The Future Part 2

[Andy44]

Some of you may not remember, or be old enough to remember this:

Twenty years ago yesterday, on January 25th, 1995, Norwegian and American scientists launched a Black Brant sounding rocket out of northern Norway, and almost accidentally destroyed the world.

The incident is known as the Black Brant Scare. Because the rocket was following a similar trajectory to a Minuteman III missile, Russian defenses picked up on it and before they were able to figure out what it was and that it was not headed for Russian territory, Russian forces were placed on alert and President Boris Yeltsin was handed the Russian "Nuclear Football" and had to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike on the United States.

This incident is relevant to discussing the future for two reasons; it happened half a decade after the Cold War ended, and it could still happen today, which would of course result in no future at all.

Unlike the scary days of the Cold War, the US and Russia are not "enemies" anymore. They are not exactly "friends" either, they are currently squabbling over the Ukraine situation even now, but few people lose sleep at night worrying that we are on the brink of a general world war involving a nuclear exchange. Having grown up in the 80s, I remember breathing a huge sigh of relief when the Cold War ended. Up to that point I was certain that sooner or later someone would push the Big Red Button, and it was nice to not have to think about it constantly anymore.

But though the threat may have receded, it didn't vanish. NATO did not break up (in fact it expanded), submarines still carry ballistic missiles, nuclear capable bombers are still maintained, and right now in underground bunkers there are bored men trained to turn keys if ordered.

Why? If we're not worried about Communist aggression and T-72s rolling down the streets of Pittsburgh, why does this persist?

This could turn into a long lecture about geopolitics, so let's stop and just chalk it up to human nature and the nature of the modern nationalist state which is the model we all live with. The US is a "Great Power", and Great Powers live with political and social inertia. I may like Ron Paul's philosophy, but it is simply not possible for the US to suddenly decide overnight to become like a libertarian version of Switzerland.

Which brings us back to all those nuclear warheads. The US has many, Russia has many, so does China. Britain and France maintain stockpiles. India and Pakistan are still in a cold war with each other. Isreal has them, and gets away with refusing to acknowledge the fact. North Korea is in the early stages of weaponizing nukes, and depending on who you talk to Iran may be working on it as well.

Meanwhile, the major threat to Western civilization no longer seems to be other nation states, but rather a bunch of bat-crap crazy religious nuts who aren't tied to specific geographical regions, don't have big cities we can blackmail with nukes, and in any case aren't afraid of nukes in the slightest to begin with. There's only so much you can do militarily against an enemy like that, what experts call "non-rational actors".

During the Cold War the major powers involved were considered "rational actors"; that is, depite the ideologies and rhetoric involved, they were all afraid of being nuked into oblivion, so when push came to shove they didn't go to war.

In such an environment, it made sense to a lot of people to solve the problem of war by creating an international government body and giving it the power to outlaw war and police the world. The UN was a step towards that goal. Many people, myself included, dislike the notion of giving up soverignty to something like a UN, but if it would be able to maintain a high standard of personal freedom while guaranteeing personal liberties and rights, then it would certainly beat the status quo of always being 45 minutes away from a holocaust.

Gwynne Dyer's 1983 documentary series discusses this very logically (I recommend you watch all 7 films):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mi3uieRXRc4

But Dyer was talking about rational actors. You can imagine outlawing war among such entities. The United States managed it among its own states after the 1860s; Europe appears to be doing so now for the most part.

It is hard to imagine such an idea will work in the presence of entities such as Al Queada or the IS, or for that matter any entity that doesn't follow the nation state model.

So what does this mean for the future, or more to the point, how we view the future? In my last post I talked about the pessimism and nihilism present on current thinking. Now I'm in here telling you we still have to worry about war and nuclear weapons...sorry about that.

And speaking of nukes...

If, or when, will they be used, on who, and how many? Will it be limited or general? Or will we somehow manage to never use them on people ever again for the remainder of human history?

 

[mojoey]

If, or when, will they be used, on who, and how many?

In an interview with Robert McNamara for the documentary Fog Of War, he had this to say about nuclear war, specifically the Cuban Missile Crisis:

I want to say, and this is very important: at the end we lucked out. It was luck that prevented nuclear war. We came that close to nuclear war at the end. Rational individuals: Kennedy was rational; Khrushchev was rational; Castro was rational. Rational individuals came that close to total destruction of their societies. And that danger exists today.

The major lesson of the Cuban missile crisis is this: the indefinite combination of human fallibility and nuclear weapons will destroy nations. Is it right and proper that today there are 7500 strategic offensive nuclear warheads, of which 2500 are on 15 minute alert, to be launched by the decision of one human being?

It wasn't until January, 1992, in a meeting chaired by Castro in Havana, Cuba, that I learned 162 nuclear warheads, including 90 tactical warheads, were on the island at the time of this critical moment of the crisis. I couldn't believe what I was hearing, and Castro got very angry with me because I said, "Mr. President, let's stop this meeting. This is totally new to me, I'm not sure I got the translation right."

"Mr. President, I have three questions to you. Number one: did you know the nuclear warheads were there? Number two: if you did, would you have recommended to Khrushchev in the face of an U.S. attack that he use them? Number three: if he had used them, what would have happened to Cuba?"

He said, "Number one, I knew they were there. Number two, I would not have recommended to Khrushchev, I did recommend to Khrushchev that they be used. Number three, 'What would have happened to Cuba?' It would have been totally destroyed." That's how close we were.

These were rational people who got this close over an ideological disagreement. Imagine what would happen if it came to actual war with a country (like Russia, for example) who possessed nuclear weapons.

 

[Andy44]

Well, Castro's comments there hardly make him seem "rational", but that's the problem, isn't it? Not every person in a position of power is going to be rational, all the time, and even the ones who are are still prone to errors.

 

[Artlav]

I remember breathing a huge sigh of relief when the Cold War ended.

Interesting that you mention that.
On this side of the curtain, the world ended and an enemy won.
There are much talk of the "lost wonders of the old empire" kind, and far from all the blame is assigned to our own thieves.

To get rid of nuclear deterrent cause "cold war ended" is unthinkable here, it would be like tossing away the gun which keeps the bandits at bay while you're stuck in a dead end of a dark street.

what experts call "non-rational actors"

A dangerous name.
That they lack your version of "rationality" does not mean that they aren't operating by some sort of patterns or lack intelligence.

So what does this mean for the future, or more to the point, how we view the future?

And thus is the way to deal with them.

The basic idea with the nuclear deterrent is that no nation will be willing to strike first, thanks to certain retaliation.
The generalisation of that idea is not that the "non-rational actors" can't be blackmailed in the same way and thus it won't work.

The generalisation of that idea is to find a similar stable pattern based on how different "actors" operate.

For starters, deny them publicity and elaborate names.
Use simple english.
ISIS are not anything loud, like "freedom fighters", "terrorists", "Islamic state proponets".
They are criminals. The news report should be "An american tourist was murdered by bandits in Syria", not "A hostage was executed by ISIS after their demands for so-and-so weren't met".

If that does not work, find other leverage or goals, and deny it to them.

The point is to get creative, not wish your opponent followed a specific model of "rationality" that you already have solutions for.

Which brings us back to the prospects of the future.
They are grim.
Since to expect common sense and creative problem solving from governments is like expecting the Pope to turn to Islam.

If, or when, will they be used, on who, and how many? Will it be limited or general? Or will we somehow manage to never use them on people ever again for the remainder of human history?

I consider it likely that there will be a nuclear terrorist attack one day.
As tight as the control might be, something is bound to slip to the wrong hands.

Or there might be another slip-up.
There are lots of computers and protocols around these days.
All it takes is an unlucky set of glitches and incidents in a tense time such as right now, and no one in the right place to stop it in time.
Then, it's likely either a bidirectional or unidirectional exchange between our continents.
Curiously, of all the nuclear states, it's the "good" USA that is likely to either let loose or be targeted.

Other options are that some states will conventionalize the nukes for use against internal or non-nuclear opponents.
The "democratic world" is only as noble as their interests go, it's not likely anyone would be willing to get annihilated just to retaliate for some minority that was nuked off the planet by NK or Iran or even Russia.

Whether we will grow out of it all is a question without an answer.
I'd like to believe that there is something that good waiting for us beyond the prediction horizon.
We are, in a sense, at dawn right now, so far as being "an intelligent species" is concerned.
Maybe all it takes is to make it until morning. :shrug:

 

[Andy44]

Yeah, about the USA being "good", I'm not saying that. Gwynne Dyer, the fellow who made the video I linked to, has it about right: the USA is a "great power", and throughout history all great powers act much the same, excepting details. One could argue that the USA is a better place to live in regarding comforts or freedoms, but when it comes to power politics the USA is as ruthless as anyone else ever was, be it the USSR, the British Empire, the Roman Empire, or whoever.

And you're right that the US is a candidate for the next user of nukes. The US was the first to do it, after all, and there are always proponents in the wings of US defense policy proposing to build nuclear bunker busters and other assorted craziness. Douglas MacArthur wanted to use nukes on the Chinese in the Korean War, for example, and there a few other, more recent, but less public examples if you look around.