
Why Hasn’t the World Been Destroyed in a Nuclear War Yet? - sasvari
http://nautil.us/blog/why-hasnt-the-world-been-destroyed-in-a-nuclear-war-yet
======
cm2187
I think the only reason is luck really.

Stalin died shortly after the Soviet Union became a nuclear power. I read an
interview of Beria's son explaining that Stalin was planning an all-out
nuclear war. Given that killing a few dozen million people wasn't really a big
deal to Stalin, there was a real risk he would have gone ahead.

McNamara in the excellent Fog of War also mentioned that Kennedy was extremely
close to giving the order to bomb Cuba, I think he even mentioned that at one
point the order had been signed, ready to go.

The Cold War is gone, but I think we have another danger. Drones and Robots
have made it much cheaper for big powers to be more aggressive militarily. And
the US is working actively on shields that could shoot down ICBMs. If the US
can attack cheaply on the ground (as in with no US casualty) and not be
deterred by a nuclear response, war is just bound to happen.

~~~
arethuza
"Stalin was planning an all-out nuclear war"

It seems unlikely that Stalin would have planned a war which would have been
so completely one-sided. The Soviets didn't really achieve any kind of parity
with US strategic weapons until well into the 1970s.

Starting an "all out" war with the US with LeMay in command of SAC would have
been national suicide - and the Soviets knew they were at a huge disadvantage.
Stalin was lots of things but I don't think he could ever be accused of being
stupid.

Edit: Mind you I suppose it was possible that the Soviets thought they could
invade Western Europe and survive the inevitable US and UK attack - but the US
would have been untouched in such a scenario which probably wouldn't be a good
idea...

~~~
cm2187
I think the point was rather that Stalin was happy to use nuclear weapons
casually, as just another weapon in the arsenal.

We tend to forget that all sides in WW2 happily carpet bombed cities and
civilians. Using nuclear weapons to achieve the same result more efficiently
would have been only a logical evolution.

In a way we are lucky that nuclear weapons only arrived late in the game and
that after the war all sides preferred a status quo.

~~~
a8da6b0c91d
During the Korean war Douglas MacArthur lobbied to use tactical nukes on the
Chinese forces over the border.

------
oskarth
I'm glad the author says "one starts to wonder if it really is plain dumb
luck". Another way to answer the question:

> Why Hasn’t the World Been Destroyed in a Nuclear War Yet?

Because in an alternative universe where there was a nuclear war, this has
already happened, and there was no one left to ask the question. Or if there
was, they certainly had better things to do.

See also: most questions and statements about real estate in 2007, or on Long
Term Capital Management and their scientifically proven methods before their
demise.

Survivorship bias is a PITA.

EDIT: Someone doesn't understand probability. Possible worlds is the only
rigorous way of reasoning about counterfactuals.

~~~
speakeron
The trouble with the alternate worlds (and the very similar quantum suicide)
idea, is that there are lots of ways not to be killed by a nuclear war (even
for the majority of the population). Why haven't we seen any of those paths?

~~~
smacktoward
_> there are lots of ways not to be killed by a nuclear war (even for the
majority of the population)_

Not with modern thermonuclear weapons, there isn't. There's no hole you can
dig deep enough to save you from one of those going off right next to you.

~~~
mikeash
Most people wouldn't be right next to one going off, though.

Even at the peak of the cold war, pushing The Button wouldn't have killed
everybody. Probably not even a majority of humanity. It would have been
righteously apocalyptic, and wrecked a good chunk of civilization, and made
all other wars before it look puny and laughable, but there would be plenty of
survivors, especially outside the countries involved in the war.

~~~
smacktoward
The _bombs_ wouldn't have killed everybody, sure.

But the fallout, and the famines due to agricultural productivity collapse,
and the reduced disease resistance due to malnutrition, and...

~~~
mikeash
Certainly many more would die. But many more would live. There are lots of
low-tech, poor farmers out there who wouldn't be _too_ affected.

~~~
smacktoward
As is probably obvious by now, I don't share your optimism on that score. Even
peasants using Stone Age farming techniques would be affected if a radioactive
dust cloud blows over their fields, or if soot thrown into the atmosphere
causes a nuclear winter
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_winter))
that prevents their crops from getting the sunlight they need to grow.
Livestock can unknowingly eat contaminated feed or water and produce
contaminated meat and milk. Diseases that run rampant through the weakened
immune systems of populations closer to the blasts can mutate more quickly
into strains that threaten anyone. Etc. So even if you're on the other side of
the world when the bombs fall, peacefully farming with a stone plow, there's
lots of ways those bombs can ruin your day too.

There's a great novel from the '80s called _Warday_
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warday](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warday))
that explores these themes in more detail. It's set in the aftermath of a
"limited" nuclear war -- limited meaning, in the case of the US, that the only
targets struck by Russian missiles are New York City, San Antonio, and the
Midwestern missile fields. (Some of the missiles aimed at New York even miss,
exploding out at sea.) Most Americans never see a mushroom cloud and come
through the one-day war without a scratch. But the nuclear exchange, "limited"
as it is, sets off a chain of ecological and technological consequences that
after five years have killed many more people than the bombs did.

~~~
mikeash
I'm a big fan of that book. Not only is it really well written, but as far as
I can tell it's pretty accurate as well.

The reason for my "optimism" (if you can call it that... everything is
relative, I suppose) is that it gets harder and harder to kill people as the
numbers increase. Maybe some disease arises which replicates the Spanish Flu
or Black Death, and among a weakened population it kills off 50% of them.
Well, you still have 50% left. As the population declines and civilization
collapses, diseases will have a much harder time spreading, so it becomes
self-limiting. Contamination will _mostly_ not affect your day-to-day life
outside of certain areas. It'll definitely affect your ability to die of old
age, and have healthy children, but people as a whole will survive.

I imagine there would not be a particularly large number of survivors in the
US after an all-out nuclear strike. But people in places like South America
wouldn't be affected all that greatly aside from the instantaneous collapse of
global trade and communications.

------
Shivetya
Simple really. Rational nations led by rational leaders have had access to
nuclear weapons. Both sides had one goal, to live, which means never really
wanting to use them

the danger this day and age is that are some very irrational powers, possibly
including leaders and the countries they represent, that, well, don't think
the same.

Even India and Pakistan get along because neither side is governed by
fanatical leadership. Likely the real danger comes from one of the more
intolerant sects of Islam

~~~
yodsanklai
I wonder, why are nuclear weapons so hard to build? is it possible that in a
near future an average terrorist is able to build one?

~~~
simonh
They are hard to build because once the chain raction starts in the nuclear
material, the resulting reaction tends to break up and disperse the nuclear
material before the chain reaction progresses very far. It's called a fizzle.
Fission bombs are designed with a wrap-around concave shaped charge of
conventional explosive around the nuclear material. This is detonated as the
critical mass of nuclear material is slammed together, and the compression
wave from the conventional explosion holds the fissioning mass of nuclear
material together long enough for the chain reaction explosion to complete.
The engineering for this and the precise timing and controll of the detonation
sequence is extremely hard.

~~~
ptaipale
My understanding is that the engineering for this can be done by someone who
has studied the stuff, and uses publicly available materials. He or she does
need to be competent but does not need to be Einstein. See John Aristotle
Phillips. [0]

The main challenge is simply the industrial process required to collect the
fissionable material. That is why Iranians have centrifuges and why Stuxnet
attacked those centrifuges. [1]

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Aristotle_Phillips)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet)

~~~
coob
For a fission bomb yes, not s fusion (thermonuclear/hydrogen) bomb.

Fire bombing can (and has done) more damage to a city than a fission bomb.

~~~
Houshalter
But a terrorist can't fire bomb a city, but they can potentially build a
fusion bomb.

~~~
ptaipale
A terrorist can't really build a fusion bomb, because you need a government to
support the infrastructure. But the fear is not entirely unjustified because a
government would be able to give the bomb to a terrorist who then uses it. Or
perhaps a government employee might steal it (for bribes) and give to a
terrorist. So I can imagine terrorist having a small fission bomb. But I
cannot imagine an arrangement where a terrorist would acquire a fleet of
B-29's that could be used to fire-bomb a city.

~~~
Houshalter
To build it from scratch yes, it's possible to build a primitive bomb from
stolen refined plutonium. After the collapse of the soviet union, a lot of it
went missing and there a dozen cases of people getting caught trying to sell
it on the black market (and those are just the people that've been caught.)

Mass arson is possible, though not on the scale of firebombing. The US in WWII
developed the idea of strapping incendiary bombs on bats and releasing them in
a city, where they would roost in random buildings and start hundreds of small
fires.

------
michaelt
In the book "The Stragegy of Conflict" Thomas Schelling proposes accidental
launches as a form of "randomised threats" which let you position yourself in
between "I certainly won't launch" (not a threat) and "I certainly will
launch" (not a credible threat, as not rational due to MAD)

A Washington Post article [1] describes it like so:

 _So you 're standing at the edge of a cliff, chained by the ankle to someone
else. You'll be released, and one of you will get a large prize, as soon as
the other gives in. How do you persuade the other guy to give in, when the
only method at your disposal -- threatening to push him off the cliff -- would
doom you both?

Answer: You start dancing, closer and closer to the edge. That way, you don't
have to convince him that you would do something totally irrational: plunge
him and yourself off the cliff. You just have to convince him that you are
prepared to take a higher risk than he is of accidentally falling off the
cliff. If you can do that, you win._

So in the Cuban missile crisis accidental launches, not intentional launches,
are what the Russians are threatened with. And when designing a nuclear
deterrent, it's actually useful if the failsafes aren't 100% reliable - if a
rogue general sets your nuclear launch code to all zeros [2] and they make
sure the Russians find out about it, that's actually a good thing.

[1] [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/10...](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/content/article/2005/10/11/AR2005101101336.html) [2]
[https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/11/for-
nearly-20-ye...](https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/2013/12/11/for-
nearly-20-years-the-launch-code-for-us-nuclear-missiles-was-00000000/)

------
bakhy
> (In the Cold War satire Dr. Strangelove, the Soviet Union deployed a similar
> “doomsday device” and also neglected to tell the world about it. In the
> film, Dr. Strangelove points out that not telling anyone obviates the
> deterrence of any deterrent device; the real-life Soviets seem to have
> missed the point.)

When I first read about the system, it was clearly explained that the idea was
to put high-ranking Soviet generals at peace. If they know the system is
there, they will not go paranoid and launch a nuclear war on their own (Dr
Strangelove is one of the best movies ever). Yet, several times after that I
have seen this "silly Soviets" way of telling the story, where authors
completely seriously imply that the Soviets designed such a thing and then
just, presumably out of pure stupidity (?), forgot to tell everyone. How can
anyone find such an explanation acceptable?

Makes you wonder how much stupid shit we read every day, and accept it without
noticing.

~~~
digi_owl
From what i recall, there is a exchange in the movie where it is mentioned
that the Soviet president (premier?) was planning to unveil the system on May
1th.

~~~
bakhy
Yeah, they wanted it to be a surprise for the party congress or something :D

------
netcan
One answer that is possible though not a popular idea is 'The UN.' More
broadly it's the international governance that the UN is a part of. The UN's
goal is/was largely preventing a nuclear WWIII, so it's at least worth
considering.

It's easy to discount the UN. It's ineffective, self righteous without
introspection, a paper tiger, a cynical dealmaking forum, undemocratic, etc.
etc..

But… There are two influential UN agendas that have been to some extent,
effective: Non Aggression and Non Proliferation.

Nonproliferation was a limited success. Only Pakistan, India, Israel & North
Korea went nuclear despite it. Those are worrying, but do not amount to
inevitable nuclear war.

If nuclear weapons were sold in the arms markets like ICBMs, fighter jets,
cutting edge anti missile/aircraft defense systems, etc. then the list of
nuclear powers would be much bigger than it is today. Sadaam's Iraq, Iran,
Syria, Egypt & Saudi Arabia would have them (they have everything else).
That's just one neighborhood. Non-State nuclear powers would be far more
likely. 911 might have been a nuclear attack.

Non aggression is the second principle/agenda. Boiled down it means 'No Wars
of Conquest'. If you conquer territory that is "rightfully" yours because
ancestors or whatnot, no country will recognize your territorial gains ever.

Non Aggression has also been a limited success. Israel in 1967 is the high
profile counter example. Russia in Ukraine is the bigger and more recent one.
There have been other violations, but compared to the pre-UN period it is a
different paradigm.

Instead, we have a paradigm of "intervention" and occupation instead of
conquest or colonialism. It's not ideal but it does change the whole
incentive-dynamic. No country's political discourse is dominated by the idea
of expanding. That is uniquely true of the last 3 generations and no other
period.

In that sense, the UN Non Aggression principle has successfully taken the
spoils out of war and prevented the cyclical warfare which created the two
Great Wars.

Ukraine is the counterexample and may be the end of the era. Who knows.

TLDR: The UN lowered incidence of wars between major powers via the "non
aggression rule" and the proliferation of nuclear weapons to minor powers and
non state actors via non proliferation initiatives. These two have been
working together to keep the chances of nuclear war down, but it's a shaky
system.

~~~
digi_owl
Meh. I find the whole intervention thing very similar to the gradual
English/British takeover of India.

You start out with a trading company that to protect their interests start
training soldiers.

Then effectively take over administrative control of the place by propping up
regional rulers.

But then gets in over its head and gets bailed out by the government.

Never mind the Banana Wars that USA was involved with in South America to
protect United Fruit interests etc.

------
maho
In the recent discussion about the article "Almost everything in Dr.
Strangelove was true" [0], mikeash posted a link to a captivating alternate-
history story about the Cuban Missile Crisis going horribly bad:

[http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=...](http://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=65071)

[0]:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7109345](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7109345)

~~~
arethuza
A novel based in the aftermath of a "Cuban War":

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Day](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_Day)

------
Ygg2
I think people miss point of Dead Hand.

It's not to prevent US from launching a pre-emptive strike, it exists to
prevent USSR from launching a pre-emptive strike.

~~~
michaelt
There was a time when people wondered if it would be possible to have a
limited nuclear war. Hypothetically, if Russian land forces invaded France,
could we launch a few small nukes at military targets only, to scare them off?
They'll see it's a small scale attack and decide not to retaliate because they
don't want to trigger MAD any more than we do. Right? And that way we can save
money on conventional forces, as nukes are all we need.

By creating a fully automated doomsday device which will trigger MAD even in
the event of a limited nuclear war the possibility of a limited nuclear war is
taken off the table - and with it, the possibility of cutting back on
conventional forces.

------
ArkyBeagle
Basically, MAD plus level-headed ... sub captains equals stability. The number
of near-misses was vanishingly small.

In a sense, nukes were more peaceful - the practical effect was to replace
large armies with nukes for cost reasons. Using nukes destroys them, so
there's a disincentive to actually use them. They're only any good if you _don
't_ use them. That's some catch, that Catch-22.

The Cold War is oh-so-much not nearly even close to WWI. Bismarck pretty much
predicted WWI - down to the Balkan character of the spark that ignited it -
not long after he was forced out of power in Germany.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Last_warning_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_von_Bismarck#Last_warning_and_prediction)

" According to Albert Ballin, the year before he died Bismarck told him:

    
    
        "One day the great European War will come out of some
     damned foolish thing in the Balkans".[81]

"

------
classicsnoot
Submitting for opinions:

If any nation were to 'go nuclear' either preemptively or through natural
escalation, they would in one stroke become the new Nazis and hold this title
for the rest of recorded history; no societies with direct or indirect
recollection of the event would ever forgive or forget the decision. Given
that no nation on this planet is truly ruled by one person, the Collective in
Charge would have to make the decision to out-Hitler Hitler. Therefore, i
believe that even if [Russia were to use a 'Nuc after its initial thrust into
Europe failed/ the US were to use a 'Nuc after Russia's initial thrust
succeeded/ China were to use a 'Nuc after the Asian Pacific joined together in
opposition/etc], no rational state actors would respond in kind.

~~~
classicsnoot
Also, in line with the above thought, there is no guarantee of global
cataclysm if there is a Nuclear exchange. How big was the explosion from the
Yucatan impact? Life was changed dramatically, but it was not extinguished.

------
riemannzeta
Another explanation offered by Schelling is that nuclear is generically
different, basically ickier than other explosives.

[http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-
sciences/lau...](http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/economic-
sciences/laureates/2005/schelling-lecture.pdf)

Fukushima is kind of reinforcing that sense of ickiness to the long-term
detriment of nuclear as an alternative energy source, which is unfortunate
because to me at least it appears to be the most viable.

------
macspoofing
Give it time. We've only had nuclear weapons for a few decades.

~~~
Ygg2
Actually, for more than half of century.

~~~
dagw
Actually, for less than 600000 hours.

------
DonGateley
Because in this neighborhood of the superimposed wave function that comprises
the multiverse that didn't happen. There are also an infinite number of
neighborhoods where the ability to ask that question doesn't exist because of
the event.

To ask why it didn't happen in this particular neighborhood is to ask why the
lack of that event is possible. In a Q.M. multiverse "why" questions get real
tricky.

------
charlysisto
Because we're still here to write about it !

Sorry for this silly recursive joke. However it has a point : For some
philosophers (e.g : Gerard Dupuy) theorizing the self realizing prophecies, in
order to prevent a catastrophy, you need to think about it as if it already
happened in the future. It is the only way to act on it to counteract the
curse of determinism... Enjoy the paradox !

------
erikb
Reminds me of that situation in The Dark Knight (Batman 2), where both sides
couldn't bring themselves to kill so many people although they were sure that
would mean their own death.

I wonder if we people really are like that, because at the same time there are
many examples of people having threats to their own life or a loved one's life
trigger them to kill another person.

~~~
towelguy
People donate organs knowing it could reduce their life span.

~~~
erikb
Well, we talk about immediate, final threats to ones life, not something that
might kill you one day in the future. If you hold a gun to one head and tell
him to kill another person there is a certain assumption that he will do so.

If you count possible long term threats then of course people don't care. I
just think about normal things like smoking, drinking, eating, couchpotatoing.

------
pvaldes
Because a nuclear war with human weapons can not destroy the world nor even
the life in the planet. Life is simply tougher than this.

A nuclear accident or weapon excels in one sigle matter, to wipe the human
race. Humans are efficiently banned at least in some places of Ukranie and
Japan now so... yes, is happening.

------
towelguy
Humanity might get wiped but the world will stay where it is. What amount of
energy is necessary to actually destroy the world?

~~~
saiya-jin
If by world you mean earth, and by destroying you mean something like
splitting planet open, then I presume way more than current arsenal of usable
nukes.

Destruction of mankind would be relatively easy, we've become frail and our
society severely depends on easily disruptible things like electricity. If you
mean destruction of life itself, anything short of black hole/sun going
supernova is not enough.

~~~
mikeash
The gravitational binding energy (what it would take to turn the Earth into a
collection of floating, unbound gravel) is equivalent to about a week's worth
of the Sun's total output. (Not a week of what the Earth receives, but a week
of the entire output. Quite a lot.)

The energy required merely to sterilize the crust of all life is vastly lower,
of course. But still many orders of magnitude greater than the world's nuclear
arsenals.

Even destroying mankind would be pretty tough. Destroying modern civilization
is probably doable, but people would endure. Lots of people get by with
subsistence farming now, and their lives wouldn't change so much.

