For the author, please correct me if I’m wrong, but the reference to Great Power Conflict is most likely the U.S. vs. China—is that right (just inferring based on the Graham Allison recommendation)? I’m curious if you a more in depth rationale or data available for this? Mostly, I’m curious about some other outcomes and how harmful they are—for instance, what happens if we avoid great power conflict but in doing so allow China to become the dominant world power and spread their authoritarian governance model even further than they do today? What are the expected deaths and the level of economic destruction of a conflict with China today? If the likelihood of a conflict is significantly high and the level of potential destruction continues to rise as China gains more and more military and economic capabilities, is it better to initiate a conflict early?
Because of the likelihood of it occurring or because the potential for human/economic damage or both? It also is concerning to me given that India would probably be somewhat more inclined to use nuclear weapons in a China v. India conflict than America would be (although who knows with the current admin), especially if Pakistan started making moves at the same time as India was focused on China. But I’m not sure why China would really push a conflict, that means they have to move huge amounts of men and materials to the west and potentially leave an opening on their coasts, plus they import huge amounts of energy products that flow past India that would surely get massively disrupted in the case of a conflict and don’t have that strong of a blue water force projection capability as the US and others who would probably come to India’s aid
Agreed, from the foreign policy folks I follow who focus on the region that one seems especially dangerous, especially if you care about stopping the usage of nuclear weapons which would be somewhat more likely in an India v. Pakistan conflict given it’s likely Pakistan would lose a war waged with purely conventional weaponry
I’m afraid I don’t know the answers to your specific questions. I agree that there are things worse than great power conflict, and perhaps China becoming the dominent world power could be one of those things. FWIW although war between the US and China does seem like one of the more worrying scinarios at the moment, I meant the description problem to be broader than that and include any great power war.
No worries, I was just curious—I’ve tried to find data on things like projections of lives lost in combat between the US and China and can’t find anything good (best I found was a Rand study from a few years ago but it didn’t really give projections of actual deaths) so was curious if you had gotten your hands on that data to make your projections. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I had assumed China/US conflict but makes sense—probably anyone with nuclear capabilities who gets into a serious foreign entanglement will create an extremely dangerous situation for the world.
probably anyone with nuclear capabilities who gets into a serious foreign entanglement will create an extremely dangerous situation for the world.
I’d agree with this. But partly due to what nuclear capabilities correlates with, rather than solely due to the nuclear capabilities themselves. Off the top of my head, I see at least 4 mechanisms by which great power war could reduce the expected value of the long-term future:
Risk of nuclear war and thereby of nuclear winter (this seems to be the implied focus of your comment)
Increased chances of unsafe development of emerging technologies (or, similarly, less willingness/ability to cooperate on ensuring that technological development proceeds safely)
As this post notes, “In addition, mistrust between major powers makes it harder for them to coordinate on arms control or ensure the safe use of new technologies.”
Increased chance of robust totalitarianism (analogous to how it seems plausible that, had the Nazis won WWII, that regime would’ve spread fairly globally and lasted fairly a long time)
Speaking as very much a non-expert, all 4 of those mechanisms seem important to me, without one of them standing out as far more important than the others. (Though I think I’d very weakly expect the first two to be more important than the last two.) If that’s true, and if someone had previously focused primarily on the risks of nuclear winter, this might suggest that person should increase their level of concern about great power conflict, including about conflicts that are very unlikely to result in nuclear weapons use.
(I assume there’s been EA and non-EA work on this general topic that I haven’t seen—this is just my quick take.)
For the author, please correct me if I’m wrong, but the reference to Great Power Conflict is most likely the U.S. vs. China—is that right (just inferring based on the Graham Allison recommendation)? I’m curious if you a more in depth rationale or data available for this? Mostly, I’m curious about some other outcomes and how harmful they are—for instance, what happens if we avoid great power conflict but in doing so allow China to become the dominant world power and spread their authoritarian governance model even further than they do today? What are the expected deaths and the level of economic destruction of a conflict with China today? If the likelihood of a conflict is significantly high and the level of potential destruction continues to rise as China gains more and more military and economic capabilities, is it better to initiate a conflict early?
India v. China conflict is perhaps more immediately worrying than US v. China.
Because of the likelihood of it occurring or because the potential for human/economic damage or both? It also is concerning to me given that India would probably be somewhat more inclined to use nuclear weapons in a China v. India conflict than America would be (although who knows with the current admin), especially if Pakistan started making moves at the same time as India was focused on China. But I’m not sure why China would really push a conflict, that means they have to move huge amounts of men and materials to the west and potentially leave an opening on their coasts, plus they import huge amounts of energy products that flow past India that would surely get massively disrupted in the case of a conflict and don’t have that strong of a blue water force projection capability as the US and others who would probably come to India’s aid
India v. Pakistan seems very important as well
Agreed, from the foreign policy folks I follow who focus on the region that one seems especially dangerous, especially if you care about stopping the usage of nuclear weapons which would be somewhat more likely in an India v. Pakistan conflict given it’s likely Pakistan would lose a war waged with purely conventional weaponry
Hey atlasunshrugged,
I’m afraid I don’t know the answers to your specific questions. I agree that there are things worse than great power conflict, and perhaps China becoming the dominent world power could be one of those things. FWIW although war between the US and China does seem like one of the more worrying scinarios at the moment, I meant the description problem to be broader than that and include any great power war.
No worries, I was just curious—I’ve tried to find data on things like projections of lives lost in combat between the US and China and can’t find anything good (best I found was a Rand study from a few years ago but it didn’t really give projections of actual deaths) so was curious if you had gotten your hands on that data to make your projections. Sorry for the misunderstanding, I had assumed China/US conflict but makes sense—probably anyone with nuclear capabilities who gets into a serious foreign entanglement will create an extremely dangerous situation for the world.
I’d agree with this. But partly due to what nuclear capabilities correlates with, rather than solely due to the nuclear capabilities themselves. Off the top of my head, I see at least 4 mechanisms by which great power war could reduce the expected value of the long-term future:
Risk of nuclear war and thereby of nuclear winter (this seems to be the implied focus of your comment)
Increased chances of unsafe development of emerging technologies (or, similarly, less willingness/ability to cooperate on ensuring that technological development proceeds safely)
As this post notes, “In addition, mistrust between major powers makes it harder for them to coordinate on arms control or ensure the safe use of new technologies.”
Increased chance of robust totalitarianism (analogous to how it seems plausible that, had the Nazis won WWII, that regime would’ve spread fairly globally and lasted fairly a long time)
Residual chance of various bad things if there’s a violent disruption of current trends, which seem to be unusually good (see The long-term significance of reducing global catastrophic risks by Beckstead)
Speaking as very much a non-expert, all 4 of those mechanisms seem important to me, without one of them standing out as far more important than the others. (Though I think I’d very weakly expect the first two to be more important than the last two.) If that’s true, and if someone had previously focused primarily on the risks of nuclear winter, this might suggest that person should increase their level of concern about great power conflict, including about conflicts that are very unlikely to result in nuclear weapons use.
(I assume there’s been EA and non-EA work on this general topic that I haven’t seen—this is just my quick take.)