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Comment by zdw | Hacker News Reader

U.S. government officials say it over and over again: we don't oppose countries like Iraq, Libya and Iran having WMD because we're scared they're going to attack us with them. Instead, we oppose them having WMD because that would allow them to deter us from attacking them.

That sounds about right...

Makes you wonder if the world would be a more peaceful, but more dictatorial and regimented place if everyone had nukes.

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Kenneth Waltz has argued nuclear weapons spread peace. The strongest evidence supporting him is the lack of any nuclear conflict in the last sixty years and the way the weapons have brought peace between India and Pakistan. If he is right the best prospects for long-term peace in the middle east will probably come through a nuclear-armed Iran.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Waltz

That said, there are two core ironies in the politics of proliferation that make this suggestion uncomfortable. The first is that at least at present the most vehement opponents of nuclear proliferation are often the most vocal critics of gun control. So few people who talk about the importance (or insignificance) of deterrence really seem to believe it logically.

The second irony is that the Nash equilibrium for rational-actor based models of deterrence is not peace, but random violence. The reason for this is that a certain amount of "demonstrated irrationality" is required to make the prospect of mutual assured destruction convincing to all players. Which means that if the world were truly rational we would expect some use of nuclear devices. And yet we don't see any, or haven't seen any yet.

All of which leads us to the strange observation that nuclear proliferation seems to bring peace, but not because of a rational deterrent effect.

"the weapons have brought peace between India and Pakistan."

only if the Kargil War(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kargil_War), which took place when both countries had nukes is ignored.

I am not contesting your larger point. Just reacting to "brought peace" which is not quite true. Nukes do prevent total, all out war to the death between Pakistan and India at present.

But a declared war in which soldiers die, and Pakistan's ISI sponsoring continuous terrorist attacks in India, and India supporting Anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan is not really "peace" (By contrast, England and France are at peace with each other, say, though they have fought each other many times in the past). What exists between India and Pakistan is just a different form of war. The relations between Pakistan and India are at best described as "no war, no peace"

> The second irony is that the Nash equilibrium for rational-actor based models of deterrence is not peace, but random violence.

Do you have a citation for that? I'd be interested to read further about it.

I think I got it from Robert Powell's stuff:

http://polisci.berkeley.edu/people/faculty/person_detail.php...

And if everyone had guns, you could cross off dictatorial. Thugs, both state and tribal, don't bat an eye when thinking about getting their hands on a gun. For peaceful, law abiding folks, however, it's a huge hassle.

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