Great set of links, appreciate it. Was especially excited to see lukeprog’s review and the author’s presentation of Atomic Obsession.
I’m inclined toward answers of the form “seems like they would have been used more or some civilizational factor would need to change” (which is how I interpret Jackson’s answer on strong global policing). Which is why I’m currently most interested in understanding the Atomic Obsession-style skeptical take.
If anyone is interested, the following are some of the author’s claims which seem pertinent, at least as far as I can tell (from the author’s summary, a couple reviews, and a few chapters but not the whole book):
Nuclear weapons are not cost effective for practical military purposes or terrorists.
Many people have been alarmists about nuclear weapons, in describing their destructive powers and forecasting future developments.
Nuclear weapons have not played a major role as deterrents nor in shifting diplomatic dominance.
It seems like the first two are pretty straightforwardly true. (3) is most interesting, and I haven’t been able to make Mueller’s argument crisp for myself on this point. My attempt at breaking down (3), with some of my own attempt at steelmanning:
a) Nuclear weapons are really expensive
b) Gaining nuclear weapons upsets your neighbors, which is an additional cost
c) There are cheaper ways of getting a more compelling deterrent, for example North Korea could invest in artillery to put more pressure on Seoul.
d) Countries didn’t really have any interest in going to war, anyway, so deterrents were not needed (I think he claims something about Stalin and other communist powers having no interest in war with western powers)
e) Nukes are technically complex and even if smaller actors, possibly including e.g. factions in a civil war, were to steal them, they would have a hard time using them
f) Nukes are easy to police because nuclear forensics are quite good at attributing events to their creators
g) People have to be really crazy to use nuclear weapons given they aren’t very effective on military targets and can’t actually help you win, only suicide
(It seems worth mentioning that in my actual cursory read of Mueller’s arguments in the form mentioned above, I found some points I’ve omitted because they seem mutually inconsistent and make him seem dogmatic to me. For example at one point in his nuclear terrorism section he seems to use the fact that the CIA would probably have infiltrated a group as evidence for the overarching claim that investment in counter-proliferation is wasted. The contradiction is obviously that the CIA probably wouldn’t invest as much in infiltrating terrorist groups attempting to build nukes if that was less of a priority. )
If we take my hypothetical to mean “nuclear weapons are cheaper to build” (sorry for the ambiguity there) then a, b, c and e seem basically null. I read d) as pretty far removed from the facts. Some good evidence for this in the comments of the lukeprog post especially Max Daniel’s.
Which leaves f- Nukes are easy to police, and g- people aren’t crazy enough to actually use them.
Great set of links, appreciate it. Was especially excited to see lukeprog’s review and the author’s presentation of Atomic Obsession.
I’m inclined toward answers of the form “seems like they would have been used more or some civilizational factor would need to change” (which is how I interpret Jackson’s answer on strong global policing). Which is why I’m currently most interested in understanding the Atomic Obsession-style skeptical take.
If anyone is interested, the following are some of the author’s claims which seem pertinent, at least as far as I can tell (from the author’s summary, a couple reviews, and a few chapters but not the whole book):
Nuclear weapons are not cost effective for practical military purposes or terrorists.
Many people have been alarmists about nuclear weapons, in describing their destructive powers and forecasting future developments.
Nuclear weapons have not played a major role as deterrents nor in shifting diplomatic dominance.
It seems like the first two are pretty straightforwardly true. (3) is most interesting, and I haven’t been able to make Mueller’s argument crisp for myself on this point. My attempt at breaking down (3), with some of my own attempt at steelmanning:
a) Nuclear weapons are really expensive b) Gaining nuclear weapons upsets your neighbors, which is an additional cost c) There are cheaper ways of getting a more compelling deterrent, for example North Korea could invest in artillery to put more pressure on Seoul. d) Countries didn’t really have any interest in going to war, anyway, so deterrents were not needed (I think he claims something about Stalin and other communist powers having no interest in war with western powers) e) Nukes are technically complex and even if smaller actors, possibly including e.g. factions in a civil war, were to steal them, they would have a hard time using them f) Nukes are easy to police because nuclear forensics are quite good at attributing events to their creators g) People have to be really crazy to use nuclear weapons given they aren’t very effective on military targets and can’t actually help you win, only suicide
(It seems worth mentioning that in my actual cursory read of Mueller’s arguments in the form mentioned above, I found some points I’ve omitted because they seem mutually inconsistent and make him seem dogmatic to me. For example at one point in his nuclear terrorism section he seems to use the fact that the CIA would probably have infiltrated a group as evidence for the overarching claim that investment in counter-proliferation is wasted. The contradiction is obviously that the CIA probably wouldn’t invest as much in infiltrating terrorist groups attempting to build nukes if that was less of a priority. )
If we take my hypothetical to mean “nuclear weapons are cheaper to build” (sorry for the ambiguity there) then a, b, c and e seem basically null. I read d) as pretty far removed from the facts. Some good evidence for this in the comments of the lukeprog post especially Max Daniel’s.
Which leaves f- Nukes are easy to police, and g- people aren’t crazy enough to actually use them.