A nuclear war wouldn’t spill up – Solves for future use

Although nuclear war is the oldest of these technogenic threats to civilization and human survival, and although important steps to restraint, particularly at the end of the Cold War, have been achieved, the nuclear world is increasingly changing in major ways, and in almost entirely dangerous directions. The third “bombs away” phase of the great debate on the nuclear-political question is more consequentially divided than in the first two phases. Even more ominously, most of the momentum lies with the forces that are pulling states toward nuclear-use, and with the radical actors bent on inflicting catastrophic damage on the leading states in the international system, particularly the United States. In contrast, the arms control project, although intellectually vibrant, is largely in retreat on the world political stage. The arms control settlement of the Cold War is unraveling, and the world public is more divided and distracted than ever. With the recent election of President Donald Trump, the United States, which has played such a dominant role in nuclear politics since its scientists invented these fiendish engines, now has an impulsive and uninformed leader, boding ill for nuclear restraint and effective crisis management. Given current trends, it is prudent to assume that sooner or later, and probably sooner, nuclear weapons will again be the used in war. But this bad news may contain a “silver lining” of good news. Unlike a general nuclear war that might have occurred during the Cold War, such a nuclear event now would probably not mark the end of civilization (or of humanity), due to the great reductions in nuclear forces achieved at the end of the Cold War. Furthermore, politics on “the day after” could have immense potential for positive change. The survivors would not be likely to envy the dead, but would surely have a greatly renewed resolution for “never again.” Such an event, completely unpredictable in its particulars, would unambiguously put the nuclear-political question back at the top of the world political agenda. It would unmistakeably remind leading states of their vulnerability It might also trigger more robust efforts to achieve the global regulation of nuclear capability. Like the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that did so much to catalyze the elevated concern for nuclear security in the early Cold War, and like the experience “at the brink” in the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the now bubbling nuclear caldron holds the possibility of inaugurating a major period of institutional innovation and adjustment toward a fully “bombs away” future.