An article very much on the same line as the author's book (and recent movie) on "Command and Control". A very good read by the way. On a side note, the title is poorly chosen - if a nuclear exchange occurs, it's not World War III, it's just "game over" for everyone. Even the few survivors would have a very harsh time just to endure the nuclear winters, lack of energy, no medical supplies and complete destruction of infrastructure and production capacities - even simply finding places to live without massive radiation contamination would be a serious challenge. I fear there would be <i>historian</i> to recount what would happen next.
I feel like there's a general puzzle here about statistics and decision theory: if the penalty for basing a bad decision on a false alarm is so high, does that mean that <i>every</i> alarm should be treated as a false alarm? And in that case, if you are resolved not to trust your sensors, what's the point of installing sensors in the first place?
The shift back toward nationalism guarantees substantial new military conflicts will arise in the next few decades. The only question is how serious they'll be, not whether they'll happen. Nationalism vs globalism will come and go in cycles; we've been rapidly heading into an obvious nationalism cycle. That will see the raising of barriers, both physically and communication-wise between nations, increasing the odds of misunderstanding. The Eurozone is almost guaranteed to dissolve and it's likely the EU will struggle to retain its former scope. Russia and China will be more aggressive about annexing territory as the US pulls back from its formerly over-extended global military reach. The net result will be increased security fears and chaos for most other nations (not to mention greater military expenditures, which will damage most European welfare states and push Japan to the edge financially). The increase in nationalism is also guaranteed to result in a few new nuclear powers being born out of security fear (Brazil, Turkey and Saudi Arabia are three candidates).
Interesting to me how people fear nuclear power, but seem indifferent to the threat of nuclear war.<p>While it's hard to know, given the degree of secrecy on the topic, once ran across a reference to how what are now Russia's nuke systems could automatically be triggered; if this is still true, in my opinion, this is would be the most likely source of global thermonuclear war.<p>"Only way to win is not to play."
Is rhetoric the real problem, or is it nuclear proliferation? Schlosser's book, which I've read and much admire, makes the point that nuclear stewardship is insanely difficult. If the world is less safe its because where there were once two nuclear powers, there are now between nine and twelve depending whom you ask. Rhetoric is the least of the world's concerns when countries which cannot build and maintain effective basic infrastructure are engineering and maintaining nuclear stockpiles.
This part gave me a chill:<p><i>The Royal Navy’s decision to save money by using Windows for Submarines, a version of Windows XP, as the operating system for its ballistic-missile subs seems especially shortsighted.</i><p>Indeed!
In some ways, the Soviet-era Perimetr system is a better solution. This is the infamous "Dead Hand" launch system. It's intended to allow a second strike if Moscow and the Russian general staff are both destroyed. It's normally on standby. When activated in a crisis, which the USSR did at least once, it provides a backup system to give launch authority to regional commanders if sensors indicate a nuclear detonation at Moscow, loss of communication with the usual launch authorities, and some amount of time has elapsed.<p>This removes the temptation to launch on warning in a crisis. The US lacks that.
The only people who win in a worldwide nuclear exchange are the immediate dead; everyone else loses. Why anyone in their right mind would even risk such a thing is beyond crazy. I also wonder what the benefit of doubling your nuclear capacity is if you already have enough to ensure worldwide destruction several times over?
Deep, deep down everyone, who is not in it for the power alone, knows that there is a family he wants to go home too, and that the same goes for those on the other side. And even if the other side would take that from you- to take that, for forever- that is beyond insanity.<p>Humans will not use this weapons.
<i>Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin confront a stark choice: begin another nuclear-arms race or reduce the threat of nuclear war.</i><p>it would seem like the latter considering how close the two seem to be