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Comment by drtillberg | Hacker News Reader

As a child I thought it would have been completely hilarious if the leaders of the free world solemnly decided to destroy it by a large scale nuclear exchange, only to find much to their surprise that none of the warheads functioned due to age and lack of testing.

I say leave the missiles and warheads exactly the way they are and let anyone with the temerity to order a first strike deal cognitively with the risk that the world might survive their decision.

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I think that might be the established thought behind most of the world's nuclear arsenal. No one knows if they might all work. But the fact that some countries have them will give their adversaries second thought. See North Korea as an example. They tested one crude device few years ago. But no one outside of the NK regime know for sure if their nukes are deployable with a delivery system. But it doesn't matter. The fact that they have the capability makes even the U S pause and consider if regime change is a viable option there.

That's a special case.

The most likely case for somebody other than a great power making a nuclear arsenal, and ever thinking of nuclear first strike will be somebody:

1. Living in a very bad neighbourhood

2. Being extremely secretive

3. Not having reputation for bluffing, considering winning a war a matter of existential national importance

If we are to see military use of nukes happening this century, most likely you will see it where you never saw it coming, in a scenario of extreme power imbalance.

Saying this again, for anybody who is desperate enough to bet on a nuke for a military advantage, is already in such a dire straight, that they are already pass the point of using atomic weapons as a deterrent.

They will hold it as the top military secret till the "day X"

A world with broadly-held would have civil wars fought with them.

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