This is indeed a very timely award. I sometimes feel like the world has forgotten that nuclear weapons still exist and are still on hair-trigger alert to obliterate major cities. Maybe the end of atmospheric testing and the success of (now defunct) weapons reduction treaties has blunted public perception to the ongoing threat that they represent, and to the need to tread carefully where nuclear powers are involved.
If I put a hammer over your head that can fall any minute you'll be worrying, but if you're born with the hammer over your head and your parents before you as well, it becomes less of a thing.
On an individual level, we all have a variety of hammers over our heads. Cancer has killed far more people prematurely than nuclear weapons. Something like 500,000 people a year are murdered. Traffic/bicycle/pedestrian accidents also kill more than nuclear weapons. Even compared to a once-in-a-century nuclear war that perhaps kills a billion people, cancer will kill roughly a billion in the next century anyway. So, for the rational/selfish person, the nuclear threat isn't worth worrying about.
I'd like to think of myself as a rational person, yet I worry about it. Because it's not just a matter of math; the effects of a billion people dying at once would be far more detrimental than the deaths from cancer over a century.
(One might think this line of reasoning that some people apply is a coping mechanism to ignore the reality, but that might be a different conversation)
But it is not just about coping. We as society, can make policies to decrease chance of getting a cancer and decrease traffic deaths. We just chose not to out of convenience and profit.
If I fall 1 feet one hundred times, I'll probably be Ok
If I fall 100 feet once, I won't.
1m people dying in 1 day is not the same as 1M people dying over a decade.
Also. People generally dont fear death itself. This is expressed by people in pallitative care. Its the chaos and uncertainty preceding death that is really feared
Does your risk assessment methodology also account for near misses? Agency? Morality? Source of risk? Costs of mitigation? Benefits? Something like actuary tables?
Mitigation of bike and pedestrian deaths is cheap. Just reform land use, advantage people over vehicles. Oops, now you're into culture and values.
Mitigation of cancer deaths is very expensive. Though we didn't invent cancer, we feel the moral imperative to "cure" it. And yet, while we're mitigating it, we're also making it worse. Cross purposes. What's your balance sheet for this conundrum?
Drugs kill lots of people. We own that one, right? How's the War on Drugs working out?
In conclusion, I wish I could wave away these dilemmas with a cute nominator and denominator. But I can barely reason about them before my head explodes. So I'm not buying what you're selling. Life's a bit more complicated, a bit more empirical, a bit less rational, than your tidy equations.
While this apathy is an important coping mechanism to some degree, it's important not to become complacent. It's precisely this apathy and hopelessness that authoritarian regimes cultivate to prevent action.
I don't think this registers as apathy in this context. Maybe you live in a country that has nuclear weapons and can vote for one leader or another. This may or may not have some impact on things. Certainly, we cannot influence what other countries do with their arsenals. Our mental stacks can only run so deep & I'd wager for most of us, the things that are in our sphere of influence simply take priority.
> This may or may not have some impact on things. Certainly, we cannot influence what other countries do with their arsenals.
It demonstrably does. Nuclear arms reduction treaties have been enacted in the past and it is hard to believe that it would have happened without the popular support it enjoyed.
Just because we are at a time in history where many of those treatise have been weakened or left by the wayside shouldn't be a reason for us to forget them and the good they did.
> Our mental stacks can only run so deep & I'd wager for most of us, the things that are in our sphere of influence simply take priority.
It's a challenge to look beyond ourselves, but we must have the courage to do so. Many people here have the resources to act in the interest of their family, their neighborhood, their community, and their country. It's hard not to be selfish. We can't all afford not to be. Most of us can, however.
I'm not sure what you mean by "ours" as this is the internet, but yes, to the extent that there are authoritarian elements in every government, most governments do this to some degree. It's important to fight against these authoritarian elements as best as one can, especially if you are in a position of influence.
It's also important, however, not to equivocate between totalitarian regimes like Russia and (albeit imperfectly) open democracies like the USA in instances like this. Just because no government is without sin does not mean they are all the same.
Cancer isn't something that humans develop and control. It's also very unlikely to kill 20-year-olds. On the other hand, it's almost guaranteed if you happen to live long enough. Finally, getting cancer doesn't mean that everybody around you also gets one. Getting hit by a nuke is something that is totally under human control, it's not going to discriminate by age or gender, and is likely to wipe out most of the humans you care about along with you.
A better comparison would be climate change vs nukes. If you have the time to worry about the former, you should also worry about the latter since if the nukes go off, we won't even get a chance to get killed by the environment.
Worry is unproductive in the sense of feeling anxiety, sure, but it's noble to worry at the various hammers in the archaic definition to "move, proceed, or progress by unceasing or difficult effort, to shake or pull at with the teeth."
Some of the hammers such as the hammer representing nuclear weapons - are caused by people and can be solved by people. There's a big game theoretic hill to climb over, but social pressure and advocacy have been effective at making progress. Others, like cancer and general senescence, are more of a looming threat that's a fundamental characteristic of biology, we can (and should) worry at them to make incremental progress but we're unlikely to suddenly eliminate them. The murder rate is enormously dependent on individual location and individual relationships. Traffic/bicycle/pedestrian accidents are enormously dependent on individual behavior.
Of those threats, addressing the problem of nuclear weapons - especially for a member of Nihon Hidankyo, with a personal and persuasive story of the damages these weapons caused - is probably near the top of the list for actions which can have the greatest positive change.
> So, for the rational/selfish person, the nuclear threat isn't worth worrying about.
Until you have children and future generations to worry about. Then it suddenly seems quite a bit more pressing that their world could be obliterated at a moment's notice by a small handful of decision makers.
What? I have a son and a wife and I couldn’t care less about nuclear war or climate change or any abstract and distant catastrophe that could face humanity as a whole.
Living in the future is a silly affair. There’s only one moment and it’s the present.
I once knew an academic who would not fly in an airplane. He was invited to a distinguished conference across the country, but complained to me that he was too scared to fly. "Why?" I ask.. "Terrorists" he replied.. "it is too serious. I just can't do it". so a year or two pass and then I see this Academic again. While talking he mentions that he just returned from a great conference far away. "What? I thought you were afraid to fly in an airplane!" .. He replies "that was true, I was scared of someone carrying a bomb on the flight. But, I calculated the statistical odds of there being TWO bombs on a single plane, and it was infinitesimal..."
Why does that figure looks really suspicious to me. So in nuclear exchange there is either already fully setup blocks or the responding party will pull in others in?
My parents had no problem reminding us that we all live with a nuclear sword hanging over our heads.
It just so happens that most people in the West are comfortable, are completely insulated from the consequences of war, and can't even imagine a regular war happening to them.
And nuclear war is so much more horrifying and its consequences are so much beyond the pale, that people can't even think of what it would mean.
Oh I can imagine it happening. I'm currently working in Pearl Harbor and find myself hoping that I'll be on-base if the balloon goes up, thus avoiding any post-apocalyptic survival bullshit in a brilliant flash.
> It just so happens that most people in the West are comfortable, are completely insulated from the consequences of war, and can't even imagine a regular war happening to them.
One of my great disappointments after 9/11 was that U.S. citizens were not, by and large, asked/expected to make any sacrifices (other than our liberties). It felt that if we were at war, we should all be contributing, but it seemed to me that our value as consumers was more important than as citizens.
No, it’s simply the end of the cold war that made it a possibility less present in the media. The cold war was cold because making it hot would have meant going nuclear. So the possibility was always closely linked to the state of cold war. Globalization has blurred the picture considerably.
maybe your parents aren't old enough to remember how much of the population could expect to die in wars before nuclear weapons (i.e. mutually assured destruction) existed
The entire purpose of nuclear armaments is to make certain wars too nasty to fathom engaging in. If their organization didn't exist at all, we'd still have exactly the same number of nuclear war casualties since the 1940s.
The net result of this has enabled nuclear powers to engage in asymmetric wars against countries that don't have nukes, or to engage in proxy wars between nuclear superpowers. Meanwhile, we heave come perilously close to nuclear armageddon, with Stanislav Petrov standing in the way.
(Considering what's been happening in Ukraine and Palestine I would like for the Netherlands to obtain nukes. If we ever get invaded we can at least take out 50 million of the enemy with us to hell).
In 1913, Norman Angell published a book called "The Great Illusion" in which he argued that the use of military force had become economically futile due to the interconnectedness of international finance and trade. World War I started one year later. Trade and interconnectedness probably have a net positive effect on reducing war, but not a reliable guarantee.
Sanctions aren’t affecting Russia in any capacity.
Definitely false. They were never the slam dunk that they were supposed to be, and it's true to say their effect has been significantly blunted. But that's not the same as "no effect". It's just turned out to be a comparatively mild one (but important nonetheless).
Sanctions are hurting Russia financially. Putin doesn't care because he can extract wealth from oligarchs in whatever manner he sees fit. That's the benefit of being a dictator who has a wealth of knowledge on how to watch his own back after his career in intelligence work. He'll just tell his people to create some propaganda and everyone will fall into line.
Totally agree this is very relevant today. We have heads of state in the EU and to some degree people in the USG with very cavalier approaches to the ideological war between the West and the BRICS.
I really don't know what the F* they are thinking but they keep pushing further and further and hope there is no elastic snap. It's like they forgot about diplomacy with enemies --at the height of the cold war, at its Apex in the Cuba Missile Crisis, we had communication with the enemy --it was inconceivable we would not have communications with them but now it's a wild west of bluster and provocation. I'm not saying were not right in tamping down aggression, but you have to be cognizant of the perils that exist.
Quite striking is strident opponents of the Hiroshima/Nagasaki decision have few qualms about the prospects of current escalation. It's insane.
BRICS? What ideological war is South Africa, India, and Brazil waging against the west? Members of Brics such as India and China are closer to war with each other then they are to war with the West.
You're exposing the whole Russian narrative about a new "multipolar world", which has already existed since globalization was a thing, from the oppressed "Global South"... which is a:
- a geographical misconception - for example, India is part of the Northern Hemisphere and a lot of Western aligned countries are in the Southern Hemisphere like Australia, New Zealand, Argentina;
- a population size misconception, where the propaganda states the majority of the world population is in the south - 850 million people live in the southern hemisphere;
- It's a sign of imperialism - no countries from the actual Southern Hemisphere elected Russia as their representatives and to speak for them about their ideas, grievances, or ideology.
I'm not sure why this got downvoted. The point is not to bow to Putin in all matters, but to treat the matter with extreme seriousness: Take time to do proper background research, evaluate your sources, give serious consideration to the Russian narrative -- without necessarily agreeing of course, allow for a margin of error both in your own judgement and for stray missiles entering the detection radius, etc. If it still seems like a good idea to take a stand afterwards, OK. But let's please not cause a nuclear war over Facebook likes and political brownie points.
Ah... NATO expansion? Alleged discrimination against the Russian majority in Eastern Ukraine? Alleged foreign interference in the Maidan revolution? Not that I'm trying to start a discussion here, but dismissing the other side's arguments as "not even meant to be sensical" is exactly what I was arguing against.
None of this is a legitimate casus belli in any sense of the term. You’re suggesting we ought to take seriously the geopolitical equivalent of “he looked at me funny”.
I would you say the Cuban missile crisis was made up by the Kennedy admin? The establishment was ready to war if the missiles were not removed. Being in our “backyard” and sphere of influence (LatAm) we didn’t take to it too kindly.
I would say that the Cuban Missile Crisis, indeed, would not have constituted a good reason to invade Cuba. US foreign policy during the Cold War was often pretty indefensible.
But there’s still a number of things about this situation that make the comparison flimsy. The relationship between the west and Russia was - and actually still is - significantly less tense than the relationship between the Soviets and the west during the Cold War, for one.
But moreover, the way everything went down was very different.
In the CMC, the Soviets installed their missiles, the US caught wind of this, and pursued a diplomatic solution. The public was, generally, made aware of what was going on and what was at stake.
Ukraine was not made a member of NATO - it hadn’t even applied. At no point did Russia even rattle any sabres, offer red lines, or pursue diplomacy. Russia built up its forces along the border in secret and launched a surprise invasion. From the jump they’ve been offering shifting explanations for the “special military operation” - is it about NATO expansion or “de-Nazification”? - which is one reason why we shouldn’t take any of those explanations especially seriously.
> Ukraine was not made a member of NATO - it hadn’t even applied. At no point did Russia even rattle any sabres, offer red lines, or pursue diplomacy.
I don't think you're paying attention. Bush's invite of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO in 2007 (against the opinion of France and Germany) was probably a cause of Russian invasion into South Ossetia.
And just about recently a newly chosen top NATO chief has been promoting path for Ukraine to enter NATO (and so-called "West Germany model"), despite that Putin clearly demanded Ukraine neutrality and NATO's own rule about not admitting members with an ongoing territorial disputes.
I can hardly imagine how could Russians be clearer about opposing NATO expansion.
> I can hardly imagine how could Russians be clearer about opposing NATO expansion.
That's a very confusing statement because Russia signed agreements, charters and memorandums that clearly stated that every country is entitled to their own economic and defensive alliances.
So it's not clear at all - and even if it was clear, then it should become imperative to have Ukraine join NATO as soon as possible to make it blatantly clear that Russia can't dictate what other sovereign nations choose for their economic and defensive alliances.
The real question is: why aren't Russians questioning and making their government accountable for not following their agreements and destroying decades of diplomacy for the sake of one man?
Bush's invite of Ukraine and Georgia into NATO in 2007 (against the opinion of France and Germany) was probably a cause of Russian invasion into South Ossetia.
Bush did not "invite" those countries to join NATO. Only NATO can do that, and it famously chose not to do that at the Bucharest Summit the following year (and to explicitly deny those countries invites), precisely because of France and Germany's objections. I'm not sure what you think you can gain here by attempting to spin the situation into the opposite of what it was.
Regardless - the "cause" of what Russian armed forces did in Georgia in 2008 was Putin's ordering them to. Nothing the West did made or "caused" him to do anything.
I can hardly imagine how could Russians be clearer about opposing NATO expansion.
Post-2022 the discussion is entirely moot, and I don't see why the world should begin to care what the current Russian regime thinks about NATO at this point.
NATO expansion was never the real reason for that invasion - but once Putin chose to go in, he completely extinguished whatever moral capital Russia may have had that issue.
>Ukraine was not made a member of NATO - it hadn’t even applied. At no point did Russia even rattle any sabres, offer red lines, or pursue diplomacy.
To be fair, without saying that their position is a defensible one- they've been pretty vocal about Ukraine not becoming aligned with the West for almost 20 years now if not longer, and politicians in the West have been vocal about the exact opposite for at least as long. I see people saying online that what's happening now was completely irrational and unexpected but that's not really true. We know it's a sore point for them and have been goading them with a "will we won't we" over a clear red line they've drawn for a long while now.
https://www.rferl.org/a/1079726.html
That's a good list of Russian-fueled narratives that have little to no grounds in reality - as a kind way of saying they're lies and conspiracy theories.
> NATO expansion?
You seem to have forgotten all the agreements, charters, and memorandums the Soviet Union and Russia signed stating that Sovereign Countries are entitled to their own alliances and strategic partnerships. You also seem to have forgotten that even Putin hinted at Clinton the idea of Russia joining NATO. Regarding Ukraine, the population only started to care to join NATO after 2014, but started to trend since the invasion of Georgia.
Even Gorbachev himself - the man who was allegedly involved in that so-called "no NATO expansion" myth said it was a lie and a myth[0]. I didn't even make logical sense to have such a red line.
> Alleged discrimination against the Russian majority in Eastern Ukraine?
So you invaded and annex a country in a genocidal war based on "alleged discrimination"? Who did something similar to this... ah yeah... Nazi Germany also made up some discrimination stories about ethnic germans being under threat by polish people.
> Alleged foreign interference in the Maidan revolution?
Another conspiracy theory and lie... God forbid Ukrainians having the capacity to revolt against a president who turned his back on Ukrainians will to join the EU, in exchange for a deal under the table with Russia that no one knew the terms of.
Oh and by the way, the US wanted Yanukovich to remain president - it was the overwhelming majority of the parliament that didn't want the corrupt fellow in power any longer.
At least get your facts straight, with a little bit of research you can get access to this information.
Being non-sensical is the point of that school of rhetoric.
Briefly summarized: Power is being able to say something false, that the audience knows is false, that the speaker knows the audience knows is false, and that the audience knows that the speaker knows the audience knows is false -- but the audience can't/wont speak up.
I haven't downvoted it, but one issue with parent's post is that it applies double standards to our nations' responses to those of the Cold War. During the 20th century, the public impression of diplomacy was the very same 'wild west of bluster and provocation' - only nowadays, we get to see more behind the scenes of the Cold War as files are declassified and then-current affairs become history. The propaganda from the American and Soviet leadership was no more nuanced historically than it is now from contemporary leaders like Putin and Trump (and since parent mentioned the EU, we could include European figures such as von der Leyen here as well).
I predict that future history books will observe a certain amount of care and diplomatic engagement in our era that isn't visible from the press releases and the ways in which politicians want to be seen.
I don't know why you're bringing BRICS into this. Brazil and South Africa aren't nuclear powers (at least not anymore, and South Africa is an irrelevant failed state anyway). India isn't engaged in any sort of ideological war with the West. Their nukes are purely defensive to deter China and Pakistan.
That leaves China and Russia. We learned during the Cold War that a policy of aggressive containment is effective and this should continue. Don't give them an inch.
