Nuclear Proliferation Saves Lives?

[dan2100]

See http://bureaucrash.com/2009/05/07/nuclear-proliferation-saves-lives/

This is similar to Bertrand Lemennicier's "Is the nuclear proliferation a blessing?" where he answers the title question with:

"Yes it is. Why? Because things that are good for us are good for others. Terror equilibrium has been guarantor of peace in Europe during the Cold War. Without it Soviets could have a temptation to invade Europe. When there are no nuclear weapons there are classic wars, which can result in massacres comparable to the First World War. Iran/Iraq war was compared to the war between France and Germany. If both sides had nuclear weapons they would hesitate to enter the conflict, which would have saved millions of lives. Possession of nuclear weapons is a good and not a bad. Its dissemination is good and not bad. Indeed, the more countries possess such dissuasive weapon, the wider will be the territory of peace and stability, which we experienced in Europe throughout the Cold War. There have to be serious arguments used in order to prohibit certain country to use such means of dissuading potential aggressors."

Comments?

[9thdoctor]

Comments?

Mutually Assured Destruction hasn’t yet led to a nuclear war. So far, so good. Like the optimist shouted after jumping out a skyscraper, as he was passing the 50th floor. One Dr. Strangelove incident and this author will have radioactive egg on his face. Or, at best, the deaths of thousands just on the edge of his conscience. I’m reading into this that he thinks it would be ok for Iran to get nukes. There’s a bridge too far.

One thing I like to bring up to challenge libertarians who take an…overly literal (?) reading of the 2nd amendment, is to ask if it would be ok for your neighbour to have his own a nuclear missile silo in his backyard. Thoughts anyone? Don’t just say it’s impossible, and if you say it’s illegal, you’ve missed the point.

[Aaron]

It's complicated... Since nuclear weapons are essentially impossible to use without primarily harming innocents, the ideal case would be no one having them. The worst case would likely be one power having them - essentially an unrestrained power. Multiple nuclear powers provides a check on this via MAD; despite Cold War scares, I think history bears out this working, think also of India/Pakistan and USSR/PRC. However, wider proliferation also becomes more dangerous concerning possible accidents or someone not having enough sense of self-preservation to be deterred. I don't know where the trade-off would kick in, but at some point think the incremental benefit of increased deterrence would be outweighed by the incremental risk.

So overall, given that there is no realistic chance of getting to zero nuclear weapons, the 'least bad' arrangement probably is a relative few stable nuclear powers which deter each other. As anxious as the current state of the world makes me, I don't think we stand to see much better from this standpoint, either by entire nation disarmament or wider proliferation.

Aaron

[anthony]

Comments?

Mutually Assured Destruction hasn’t yet led to a nuclear war. So far, so good. Like the optimist shouted after jumping out a skyscraper, as he was passing the 50th floor. One Dr. Strangelove incident and this author will have radioactive egg on his face. Or, at best, the deaths of thousands just on the edge of his conscience. I’m reading into this that he thinks it would be ok for Iran to get nukes. There’s a bridge too far.

One thing I like to bring up to challenge libertarians who take an…overly literal (?) reading of the 2nd amendment, is to ask if it would be ok for your neighbour to have his own a nuclear missile silo in his backyard. Thoughts anyone? Don’t just say it’s impossible, and if you say it’s illegal, you’ve missed the point.

This author has to be somewhat facetious in his stance that competition is beautiful, therefore we should all have a nuke.

I think there is an element of intrincism in his glib attitude. ie, the implied power of a nuke, means that it will never have to be used. Oh yeah?

Also, as you say, it is a case of "so far..."

MAD worked, I believe, because there WAS a monopoly of a kind existing in the Cold War - 'only' the USSR and the USA possessed the technology - and neither was completely irresponsible enough to use it, even as a last resort.

We cannot say the same today. What is a suicide bombing but a 'statement' ? These have become so commonplace, that it just seems a matter of time before somebody or some cause feels it's time to make the ultimate statement.

That this would invite complete immolation in reprisal is the suicide bomber's dream; to moralizing Western eyes, there seems to be some degree of respect paid to anyone prepared and happy to lose their own life for a "cause."(IMO)

And this is perhaps the sickest of all.

A gloomy subject, that doesn't fill me with optimism, but we have to face reality.

Tony

[dan2100]

Comments?

Mutually Assured Destruction hasn't yet led to a nuclear war. So far, so good. Like the optimist shouted after jumping out a skyscraper, as he was passing the 50th floor. One Dr. Strangelove incident and this author will have radioactive egg on his face. Or, at best, the deaths of thousands just on the edge of his conscience. I'm reading into this that he thinks it would be ok for Iran to get nukes. There's a bridge too far.

One thing I like to bring up to challenge libertarians who take an…overly literal (?) reading of the 2nd amendment, is to ask if it would be ok for your neighbour to have his own a nuclear missile silo in his backyard. Thoughts anyone? Don't just say it's impossible, and if you say it's illegal, you've missed the point.

This author has to be somewhat facetious in his stance that competition is beautiful, therefore we should all have a nuke.

I think there is an element of intrincism in his glib attitude. ie, the implied power of a nuke, means that it will never have to be used. Oh yeah?

Also, as you say, it is a case of "so far..."

I call that mass proliferation -- where nuclear weapons possession/ownership spreads to the subnational level even down to individuals.

MAD worked, I believe, because there WAS a monopoly of a kind existing in the Cold War - 'only' the USSR and the USA possessed the technology - and neither was completely irresponsible enough to use it, even as a last resort.

Um, what about the UK, France, and China? What about, later in the Cold War, India?

From what I've read, too, the UK acquired nukes mainly to make itself strategically independent of the US. I believe the same is true for France -- in as much as these motives can be divined.

The Chinese acquisition of nukes, as I pointed out on another thread in OL, was preceded by much bellicose rhetoric from the Chinese elite and many observers at the time feared China would start WW3. Such did not happen. Why?

Also, regarding India, Pakistan eventually acquired nuclear weapons in 1999. Some observers now believe this has actually lead to MAD on the subcontinent and lessened the chance of a general war between those nations.

We cannot say the same today. What is a suicide bombing but a 'statement' ? These have become so commonplace, that it just seems a matter of time before somebody or some cause feels it's time to make the ultimate statement.

That this would invite complete immolation in reprisal is the suicide bomber's dream; to moralizing Western eyes, there seems to be some degree of respect paid to anyone prepared and happy to lose their own life for a "cause."(IMO)

And this is perhaps the sickest of all.

A gloomy subject, that doesn't fill me with optimism, but we have to face reality.

I agree that it is gloomy. But what would a post-mass proliferation world look like? My guess is that nation states and the international system will have to radically change as this would introduce strong decentralizing forces -- perhaps somewhat similar, as Erwin Strauss noted, to how gunpowder seems to have doomed the castle system.

[anthony]

"I agree that it is gloomy. But what would a post-mass proliferation world look like? My guess is that nation states and the international system will have to radically change as this would introduce strong decentralizing forces -- perhaps somewhat similar, as Erwin Strauss noted, to how gunpowder seems to have doomed the castle system."

Gunpowder? Dunno, Dan.

Facing facts, some State or person is going to use a nuclear weapon, sometime, somewhere - and we have to hope that the horror of it forces all aggressors to step back from the edge, for the forseeable future.

Me, I think the author of this article is whistling in the dark.

Tony

[tjohnson]

I agree that it is gloomy. But what would a post-mass proliferation world look like? My guess is that nation states and the international system will have to radically change as this would introduce strong decentralizing forces -- perhaps somewhat similar, as Erwin Strauss noted, to how gunpowder seems to have doomed the castle system.

It's interesting if you make the analogy with firearms in the US. The pro-firearm lobby thinks if everyone has firearms then the "bad guys" are deterred. The other side argues that having guns all over the place increases the likelihood that they will be used and result in needless deaths.

[dan2100]

"I agree that it is gloomy. But what would a post-mass proliferation world look like? My guess is that nation states and the international system will have to radically change as this would introduce strong decentralizing forces -- perhaps somewhat similar, as Erwin Strauss noted, to how gunpowder seems to have doomed the castle system."

Gunpowder? Dunno, Dan.

Facing facts, some State or person is going to use a nuclear weapon, sometime, somewhere - and we have to hope that the horror of it forces all aggressors to step back from the edge, for the forseeable future.

Me, I think the author of this article is whistling in the dark.

One state already used nukes in the past.

But my question is not about what happens after one state or group or individual will use a nuke in the future, but what the future might be like in a world of mass proliferation -- a world where many subnational groups and even individuals have nukes or similar weapons. The long term trend seems to be for such weapons to become ever more widespread. And there seems no way to stop this. So what sort of world would it be like? My guess is, at the level of of the national and international politics, such a world will be radically unlike today's -- perhaps as unlike today's as today's is from the pre-Westphalian era before nation states became the dominant political entity at the national and international levels.

Also, instead of looking forward to what might happen, I think most people, including most policy wonks, think in terms of how to prevent this future from happening. This is akin, to me, to somone in Europe circa 1350 advocating gunpowder be banned or limited to a few players in the "gunpowder club" and not thinking forward to what a world with widespread gunpowder might be like.

Edited April 14, 2010 by Dan Ust

[anthony]

Dan:

For you this is no mere conjecture - you think this is an unavoidable future scenario, and even a necessary one. Am I right?

Do you envisage a world where every nation has a nuclear capability, as well as most big multi-nationals like Coca-Cola, too (for 'self-defence') ?

Then add some paranoid individuals(and who could blame them, in that world!) getting nukes, and all manner of criminal cartels, and we now have the perfect stand-off. Peace for all time.

To go to your gunpowder analogy,- continuing the suggestions by 9th and GS - while I am supportive of the right to bear arms, I have heard of VERY few instances of a weapon being effective in that classic self-defence, or home defence, situation.

I live in a criminal hot-spot (Johanneburg), with a high incidence of private gun ownership.

a. It does not seem to deter criminals from entering homes.

b. If anything, the fear of facing guns makes them far more pre-emptively violent.

c. There have been occasions the criminals attacked a home with inside information in order to steal only the weapons.

d. The home owner has not usually had the gun close enough to do anything.

e. When he has, he has sometimes shot himself by accident, or had it wrested away, to be used on him.

f. The tragic accidents of innocent visitors, and family members being shot when mistaken for interlopers, are not that rare. And then those guns go off accidently sometimes...

With nuclear weapons substituting guns in the above real cases, I have extended your analogy. Deterrent value low (IMO), and a future "Shootout at the OK corral" would leave a bunch of countries in ashes.

To paraphrase the enjoyable P.J.O'Rourke: "Public sanitation is, like personal security, national defence, and rule of law [as well as regulation and banning of nuclear weapons], one of the few valid reasons for politics to exist." (My bracketed insert.)

Tony

[dan2100]

Dan:

For you this is no mere conjecture - you think this is an unavoidable future scenario, and even a necessary one. Am I right?

Do you envisage a world where every nation has a nuclear capability, as well as most big multi-nationals like Coca-Cola, too (for 'self-defence') ?

Then add some paranoid individuals(and who could blame them, in that world!) getting nukes, and all manner of criminal cartels, and we now have the perfect stand-off. Peace for all time.

To go to your gunpowder analogy,- continuing the suggestions by 9th and GS - while I am supportive of the right to bear arms, I have heard of VERY few instances of a weapon being effective in that classic self-defence, or home defence, situation.

I live in a criminal hot-spot (Johanneburg), with a high incidence of private gun ownership.

a. It does not seem to deter criminals from entering homes.

b. If anything, the fear of facing guns makes them far more pre-emptively violent.

c. There have been occasions the criminals attacked a home with inside information in order to steal only the weapons.

d. The home owner has not usually had the gun close enough to do anything.

e. When he has, he has sometimes shot himself by accident, or had it wrested away, to be used on him.

f. The tragic accidents of innocent visitors, and family members being shot when mistaken for interlopers, are not that rare. And then those guns go off accidently sometimes...

With nuclear weapons substituting guns in the above real cases, I have extended your analogy. Deterrent value low (IMO), and a future "Shootout at the OK corral" would leave a bunch of countries in ashes.

To paraphrase the enjoyable P.J.O'Rourke: "Public sanitation is, like personal security, national defence, and rule of law [as well as regulation and banning of nuclear weapons], one of the few valid reasons for politics to exist." (My bracketed insert.)

My belief is that nuclear (or other forms of similar weapons) proliferation will happen down to the level of subnational groups. This is, of course, a speculation on my part, but I don't see much more than that it's not happened yet and wishful thinking as arguments against this.

Whether this is a good thing is another matter. Certainly, on the national level, one might argue the proliferation that's happened after 1945 has had beneficial consquences -- in that it led to pretty much the absence of any major conflict and might have avoid some regional ones (on the Indian subcontinent and perhaps in Northeast and Southeast Asia) too. Whether this would still be the case if, say, every last nation state had nuclear weapons is another matter, though I don't think the logic for this resulting in the worse possible outcomes is ironclad.

I don't know much about Johannesburg to say whether the presence of guns or the particular legal regime (e.g., are concealed weapons allowed?) there is responsible for more or more violent crimes. I'm a bit skeptical of your beliefs, but I'd like to see your evidence and further reasoning for this.

Also, the gunpowder analogy I used doesn't necessarily argue in favor of gunpowder, but it does argue that just as the Medieval regimes of that time couldn't stop -- and believe me they tried -- the proliferation of gunpowder technology, modern people who believe nuclear and other mass casualty weapons might similarly not be containable. Think about this. The technology to make nuclear weapons is already about 70 years old. Biological and chemical weapons is much older technology -- just to make these kinds of weapons though not necessarily to make weapons that'd defeat a modern military force. Add to this, the technology has come down in price... In other words, you don't need a Manhattan Project-sized affair to make them.

I bring up this analogy, again, not so much to praise the likely coming age of mass proliferation, but to get people seriously thinking about how to adjust to such a world -- rather than pretend it can be stopped forever from happening.

(There might also be a case to be made that an attempt at zero tolerance might lead to a worse outcome. You wouldn't, I hope, be so afraid of a possible mass proliferation world that you'd argue for a global totalitarian state to prevent it, would you?)

[sbeaulieu]

It's interesting if you make the analogy with firearms in the US. The pro-firearm lobby thinks if everyone has firearms then the "bad guys" are deterred. The other side argues that having guns all over the place increases the likelihood that they will be used and result in needless deaths.

GS,

I have a problem with outlawing in general: only law-abiding citizens comply. Criminals will find ways to get them and use them against the law-abiding citizens (who now have no way to defend themselves). As the majority of us are law-abiding, that stacks the deck in favor of the criminal minority.

However, guns and nukes are like comparing apples and oranges.

~ Shane

[tjohnson]

However, guns and nukes are like comparing apples and oranges.

Aw come on, there must be SOME similarity.

[sbeaulieu]

However, guns and nukes are like comparing apples and oranges.

Aw come on, there must be SOME similarity.

Sure,

They're fruits ;) Ok, they're weapons that kill. It's their application that differs. You say the word nuke, and immediately you think of annihilation of a different country than yours. You say guns, you think cops and robbers, NRA, self-defense.

~ Shane

[anthony]

Dan,

Good. Just for a while there, I thought that you were advocating the irrationality of nuclear proliferation.

If you are speculating, or see it as a distinct probability that we should begin getting our minds around, that is different.

No, I don't think it must be avoided at all costs - global totalitarianism being the worst. But I see this as a false dichotomy, anyway.

The 'hows' and 'whats' to be done to prevent it are surely possible without those costs. I have no idea how it could be accomplished, but I imagine the USA taking a leading role (as usual!) with the toothless UN bringing up the rear.

Tony

[BaalChatzaf]

One thing I like to bring up to challenge libertarians who take an…overly literal (?) reading of the 2nd amendment, is to ask if it would be ok for your neighbour to have his own a nuclear missile silo in his backyard. Thoughts anyone? Don't just say it's impossible, and if you say it's illegal, you've missed the point.

When the Bill of Rights was composed the word arms (weapons) meant swords, pikes, spears, arrows, muskets and canon. These are by and large point weapons. Canon in those days were not shrapnel explosive shells either. They were metal hurlers that could be aimed.

So any law must be interpreted in this context. Wide area weapons such as H.E., incendiary, chemical or biological were simply not thought of at the time the Bill of Rights was composed. If such things existed at that time, perhaps the second amendment we know and love would not have been written the way it was.

Ba'al Chatzaf

[dan2100]

Good. Just for a while there, I thought that you were advocating the irrationality of nuclear proliferation.

Why would it be irrational to advocate that position?

Also, if it's likely inevitable -- in so much as it seems unlikely, in the long run, any policy would stop it -- why does this matter? The irrational position might be, in mind, to believe one can give existing governments ever more power to stop something that they can't possibly stop -- and ignoring that the power they will obtain will likely be used merely to maintain or expand their other powers.

If you are speculating, or see it as a distinct probability that we should begin getting our minds around, that is different.

No, I don't think it must be avoided at all costs - global totalitarianism being the worst. But I see this as a false dichotomy, anyway.

The 'hows' and 'whats' to be done to prevent it are surely possible without those costs. I have no idea how it could be accomplished, but I imagine the USA taking a leading role (as usual!) with the toothless UN bringing up the rear.

I would be much more afraid of the US government or the UN taking any role period. The US government and the UN should be dismantled.

[dan2100]

One thing I like to bring up to challenge libertarians who take an…overly literal (?) reading of the 2nd amendment, is to ask if it would be ok for your neighbour to have his own a nuclear missile silo in his backyard. Thoughts anyone? Don't just say it's impossible, and if you say it's illegal, you've missed the point.

When the Bill of Rights was composed the word arms (weapons) meant swords, pikes, spears, arrows, muskets and canon. These are by and large point weapons. Canon in those days were not shrapnel explosive shells either. They were metal hurlers that could be aimed.

So any law must be interpreted in this context. Wide area weapons such as H.E., incendiary, chemical or biological were simply not thought of at the time the Bill of Rights was composed. If such things existed at that time, perhaps the second amendment we know and love would not have been written the way it was.

Ba'al Chatzaf

The way the Second Amendment was written leads me to believe it was about not giving people the smallest possible weapons merely to do things like target practice and scare away less well armed punks. Instead, it looks to me like it was about making sure the populace was armed in such a way as to prevent the government from getting tyrannical -- and, at the extreme, to be able to overthrow it. Remember, these guys had either been part of or just witnessed the overthrow of the British government in North America. So maybe the advocates of that Amendment might have, had they the same sensibilities and were alive today, advocated private individuals having access to anti-tank guns and SAMs.

And just as a matter of history, biological and chemical weapons were used long before the Amendment was written. In the 1760s, smallpox contaminated items were giving to Native Americans during the Pontiac War, if my memory's correct, to give them the disease. And there are much earlier examples too. The same goes for chemical weapons.

And things like incendiary shells were used, if my readings are correct, as early as the 16th century. The arsenals of the world have had some really nasty technology for a long time. It's not like everything before 1900 was just solid projectiles and cutting tools.

[anthony]

Dan you ask "why would it be irrational to advocate that position?"(Of nuclear proliferation.)

You're not serious, surely.

For the same reason that Israel has avoided using its own weapons, so far.

In today's world, it is only, or mainly the 'baddies' who would benefit from easily obtained nukes - they are the initiators of force, with axes to grind, or who would desire domination of neighboring states.

The 'goodies' conduct themselves with respect, self-respect and good-will.

They would require WMD's only in the last resort when conventional defence became ineffectual.

For this reason, few nations condemn Israel for developing their own weapons (exceptions being those who would like to overthrow it), while the free world is united against Iran doing the same.

Everyone recognises that there is an imbalance of morality and rationality between the two nations - ironically, even Israel's enemies.

I repeat, the aggressors need nukes to 'level the playing field', and take by force what they can't produce peacefully; self-respecting nations ultimately have zero use for them.

So, who's going to benefit the most in a world flooded by the things?

[dan2100]

Dan you ask "why would it be irrational to advocate that position?"(Of nuclear proliferation.)

You're not serious, surely.

For the same reason that Israel has avoided using its own weapons, so far.

In today's world, it is only, or mainly the 'baddies' who would benefit from easily obtained nukes - they are the initiators of force, with axes to grind, or who would desire domination of neighboring states.

The 'goodies' conduct themselves with respect, self-respect and good-will.

They would require WMD's only in the last resort when conventional defence became ineffectual.

For this reason, few nations condemn Israel for developing their own weapons (exceptions being those who would like to overthrow it), while the free world is united against Iran doing the same.

Everyone recognises that there is an imbalance of morality and rationality between the two nations - ironically, even Israel's enemies.

I repeat, the aggressors need nukes to 'level the playing field', and take by force what they can't produce peacefully; self-respecting nations ultimately have zero use for them.

So, who's going to benefit the most in a world flooded by the things?

I think Bertrand Lemennicier makes a case for proliferation in his essay in The Myth of National Defense. The whole book is available as a PDF at:

http://mises.org/etexts/defensemyth.pdf

But let's separate out the case of just more proliferation vs. mass proliferation. In the former case, I think an argument could be made the more proliferation would be benificial in many cases. For instance, think of the Korean peninsula. Were South Korea and Japan to obtain nuclear weapons -- as both North Korea, China, and Russia now have them -- the end result would most likely be a stand off as it would seem no side would benefit from first use. The same might apply to Taiwan with regard to China.

Of course, these two cases are ones of nations you likely wouldn't mind seeing with nukes -- as you'd probably believe them capable of restraint and would only use them as a last resort. But what about the cases where nations that you believe would show restraint and might use them for coercive diplomacy or even in actual first strikes? These are, like the criminals with guns, the ones you might prefer to be unarmed. And here I can offer no knockdown argument in favor of proliferation -- save for presenting the one offered by Lemennicier's "Nuclear Weapons: Proliferation or Monopoly?" and the data of previous examples of seemingly bellicose states that acquired nuclear weapons -- namely, China, India, and Pakistan. In all these cases, the acquisition seems to have led not to use or even to coercion (at least, not of other nuclear armed states or of the allies of other nuclear armed states). One might make a case that acquiring nuclear weapons has made these states less likely to be targets of coercive diplomacy.

I admit, though, this is only a small data set and, like you, I'd fear really unstable people acquiring nukes (or other nasty weapons). Technological development in this area seems to be tending -- more so with other nasty weapons -- with driving down the costs of acquisition. The real horror scenario -- and one I see no way to avoid -- is the equivalent of the 14-year old computer virus programmer unleashing a real virus, a real chemical weapon, or a real nuclear weapon on the world.

Just one more thing: all nation states are, in my view, aggressors engaged in taking by force rather than producing. A state is, after all, a social parasite that coerces to exist. This goes even for states you believe are "goodies." (Of course, some might argue that states need not be this way, but all existing, all past, and likely all future states are aggressors -- even if only against their own subject populations.)

[Aaron]

It's interesting if you make the analogy with firearms in the US. The pro-firearm lobby thinks if everyone has firearms then the "bad guys" are deterred. The other side argues that having guns all over the place increases the likelihood that they will be used and result in needless deaths.

I think the analogy only holds in the extreme cases of 1 or all: Multiple parties in control of the either type of weapon is better than one party monopolizing them, and no one advocates absolutely everybody have them. However, the serious differences between directional weapons and WMD, and the ethics of their possible use, make comparison break down pretty much anywhere else on the scale. I think there's good reason to want everyone who's responsible and not a criminal to be able to be armed with firearms - yet fear having anyone having nuclear devices and accept such weapons only as a grim metaphysical given.

Aaron

[tjohnson]

However, guns and nukes are like comparing apples and oranges.

Aw come on, there must be SOME similarity.

Sure,

They're fruits ;) Ok, they're weapons that kill. It's their application that differs. You say the word nuke, and immediately you think of annihilation of a different country than yours. You say guns, you think cops and robbers, NRA, self-defense.

~ Shane

Actually, I'm thinking more along the lines that the same psychology applies, albeit on a group level.

[sbeaulieu]

Actually, I'm thinking more along the lines that the same psychology applies, albeit on a group level.

To a certain degree, I see your point. But again, I reiterate the application of nuclear power is drastically different than a gun. That's where I'm finding difficulty with your analogy. The psychology behind the use of each, to me, is on opposite ends of the spectrum.

~ Shane

[tjohnson]

Actually, I'm thinking more along the lines that the same psychology applies, albeit on a group level.

To a certain degree, I see your point. But again, I reiterate the application of nuclear power is drastically different than a gun. That's where I'm finding difficulty with your analogy. The psychology behind the use of each, to me, is on opposite ends of the spectrum.

~ Shane

Not sure I understand. I am referring to the thinking that goes along with an arms race. If I live somewhere that I fear for my own safety I will naturally want to take up arms to protect myself. The same can be said of nations, no?

[sbeaulieu]

GS,

So you're saying that like an individual defending himself by taking up arms, a country (as a collective entity) would similarly take up nuclear arms against another nuclear-capable country in self defense?

To that I would agree.

~ Shane

[dan2100]

Actually, I'm thinking more along the lines that the same psychology applies, albeit on a group level.

To a certain degree, I see your point. But again, I reiterate the application of nuclear power is drastically different than a gun. That's where I'm finding difficulty with your analogy. The psychology behind the use of each, to me, is on opposite ends of the spectrum.

~ Shane

Well, there is, in my mind, a difference too. Let's look at another analogy -- one using guns. Imagine two men enter a dark alley and neither have any weapon -- other than their bodies. One man is athletic, about 2 meters tall, and schooled in the martial arts. The other is short, a bit overweight, and overall unhealthy and has no fighting abilities. He's even a bad runner. Let's say the former is desperate for money and decides to mug the latter. I think the result seems almost preordained; shorty is unlikely to even put up a fight.

Now let's put guns into both guys hands. We might even give the athlete a submachine gun and shorty an old derringer. The outcome now seems less certain. What's happened? A gun, even a small, has made them opponents here more equal. This is even though shorty has not started training program to get in shape and acquire hand-to-hand fighting skills.

I believe the same might apply with nuclear weapons. Now, the costs of self-defense become much lower. Imagine two nations. One is small, poor, and military weak; the other is large, rich, and has a world class military (e.g., well manned, well trained, well armed, experienced, and ready to deploy). In a conflict between the two nations, it seems clear who's going to be calling the shots. The latter might even just outright invade and crush the latter. The only thing stopping it might be that the former has bigger allies or is actually a client state of the latter.

Now put nuclear weapons into the mix -- even giving the latter (the big athlete in this example) more and better nukes -- and, suddenly, coercion becomes less likely -- all else being equal. Also, like with shorty, the weaker nation doesn't need to invest in a large, well-trained military (or worry about military coups). Now this makes me think that nuclear weapons might make things more equal -- in terms of security or self-defense.

Of course, as you're getting at the psychology might differ. I don't think it does -- or that it matters as much. I think the problem is that nuclear weapons change the cost calculus. They do act as strong deterrents, but I wonder, like you, whether this might not make what in international relations circles are called revisionist states more likely to start or enter conflicts. Revisionist states, as opposed to status quo states, are states that don't like the current order and want to change it. Status quo states are the opposite: they prefer to keep things much as they are. But some might argue that possession of nuclear weapons might convert a revisionist state into a status quo state -- depending, of course, on there being no monopoly on these and that the weapons really make the revisionist state's elites feel more secure.

Of course, you might argue thet this is psychology at the level of national politics. You might also argue that revisionist states vary -- and some might be extreme types that would find the current order so intolerable that risking a nuclear exchange seems, to them, to be worth it. Certainly, this is how nations on the make, in the past, have be depicted -- and how Iran is depicted today. The only arguments I can present against this are that 1) past cases have not (yet) resulted in nuclear exchanges, especially with seeming revisionist states like China, Pakistan, and North Korea (though one might debate whether they were all truly revisionist states) and 2) the current case of Iran seems to rely on the Iranian elite being suicidal when past data -- especially during the Iran-Iraq War, both Persian Gulf Wars, and the Afghan war (in the latter two, the Iranian leadership has not directly entered into these conflicts, which would likely invite the US and its allies to directly attack Iran) -- for this case seems to show anything but that.

But what about the general case? The problem is not that Iran or even the next ten members of the nuclear club -- should it continue to expand -- are really more interested in long-term survival than risking a nuclear exchange, but that as ever more nations and even subnational groups obtain nuclear weapons, eventually some of them might take that risk or not care. I'm not sure about that case and hope, since proliferation seems inevitable, it's rare.