Comment by nostrademons

6 days ago

Note that MAD only works when there are a small number of players. Once it gets up past around 12, a.) it becomes too easy to detonate a nuclear weapon and then blame somebody else to take the fall and b.) the chance of somebody doing something crazy and irrational becomes high. Same reason that oligopolies can have steady profit but once you have ~10-12 market players you enter perfect competition and inevitably get a price war.

There are 9 nuclear-armed states today. Likely this has set us on a path where nuclear war is inevitable.

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nostrademons

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JasonADrury  6 days ago

>There are 9 nuclear-armed states today. Likely this has set us on a path where nuclear war is inevitable.

It's really hard to guess how retaliation would happen in practice, a large-scale nuclear war certainly isn't inevitable.

The most likely targets for nuclear strikes right now are also non-nuclear states.

  • nonethewiser  6 days ago

    People massively simplify the dynamics of launching a nuke. If Russia launched a nuke on a Ukrainian military target away from civilians there is virtually 0 chance of nuclear retaliation. Ukraine doesn't have them. Does anyone think the US, France, etc. would nuke Russia? Of course not.

    It's scary, but in some scenarios one nation can absolutely nuke another nation without threat of getting nuked themselves. In reality, the cat coming out of the bag looks more like that than nuclear armageddon.

    • nostrademons  6 days ago

      The problem is the precedent that sets. Russia launches a nuke on Ukraine, and there are no repercussions. That will teach every nuclear-armed state that they can freely nuke non-nuclear-armed states without consequence. But then what happens when somebody makes a mistake? China nukes Japan, but maybe Japan had a secret nuclear program and actually does have a retaliatory capability and nukes China back? Or China invades Taiwan (doesn't even have to nuke it), but the U.S. decides that the loss of Taiwanese semiconductor is actually an unacceptable red line and nukes the invasion fleet? Pakistan nukes India, but China misjudges the trajectory of the nuke and thinks it's actually under attack. Israel nukes Iran, but winds carry the fallout over Pakistan and India.

      Game theory works when players know the payout matrix. When the assumed payout matrix is shown to be false, you get very chaotic, almost random results, because you can't assume that your opponents will correctly choose the rational choice. With WMDs, the consequences of that can be deadly. That's why both nuclear proliferation and "limited" nuclear war are such fraught choices, and why the major nuclear powers have worked so hard to avoid them. They've run the game theoretic simulations and understand that it doesn't lead anywhere good.

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