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NATO is currently not, however, engaged in any effort of nuclear arms reduction. As somebody from a NATO member country, I don't care about other countries posi

by js8 4y ago

NATO is currently not, however, engaged in any effort of nuclear arms reduction. As somebody from a NATO member country, I don't care about other countries position on this, as I believe my country should be a moral leader. I have to say, I consider MAD theory to be completely misguided, and also morally wrong to engage in nuclear retaliatory attack. However, I understand the worry. It would be possible for NATO to propose an aggressive, world-wide nuclear arms reduction schedule (and possibly even lead it), but they are not doing that (they are rather doing the opposite, expanding).

formerly_proven 4y ago
> NATO is currently not, however, engaged in any effort of nuclear arms reduction. START I, SORT, and New START (which is currently ongoing) don't count? And INF, though that was shelved due to Russian breaches (Kaliningrad cough), but even without that it wouldn't have had much more of a future due to it being bilateral, with no Chinese involvement. > I have to say, I consider MAD theory to be completely misguided, and also morally wrong to engage in nuclear retaliatory attack. MAD is irrelevant for this question. It's about stable vs unstable conditions. When everyone in the room has a gun, there is balance. If everyone in the room provably has no gun, there is also a balance. The former balance is vastly more stable than the latter, because even a fractional gun in the latter scenario changes the picture dramatically, while doing approximately nothing in the latter. Consequently, the value of an individual gun goes up hugely as the total number of guns in the rooms approaches zero. Russia having one more nuke today? Buys them virtually nothing. Someone finding a nuke in the basement in the utopian nuke-free world? They own the world. It's an inherently unstable setup. Nukes will never go away and trying to do so is the most dangerous thing anyone could try to do. It's perhaps the least probable example of trying to put the genie back in the bottle. The best we can do is multilateral reduction in lock-step and preventing proliferation to more states. > (they are rather doing the opposite, expanding) Elaborate
- js8 4y ago
  I don't consider START or INF to be progress, it's pretty much an attempt to "prop up" the untenable nature of MAD theory (which, as you point out, completely disregards salami tactics, for instance). It's better but not much. I disagree with the idea that if everyone has a gun, the world is more stable (with respect to gun use) than if nobody has a gun. We see something similar play out in mass shootings in the U.S compared to other countries. I also don't think we can't, with diplomatic effort, put genie back to bottle. I think we owe it to future generations to try. NATO is expanding to Finland and Sweden (which was actually considering to sign nuclear weapon ban), not to mention earlier expansion. They are part of the problem (NATO is pretty much designed as a nuclear pact). There is plenty of countries without nuclear weapons or umbrella and doing just fine.

by js8 4y ago

formerly_proven 4y ago

> NATO is currently not, however, engaged in any effort of nuclear arms reduction. START I, SORT, and New START (which is currently ongoing) don't count? And INF, though that was shelved due to Russian breaches (Kaliningrad cough), but even without that it wouldn't have had much more of a future due to it being bilateral, with no Chinese involvement. > I have to say, I consider MAD theory to be completely misguided, and also morally wrong to engage in nuclear retaliatory attack. MAD is irrelevant for this question. It's about stable vs unstable conditions. When everyone in the room has a gun, there is balance. If everyone in the room provably has no gun, there is also a balance. The former balance is vastly more stable than the latter, because even a fractional gun in the latter scenario changes the picture dramatically, while doing approximately nothing in the latter. Consequently, the value of an individual gun goes up hugely as the total number of guns in the rooms approaches zero. Russia having one more nuke today? Buys them virtually nothing. Someone finding a nuke in the basement in the utopian nuke-free world? They own the world. It's an inherently unstable setup. Nukes will never go away and trying to do so is the most dangerous thing anyone could try to do. It's perhaps the least probable example of trying to put the genie back in the bottle. The best we can do is multilateral reduction in lock-step and preventing proliferation to more states. > (they are rather doing the opposite, expanding) Elaborate

js8 4y ago
I don't consider START or INF to be progress, it's pretty much an attempt to "prop up" the untenable nature of MAD theory (which, as you point out, completely disregards salami tactics, for instance). It's better but not much. I disagree with the idea that if everyone has a gun, the world is more stable (with respect to gun use) than if nobody has a gun. We see something similar play out in mass shootings in the U.S compared to other countries. I also don't think we can't, with diplomatic effort, put genie back to bottle. I think we owe it to future generations to try. NATO is expanding to Finland and Sweden (which was actually considering to sign nuclear weapon ban), not to mention earlier expansion. They are part of the problem (NATO is pretty much designed as a nuclear pact). There is plenty of countries without nuclear weapons or umbrella and doing just fine.