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Comment by mkup | Hacker News Reader

The only reason keeping one country from launching nuclear weapons at another one is Mutual Assured Destruction principle. Without nuclear weapons, the world would be a much more dangerous place to live.

We had two world wars in the first half of previous century. It was a like a loop: as soon as new generation of youth eligible for combatant service grew up, world war started again.

Fortunately, nuclear weaponry ended that loop, and Mutual Assured Destruction principle is the only reason for protracted peace at the global scale.

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I find your statement

> Mutual Assured Destruction principle is the only reason for protracted peace at the global scale

very hard to believe. Do you have any source I could read that may change my mind ? For the moment I am a proponent of global nuclear disarmament, I don't have any source in english but the argument that draw me in was can be phrased as :

During the one true nuclear crisis, the Cuba missiles, Kennedy did not send the Air Force because the chance of getting nucleary hit, even "a little", was not 0%. Still, the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction posits that one enemy must be sure to be completely destroyed.

So we have a doctrine that leads to enormous arsenals, yet the only data point we have shows it is probably not true, as a mere chance of getting a small hit was enough for Kennedy to back down.

Hence, our arsenal are, at best, far too huge. I furthermore believe that we would be better off with no nuclear weapon at all, but I wanted more info about your precise statement.

So you think that what kept Stalin from marching into West Germany in the 1950s was a respect for the principle of freedom and independence in the Federal republic? Or perhaps he feared the awesome military capabilities of a conventional British army of the Rhine?

And similarly Washington didn't start a war with the USSR because it believed in "live and let live" with regards to world communism.

From my questioning of (emphasis mine) :

> Mutual Assured Destruction principle is the ONLY reason for protracted peace at the global scale

you seem to derive that I think something along the line of "Equilibrium in nuclear abilities played no role in global stability during the cold war."

The answers to your rhetorical questions are of course all no. But do you truly think the huge size of our nuclear arsenals are a necessary feature for global stability nowadays ? If yes, could you explain to me why a smaller arsenal could not do the trick ?

I think a big enough nuclear fleet on bath sides has led to the first half-century in the history of europe without a major war.

I think it's also odd how politicians 'claim' that Iran/Korea/Belgium mustn't be allowed to get nuclear weapons because then they would be unstoppable. So MAD works against the USSR but not against Iran?

At least until US has anti-rocket shields everywhere on Earth. Then they won't have to worry so much about mutual destruction. I remember a few years ago when Russia was upset about US putting an anti-rocket shield in Poland, I was taking US' side, because I naively thought that US is a democracy hero country and that having those anti-rocket shields will be a good thing for the world. But now I realize how dangerous is giving US so much control over the Earth and turning it into a quasi-empire.

Pax americana, friend. What're you afraid of?

If every country had nuclear weapons, would there be no more wars then? And to take it one step further, if every man had a gun, would there be no more murder?

Nope - M.A.D. principle assumes perfect rationality, i.e. all leaders with launch capability care about the survival of their subjects. This assumption worked well during the times of Cold War, but may fail in future, as more states gain access to nuclear technology and weaponry.

So I admit this principle has its limits of application, it's not perfect, but nevertheless it proved worthwhile tool to sustain global peace on the planet during Cold War era and up to this day. Imperfect tool, but only one that works.

You're right.

I used that example to make a point, the core of what i am saying still applies though.

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M.A.D. only works if all of those involved are rational actors with high levels of control and clear geographic definitions.

If every country had nukes then you only need one country to have a civil war and things could get rather messy.

Imagine what would happen in the US, for example, if Washington went bankrupt. Something like that could lead to civil war, which raises the thought of what a nuclear civil war might look like, could you have an independent theologically-apocalyptic nuclear armed Texas spitting bible verses and megaton warheads at any heathens, for instance?

Although interestingly it works best if the other side believes you are an insane fundamentalist psychopath.

So the US assumed that Russians, being Godless commie atheists were itching to nuke the good old USA if they could. Rather than their generals being a generation that had fought in the ruins of Stalingrad and didn't want to see that happen again.

Fortunately the Russians assumed that US were a bunch of bible-thumping God bothering spoiled children who would nuke them rather than have to face the horrors of fighting a Stalingrad type battle.

So everything worked out ok!

There is still a debate in the global-thermonuclear-war business about whether Curtis LeMay actually was the insane trigger-happy character from Dr Strangelove he appeared - or if that was a deliberate image projected to convince the Russians that the USA was crazy enough to use the bomb.

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