Rethinking Nuclear Weapons

Reposting

Ward Wilson — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 13:44:37 +0000

So I’m transferring my site from one host to another. As part of the process I’m taking a text back up of the old site and laboriously posting it to the new site. It’s not very interesting work, but one benefit is that I get to review and reread everything I’ve ever put on the site, which is mildly interesting (to me.) Some of the comments are being lost in the transfer process and not all of the links may still work.

Please have patience while this process goes forward. Thanks.

Latin America

Ward Wilson — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 10:43:06 +0000

You’re troubled about the history of Latin America, right? You’re a nuclear weapons wonk (you’re reading this blog, aren’t you?) and that means that you must spend time poring over the extraordinary history of Latin America. Right?

As I’m sure you’re all aware, no Latin American countries have fought a war with each other since 1942. Seventy years of uninterrupted peace. It’s extraordinary, no? I’m sure you ponder its significance late at night as you toss and turn.

What? You don’t? You didn’t even know that there had been a Latin American Long Peace? But surely this extended period of peace has crucial significance for nuclear weapons. After all, people point to the extended period of peace in Europe and between the US and Russia and draw important conclusions from it. The Long Peace in Europe matters. So the Latin American Long ... Read More »

Brookings

Ward Wilson — Fri, 16 Mar 2012 10:40:21 +0000

I’ve been invited to present the case for doubts about deterrence at an invitation-only Chatham House rule event at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC on April 4, 2012. Elbridge Colby will rebut and a quite impressive group of Washington nuclear weapons experts have been invited. I’m looking forward to it.

Rebuttal

Ward Wilson — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 01:40:06 +0000

Elbridge Colby has written a piece in The National Interest titled “Hiroshima, Nagasaki and the New Logic of Deterrence” that says I’ve gotten this nuclear deterrence stuff all wrong. (He also says that the “Hiroshima didn’t win World War II” is becoming the conventional wisdom. I assume he means in certain circles inside the Beltway.) He says some interesting things and raises reasonable counter-arguments. I think his view is worth considering. I’m going to mull it and perhaps post some thoughts in a few days. (My book, Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, is due to the publisher on November 1, though, so it may be a few days before I get to it.)

Possession is use

Ward Wilson — Thu, 29 Sep 2011 09:52:36 +0000

People in nuclear weapons circles often say that possessing nuclear weapons is using them – possession is use. This has its roots in the idea of existential deterrence – the notion that merely by possessing nuclear weapons one gets the deterrence benefit from them. McGeorge Bundy, a man I was slightly acquainted with and liked, was one of the principle proponents of this view. I have sometimes argued that this idea was true myself.

On reflection, however, it’s a strange position to take. Imagine that I walked around all the time, in our small village, with a rock the size of a golf ball in my pocket. Last week, I took it out and threw it at you (because I was angry or we were having a dispute, let’s say.) Today, before all the village, you accuse me of using the ... Read More »

Doctrinal

Ward Wilson — Fri, 16 Sep 2011 15:33:54 +0000

The analogy between nuclear weapons and religion is particularly appropriate because nuclear weapons are so doctrinal.

The Olympics, for example, are not doctrinal. They are performance oriented. When there is a dispute about who is the fastest, they run a race, somebody wins, and then everyone says, “Ok. This guy was fastest.” Losers say, “On this day, with this set of conditions, this guy was fastest. But wait til next time.” And it’s over, at least for now.

With nuclear weapons there are no performances. Nuclear weapons never get used so their real world capabilities are never measured. So disputes are discussed almost entirely in terms of doctrine. It’s like religion. There’s no way to actually prove whether God is trinitarian or unitarian. So you have doctrinal debates to decide (or split into differing churches.)

It makes sense when thinking strategically about nuclear ... Read More »

Q bomb

Ward Wilson — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 04:03:28 +0000

So Jonah Friedman wrote a blog post on CSIS’s Program on Nuclear Issues blog mostly rebutting my arguments. He was very fair and represented my views as well (or better) than I would have. He didn’t agree with me, but not everyone does.

Friedman admits some of the objections I have to nuclear deterrence (concerns that we don’t really know how or why it operates – if it does). But he counters that we know nuclear weapons are dangerous and isn’t that enough? Isn’t that what creates nuclear deterrence? It got me thinking.

Imagine that you were worried about keeping your house safe and I gave you a special bomb that I said would do the job. “I call it the Q bomb,” I said. “Put it in your basement, put this sign in your front yard and tell all your neighbors ... Read More »

Religion

Ward Wilson — Sun, 21 Aug 2011 03:44:32 +0000

The events around Hiroshima in 1945 matter because they are the only real evidence about the political impact of nuclear weapons. -The only battlefield experience with the “unique ability to coerce and deter.” If you want to decide the matter based on facts, you must take Hiroshima into account. If you just want to believe in nuclear weapons, then I congratulate you on your faith and have nothing more to say. I understand the appeal of religion. But if you are interested in evidence, I think the new scholarship on Hiroshima requires a rethinking of nuclear weapons.

Boston Globe Article

Ward Wilson — Sun, 07 Aug 2011 15:17:03 +0000

Gareth Cook has a really well written article titled “Why Did Japan Surrender?” about whether bombing Hiroshima was the event that triggered surrender in the Boston Globe today.

Question

Ward Wilson — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 16:09:53 +0000

The question isn’t “Are you afraid of a city being destroyed?” Or course we all fear that. But that is not what determines whether nuclear deterrence works or not. The question that determines whether nuclear deterrence works or not is: “Are leaders willing to accept civilian suffering in war?”

And here the answer of history is unequivocally “yes.”