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Comment by cf141q5325 | Hacker News Reader

Friendly reminder that getting out of all those pesky nuclear arms control treaties meant a greatly reduced reaction time on both sides. And having 15 instead of 45 minutes to react to a detected launch makes errors naturally a lot more likely.

Nuclear war doesnt need crazy people on both sides ready to ride the bomb to end human civilization. It only needs sufficiently brainwashed bureaucrats who are stuck in the process of an apparatus that believes they have their hands forced to retaliate.

edit: And just in case somebody still has any delusions of efficiency left, most of those past cases of "almost ended the world" were down to one men who had the power and accompanying backbone to overrule and /or block a strike decision. With Vasily Arkhipov it was 2 to 1 for the "retaliatory" nuclear strike against depth charges aimed at getting them to surface.

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> Friendly reminder that getting out of all those pesky nuclear arms control treaties meant a greatly reduced reaction time on both sides. And having 15 instead of 45 minutes to react to a detected launch makes errors naturally a lot more likely.

Could you be more specific about the treaties?

It kind of sounds like you're talking about the INF treaty given the comment about reaction time, but IIRC that treaty never covered submarine-launched missiles and a treaty isn't any good if it's not actually complied with (e.g. the Wikipedia page lists a decade of alleged violations prior to withdrawal, and furthermore the treaty didn't bind all relevant powers).

In February Biden left the Russian Arms Control Talks in reaction to the Russian troop movements. They were discussing reinstating the INF. With intermediate range missiles like the SS20 and Pershing with especially short reaction cycles. Which we actually got rid of in the 80s.

Could you be more specific with treaty violations? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_For... Has the tests for missiles with a disputed range

On a side note, when searching for it google also told me that the last policy round apparently allowed the first strike use of nuclear weapons https://www.armscontrol.org/act/2022-04/news/biden-policy-al...

> With intermediate range missiles like the SS20 and Pershing with especially short reaction cycles. Which we actually got rid of in the 80s.

Did we though? https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2015/01/Ha...:

> a submarine-based missile could strike in as little as 10 to 15 minutes after launch

IIRC, INF treaty only banned US and Russian land-based intermediate-range missiles. It didn't ban similar sea-based missiles nor did it ban Chinese land or sea-based intermediate-range missiles.

And they were renegotiation, a point in time where addressing such shortcomings was a real possibility. China is also not currently involved in reckless power plays. It was plain and simply better then the alternative.

We are stuck with people having an end of the species button and are left dealing with this somehow. There are two approaches, one is to do everything to prevent accidental triggering. You put a case over it and and agree to not make any sudden movements. Arms control is about giving both sides a clear picture that the other one isnt going to use theirs. In short deescalation, making sure nobody is getting nervous because we know that nuclear holocaust would be a bad thing.

The other is to use it as a threat. In short escalation.

It is quite clearly heavily escalating with the second approach in a time where the former is absolutely necessary.

Lets not sugarcoat it, such behavior is very much in villain territory. Its risking the end of the species for short term political power plays.

edit: Differently put, i am going to go out on a limb here and argue that increasing the risk for a nuclear holocaust is a bad thing. I havent seen many people disagree here outside of some posadist circles

And we had solid intel under the Obama administration that the Russians were cheating w/ INF. I am a huge fan of INF and think it was one of the great achievements of Cold War arms control. I also think it didn't make sense to keep it given Russian cheating and the fact that China's not covered at all.

Cheating isn't new with Russia: during the Late Unpleasantness, the SA-5 system was given an ABM capability in clear violation of applicable treaties.

Doomsday devices and Mutually Assured Destruction where invented by those not wanting to destroy civilization. They're actually pacifist devices.

Their very reason of existence it to remove power from those _wanting_ to use the bomb.

It's a very scary equilibrium, but a possible one at the time when people were advocating for a preemptive strike as the only equilibrium.

Of course no bomb at all is a much nicier equilibrium, but much much harder to achieve at the time (even now).

A even better equilibrium would be uninventing the bomb, but this is pretty much impossible.

> With Vasily Arkhipov it was 2 to 1 for the "retaliatory" nuclear strike against depth charges aimed at getting them to surface.

Hopefully the modern US government would also know not to attack a nuclear submarine in international waters.

The 'government' isn't necessarily looped into every such decision. A lot of 'should we shoot' escalations are ultimately in the hands of local commanders.

Hopefully the government is looped in to decisions to attack nuclear submarines in international waters unprovoked.

Is a treaty any good if the countries in that have shown to violate them?

Yes, very much if you have inspector able to visit sites.

Sure, only if all the sites and tech was inspected.

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