1) Nuclear War is unlikely to cause human extinction. Working on a post about this now.
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2) The second scariest thing about nuclear war, after the massive initial destruction and death, is the uncertainty about what would happen the next few years after...
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3) Fallout shelters work and they're still relevant. In a large scale nuclear war, hundreds of millions would die from fallout, but many of these lives could be saved with more fallout shelters. All it takes is a couple feet of soil and food and water for a week or two.
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4) Climate effects from nuclear war, "nuclear winter", are a real risk but the area is severely understudied. Climate science is hard to start with. It's even harder when the initial conditions are full of uncertainties. Experts disagree.
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5) While there are only 9 nuclear powers, there are at least that many that don't have nuclear weapons but easily could. They build their own nuclear reactors, train nuclear engineers, and could build nuclear weapons within a few years if they decided to.
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6) Dr. Strangelove is the best movie. It's not only artistically brilliant, it's also super educational for thinking about the history of the cold war and risks of nuclear war.
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7) Nuclear EMP weapons have the potential to disrupt society in significant ways. They're slightly easier to build than a standard ICBM--it takes getting a nuclear warhead to space, but does not require re-entry shielding required--something NK could do
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8) While 7) is true, we don't know *how* significant a nuclear EMP attack would be. It would disrupt power and destroy a lot of electronics, but I have seen no careful estimates of damage to GDP--not even rough order of magnitude estimates.
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9) Nuclear war is more likely in the next 70 years than it was in the last 70 years. The nuclear taboo is stronger, but there are more actors, and more potential areas for conflict. There are more nuclear arms races happening simultaneously.
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10) Radiological weapons are really nasty, but it would not be easy to construct a "Doomsday Device" that spread long-lived radiation around the world. Normal hydrogen bombs are deadly radiological weapons if used as ground bursts, but their fallout is short-lived.
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11) India and Pakistan, both with nuclear weapons... Not a good situation. They share a border and have a history of conflict. There is a long history of political instability and factionalism. Yikes.
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12) The US and Russia are going through serious (nuclear) relationship issues. The US left the INF treaty this year, and the most significant treaty, NewSTART, expires in 2021. This is in danger of not getting renewed, which would be the worst nuclear treaty lapse ever.
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13) When it comes to ICBMs, missile defense is super difficult, and very unlikely to be effective against countries with serious nuclear programs. Because it's hard to test under realistic conditions, it's very hard to know exactly how ineffective they would be.
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14) It's dangerous when nuclear weapons get faster or stealthier. Both increase the feasibility of a first strike that takes out much of an adversary's nuclear capability, and this weakens deterrence.
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15) Although stealth capability that improve viability of a first strike is destabilizing, stealth that improves survivability of nukes to a first strike is stabilizing. It's very good for the world if nuclear submarines continue to be hard to detect and track.
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17) What happens in a nuclear war is NOT predetermined. Limited escalation might be possible, we don't know! Acting as if it's predetermined is dangerous because it can become a self-fulfilling prophecy. As in, don't assume any nuclear war is MAD
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18) Assuming a nuclear war can be "winnable" is also destabilizing. For most scenarios, a nuclear war would be strongly net negative for all participants.
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19) A precommitment to all-out nuclear retaliation to any use of nuclear weapons creates a stronger deterrent than a less severe precommitment, if believed. However, if it's not believed, it can weaken deterrence, and even if it is believed, it makes the nuclear war far worse.
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20) Nuclear non-proliferation efforts have been surprisingly successful! Most serious thinkers in the 1940s & 50s, such as Herman Kahn, thought there would be 20+ nuclear powers by now.
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21) Thomas Schelling and Herman Kahn both made great contributions to our understanding of nuclear competition dynamics. They're often portrayed as disagreeing on most things, but they agreed on many non-obvious points.
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22) The Strategy of Conflict and On Thermonuclear War are both worth reading for those interested in nuclear deterrence theory & risks of nuclear war. On Thermonuclear War, though dated, is the most serious attempt I have seen to model what might happen in a real nuclear war.
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23) The Doomsday Machine and Command and Control are excellent reads. The former for understanding the insanity of early nuclear war plans and the bias towards nuclear readiness over safety, and the latter for mistakes in weapons risk management.
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24) The Making of the Atomic Bomb is excellent if you don't mind excessive detail. It's not just about the bomb--it also covers the fascinating history of physics as we learned WHAT THE UNIVERSE IS MADE OF
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25) Human minds aren't equipped to think well about nuclear weapons or risk of nuclear war. People generally slide off the topic, because it's too overwhelming to think about, and it doesn't easily fit into our narratives about life or society.
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26) Global zero, as in complete nuclear disarmament, isn't a stable equilibrium so long as great powers are engaged in military rivalry. However, with sufficiently protected second strike weapons, states could agree to reduce their arsenals to small # of hundreds
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27) Governments and militaries aren't competent enough to manage nuclear risk over the long term. Unless something fundamental changes in geopolitical relations, nuclear war is inevitable in the long term.
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28) No state wants to start a nuclear war. The most likely way a war would occur is the result of runaway escalation. If a state believes an all-out nuclear conflict is inevitable, they have a strong incentive to strike first to destroy the other state's nuclear capability.
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29) Civilization would recover after an all-out nuclear war. It may or may not happen quickly. There may be a civilizational collapse where whole technologies & supply chains are lost. Eventually they will be rebuilt.
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30) We have very little idea what would happen if there was a nuclear war between India and Pakistan. It would be an unprecedented catastrophe, more casualties than WWII, but economic and social effects are very difficult to model, and I haven't seen any good attempts.
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