliation was certainly a concern, but I think it is hard to argue that the combatants in WWII hadn’t already been pushed to the limits of their escalation capability, in a war where the first terror bombing happened on the first day. German death-squads were in the initial invasion-waves in both Poland, as were Soviet death squads in their invasion of Poland in concert with the Germans and also later in the war. WWII was an existential war, all of the states involved knew it by 1941 (if not earlier), and they all escalated to the peak of their ability from the start; I find it hard to believe that, had they thought it was really a war winner, any of the powers in the war would have refrained from using chemical weapons. The British feared escalation to a degree (but also thought that chemical weapons use would squander valuable support in occupied France), but I struggle to imagine that, with the Nazis at the very gates of Moscow, Stalin was moved either by escalation concerns or the moral compass he so clearly lacked at every other moment of his life."
throwhauser 5y ago
> ...a Soviet guy decided it was best not to send missiles back In that case the judgment was whether the telemetry was reliable enough to justify launching a retaliatory strike, with all the grave consequences that produces. An unambiguous order to launch a first strike might not elicit the same kind of hesitation.
- hef19898 5y ago
  The both scenarios, the Russian sub during the Cuba Crisis and the Officer ignoring the early warning system, didn't involve clear orders from the legitimate chain of command to launch. The sub operated under the absence of orders, while the early warning system was a standard operating procedure, and the Officer in charge was involved in the systems development. In any army of the world I would assume that, especially in the case of nuclear forces, orders to launch are not second guessed. After all, the whole concept of MAD depends on a swift counter attack. If those attack orders wouldn't be carried out fast, in the limited time frame available, something would be wrong.
tiahura 5y ago
“ it's actually happened that missiles looked like they were in the air, and a Soviet guy decided it was best not to send missiles back” Vlad Posner fairly recently made the point that because of strong anti-America sentiment in Russia, he is worried that this time the guy isn’t going to be as skeptical of the flashing light and is just going to hit the button.
- avh02 5y ago
  And soldiers in the USSR were American sympathizers?
- AlexCoventry 5y ago
  Pozner is clearly a Russian-Federation sympathizer, and probably a Russian-Federation propagandist, despite his claims to the contrary. His characterization of "not one inch Eastward" is extremely misleading, for instance.
adolph 5y ago
> sometimes worth it to hurt yourself in order to hurt an uncooperative player. Why has the Ukraine not blown the gas lines?
- csee 5y ago
  It'd hurt Europe far more than Russia in the short term. Russia would lose revenue but they have buffer reserves so it'd do little to hamper them in the short term. But Europe isn't prepared for it and it'd be a huge shock.
  - adolph 5y ago
    At this point why does Ukraine give two poots about the rest of Europe?
csee 5y ago
The problem is, it'll be the crazy one that uses those one or two nukes first. What then?
spawarotti 5y ago
There is a Kurzgesagt video about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyECrGp-Sw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyECrGp-Sw8 If you detonate all nukes you could destroy every city with population of over 100'000, worldwide. About 4'500 cities in total. You would still have around 1'500 nukes left. You would kill at least 3 billion people.
sammyjoe72 5y ago
The issue has always been escalation, if your enemy takes out your forward warning systems, you have to assume a full scale attack is coming, and thus you have to respond with a full scale attack yourself, damn the rest. This was discussed at length during the 70s and 80s, and a big reason why the superpowers started to reduce their arsenals, because there is no winner after the first nuke is launched, not even a small scale exchange can be trusted to remain small. This is a terrifying time indeed
eru 5y ago
> For one, it's actually happened that missiles looked like they were in the air, and a Soviet guy decided it was best not to send missiles back, and we're all still here. Keep in mind that this false alarm didn't look like an all out attack, but like only one missile (or a handful, I don't remember the details).
arisAlexis 5y ago
> Same as in a poker game, you can't fold every time someone raises big As Samy Farha put it excellently "in order to live you must be willing to die". Because poker is war and life :)

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jbay808 5y ago

Aren't there also second-strike weapons, like nuclear submarines? As hesitant as soldiers might be to press the launch button just in response to a radar signal, they might find the conviction when they learn their hometown is gone.

trashtester 5y ago

Russia has a bit more than a couple of nukes, as does the US. I believe I've seen the numbers indicate that the present arsenals that are currently in service are too small to erase humanity, but they are definitely big enough to cause hundreds of millions to a few billions of deaths. If we consider the situation of just 1-2 warheads are used in a conflict, I think it really hard to gauge the effect on public perception, and I suppose it also depends on the circumstances. If for instance, they were used in an unprovoked terrorist attack, killing 2-4million in a city, the response could be like after 9/11, but x100. If they were used to stop a military aggressor, killing "only" 10k soldiers in the field, their may lose their mythical status, and this could be the opening of Pandora's box, increasing the probability that they are used in later conflicts.

kodah 5y ago
Personally, I think we are well past the point of nuclear armaments. I think, if there is war, it'll be a ground and air war that's like a sophisticated yet familiar chess game and a side war that is mostly anti-war propaganda, pro-Russia propaganda, misinformation, and attacks on IOT and public infrastructure that exhaust the citizenry out of watching the fighting.
- DubiousPusher 5y ago
  Many people believed this kind of thing in July of 1914.
  - bb88 5y ago
    Exactly. When it comes to unloading your nuclear arsenal, it's not the war that's the problem -- it's the escalation.
- csee 5y ago
  Then when Putin starts losing and faces a coup from disgruntled people at home? You sure that megalomaniac won't decide to go nuclear when pushed into a corner?

DubiousPusher 5y ago

There is absolutely no precedent in human history for two fairly equal powers engaging in a conflict and one side refusing in totality to use almost any weapon at its disposal and certainly not one that an enemy has already used. Japan did not nuke America back in 1945 because it did not have a nuke and had lost all air superiority.

PolygonSheep 5y ago
The Allies and Nazi Germany both refusing to use chemical weapons during WWII? They both had chemical weapons stockpiled but neither side wanted to go there after WWI.
- czhu12 5y ago
  Bret Devereaux discusses this at length here: https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore/ https://acoup.blog/2020/03/20/collections-why-dont-we-use-ch... In short, we didn't stop using chemical weapons because of ethics (if thats the case, we should've given up landmines, which kill far more civilians). Rather, chemical weapons are expensive to operate and ineffective weapons in modern battlefields. Here is the relevant snippet from the blog: "During WWII, everyone seems to have expected the use of chemical weapons, but never actually found a situation where doing so was advantageous. This is often phrased in terms of fears of escalation (this usually comes packaged with the idea of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), but that’s an anachronism – while Bernard Brodie is sniffing around the ideas of what would become MAD as early as ’46, MAD itself only emerges after ’62). Retaliation was certainly a concern, but I think it is hard to argue that the combatants in WWII hadn’t already been pushed to the limits of their escalation capability, in a war where the first terror bombing happened on the first day. German death-squads were in the initial invasion-waves in both Poland, as were Soviet death squads in their invasion of Poland in concert with the Germans and also later in the war. WWII was an existential war, all of the states involved knew it by 1941 (if not earlier), and they all escalated to the peak of their ability from the start; I find it hard to believe that, had they thought it was really a war winner, any of the powers in the war would have refrained from using chemical weapons. The British feared escalation to a degree (but also thought that chemical weapons use would squander valuable support in occupied France), but I struggle to imagine that, with the Nazis at the very gates of Moscow, Stalin was moved either by escalation concerns or the moral compass he so clearly lacked at every other moment of his life."

throwhauser 5y ago

> ...a Soviet guy decided it was best not to send missiles back In that case the judgment was whether the telemetry was reliable enough to justify launching a retaliatory strike, with all the grave consequences that produces. An unambiguous order to launch a first strike might not elicit the same kind of hesitation.

hef19898 5y ago
The both scenarios, the Russian sub during the Cuba Crisis and the Officer ignoring the early warning system, didn't involve clear orders from the legitimate chain of command to launch. The sub operated under the absence of orders, while the early warning system was a standard operating procedure, and the Officer in charge was involved in the systems development. In any army of the world I would assume that, especially in the case of nuclear forces, orders to launch are not second guessed. After all, the whole concept of MAD depends on a swift counter attack. If those attack orders wouldn't be carried out fast, in the limited time frame available, something would be wrong.

tiahura 5y ago

“ it's actually happened that missiles looked like they were in the air, and a Soviet guy decided it was best not to send missiles back” Vlad Posner fairly recently made the point that because of strong anti-America sentiment in Russia, he is worried that this time the guy isn’t going to be as skeptical of the flashing light and is just going to hit the button.

avh02 5y ago
And soldiers in the USSR were American sympathizers?
AlexCoventry 5y ago
Pozner is clearly a Russian-Federation sympathizer, and probably a Russian-Federation propagandist, despite his claims to the contrary. His characterization of "not one inch Eastward" is extremely misleading, for instance.

adolph 5y ago

> sometimes worth it to hurt yourself in order to hurt an uncooperative player. Why has the Ukraine not blown the gas lines?

csee 5y ago
It'd hurt Europe far more than Russia in the short term. Russia would lose revenue but they have buffer reserves so it'd do little to hamper them in the short term. But Europe isn't prepared for it and it'd be a huge shock.
- adolph 5y ago
  At this point why does Ukraine give two poots about the rest of Europe?

csee 5y ago

The problem is, it'll be the crazy one that uses those one or two nukes first. What then?

spawarotti 5y ago

There is a Kurzgesagt video about that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyECrGp-Sw8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyECrGp-Sw8 If you detonate all nukes you could destroy every city with population of over 100'000, worldwide. About 4'500 cities in total. You would still have around 1'500 nukes left. You would kill at least 3 billion people.

sammyjoe72 5y ago

The issue has always been escalation, if your enemy takes out your forward warning systems, you have to assume a full scale attack is coming, and thus you have to respond with a full scale attack yourself, damn the rest. This was discussed at length during the 70s and 80s, and a big reason why the superpowers started to reduce their arsenals, because there is no winner after the first nuke is launched, not even a small scale exchange can be trusted to remain small. This is a terrifying time indeed

eru 5y ago

> For one, it's actually happened that missiles looked like they were in the air, and a Soviet guy decided it was best not to send missiles back, and we're all still here. Keep in mind that this false alarm didn't look like an all out attack, but like only one missile (or a handful, I don't remember the details).

arisAlexis 5y ago

> Same as in a poker game, you can't fold every time someone raises big As Samy Farha put it excellently "in order to live you must be willing to die". Because poker is war and life :)