Nuclear War

The article discusses the current risks of a limited nuclear war and its consequences for humanity. It presents a critical analysis of the difference between the strategy of global destructive warfare as a result of the classical use of standard nuclear weapons on the one hand and the new political-military plan of a limited, small-scale nuclear war (without global expansion) on the other. The paper clarifies the problems associated with the new US strategy documents that are advancing a line of argument in favour of a limited nuclear war in the context of conflicts of political, corporate and military-technical interests in the global capitalism. It also analyses the background to the current state, i.e. the history of strategies of the possible nuclear war and potential actors of this kind of threat. It draws attention to the current real danger of locally waged limited nuclear warfare and its possible escalation on a global scale.

In 2009, after US president Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for, amongst others, his commitment to long-term nuclear disarmament (BBC,2009), Time Magazine published an article titled “Want Peace? Give the Nuke a Nobel”. This reflects the long-standing claim that, far from a threat to world peace, nuclear weapons--or the fear of them--can actually be instrumental in reducing the incidence of violent conflict, by deterring not merely their own use, but also any conventional war that could trigger a nuclear exchange. Though the fear of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' has long been a well-established concept in (nuclear) deterrence theory, few have taken this argument to its logical conclusion--the idea, developed most famously by Kenneth N. Waltz in his controversial ‘The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: More May be Better’ (1981), that if the mutual fear of nuclear war can deter states from conventional war, and if such deterrence is stable, then perhaps measured nuclear proliferation to other countries could be the best stabilizer of regional and global conflict, ultimately creating zones of 'Nuclear Peace'.

The suggestions that nuclear weapons might be ‘the best [and] only peacekeeping weapon that the world has ever known’ [Sagan & Waltz,2010: 92], and that their ‘horizontal’ proliferation to other states might constitute ‘an international good’ [Waltz, 2009, 431], are remarkable and highly controversial, as they fly in the face of both the Non-Proliferation Treaty (‘NPT’), as well as dominant attitudes in the West towards many nuclear-threshold states, such as Iran and North Korea.

Driven by the question "would the world be safer if more nations had nuclear weapons?", this article examines the chief arguments presented against and in favor of broad nuclear proliferation, and their counterarguments. To answer this question, I briefly theorize the positive or negative impact, on deterrence
stability and military-organizational safety, of conditions such as asymmetrical strategic force strengths or -postures (counterforce / countervalue); novel technologies (cost-effective missile shields), operational protocols
(‘launch-on-warning’) and finally several ‘deterrence-breaking’ strategies ('Hamburg grab'; 'madman strategy').

In terms of structure, this essay will present the general architecture of deterrence theory; common arguments against Waltz's 'laissez-faire' nuclear proliferation--and their validity. It will be considered if the ‘nuclear peace’-model, even if valid for the Cold War, is sufficiently applicable and transposable to other contexts to warrant Waltz’ advocacy of ‘total proliferation’—or whether proliferation should be ‘limited’ because the safety and stability of nuclear deterrence are not assured, either because its strategic logic can be subverted in ‘rogue states’ who lack rationality and restraint, or because the 'vulnerability' of 'poor’ nations small arsenals invites a decapitation strike. I will argue that this is not the case, and that Waltz’s ‘total’ form of proliferation optimism is indeed the most, or even the only legitimate ‘pro-proliferation’—or indeed, non-disarmament—argument.

Nevertheless, I conclude that even Waltz's cogent formulation fails to make the case for a ‘nuclear world’ being meaningfully safer, as it does not come to terms with how instability, irrationality, and most importantly organizational accidents are not mere imperfections of nuclear deterrence, but rather irreducible, essential, and inevitable to it, making systemic breakdown inevitable, cataclysmic, and in the long-term terminal.

Ao longo desse ano de 2015 temos visto se sucederem comemorações dos 70 anos do fim da II Guerra Mundial. As cicatrizes por ela deixadas nos fazem recordar as terríveis consequências de conflitos entre grandes potências militares. Nesse contexto, os governos atuais dessas potências deveriam pautar suas ações na redução do risco de confrontos no futuro. Infelizmente, quando se analisa suas condutas recentes, eles têm agido no sentido oposto.

In a message, recorded on October 15, 2010, Fidel Castro stated:

“The use of nuclear weapons in a new war would mean the end of humanity,” adding: “Each and every government in the world has the obligation to respect the right to life of each and every nation and of the totality of all the peoples on the planet.”

Castro ended his message saying:

“In a nuclear war the ‘collateral damage’ would be the life of all humanity. Let us have the courage to proclaim that all nuclear or conventional weapons, everything that is used to make war, must disappear!”

It seems that Castro is trying to paint himself a-posteriori as a pacifist and anti-nuclear war advocate. This paper examines the facts showing that, on the contrary, the available record shows that Fidel Castro has always been an advocate for nuclear war. Actually, Fidel Castro is the man who in 1962 brought the world closer to a nuclear Armageddon than never before or after.

The Russian Federation is currently and will remain, for the foreseeable future, the country that possesses the second largest number of nuclear warheads. This highly armed state has, like the Soviet Union before it and the US today, an overkill capacity. As their communist predecessors in the Kremlin, the political leaders of post-Soviet Russia command enough weapons of mass destruction to destroy humankind several times. Russia's current rulers, moreover, act within a political system in which parliamentary control of the armed forces, checks and balances between branches of power, civil society monitoring of officials, or investigative journalism on top politicians are either absent or underdeveloped. Russia's political system represents a form of electoral authoritarianism in which power holders are only dependent on the integrity of their command chain, and of their public support constantly regenerated by the government's information policies.

Topics include the changing character of war, destructive capabilities of weapons, nuclear weapons, human consequences of war, soldiers after was, children and war, child soldiers, civilian casualties (collateral and targeted), Guatemala, Columbia, Cambodia, people displaced by war, land mines, material and human costs of preparedness, and US responsibility.

See the above BOOKS. Here, TEXT REMOVED (because of possible freedoms restrictions in Europe)

(An earlier version was published in 2018 as chapter 8 in the book "Justice First")

Should Ukraine and Russian governments accept or not to negotiate right now and right there where they stand, is not a matter of freedom of choice, free will, democracy, self-determination, liberty, or universal rights of any kind; this is not any question from the moral sphere, neither the question of any human values or any theoretical ethical question.. This is something absolutely simple, down to earth question: This is simply the matter of war and peace not in Ukraine but in the world.
Whether some state will choose to terrorize and murder some population, whether a state can promote Nazi movements and the Nazi military forces, and whether some nations should be permitted to adhere and submit to some aggressive military alliance like NATO (responsible for hundreds of wars in the last 60 years) – is not a matter of ”a free democratic choice” but a geopolitical choice that concerns the entire world and particularly the neighbouring countries. This is THE question of existence and should be treated as such.
So particularly the Ukrainian government should immediately accept negotiations, renounce the above-mentioned aspirations and wait to see what are not Ukrainian but general interests in this part of the world. The decisions are now to be taken not by Ukraine but by the world. The issue must be transferred to the highest international level.
***
Ob die Regierungen der Ukraine und Russlands akzeptieren oder nicht, jetzt und dort, wo sie stehen, zu verhandeln, ist keine Frage der Wahlfreiheit, des freien Willens, der Demokratie, der Selbstbestimmung, der Freiheit oder der universellen Rechte jeglicher Art; das ist keine Frage aus dem moralischen Bereich, weder die Frage nach irgendwelchen menschlichen Werten noch irgendeine theoretische ethische Frage. Das ist eine ganz einfache, nüchterne Frage: Es geht einfach um (nuklearen?) Krieg und Frieden, nicht in der Ukraine, sondern in dere Welt. Ob sich ein Staat dafür entscheidet, eine Bevölkerung zu terrorisieren und zu ermorden, ob ein Staat Nazi-Bewegungen und die Nazi-Streitkräfte fördern kann und ob es einigen Nationen erlaubt sein sollte, einem aggressiven Militärbündnis wie der NATO (verantwortlich für Hunderte von Kriegen in den USA der letzten 60 Jahre) beizutreten und sich ihnen zu unterwerfen – handelt es sich nicht um „eine freie demokratische Entscheidung“, sondern um eine geopolitische Entscheidung, die die ganze Welt und insbesondere die Nachbarländer betrifft. Das ist DIE Existenzfrage und sollte auch so behandelt werden. Daher sollte insbesondere die ukrainische Regierung sofort Verhandlungen aufnehmen, auf die oben genannten Bestrebungen verzichten und abwarten, was nicht ukrainische, sondern allgemeine Interessen in diesem Teil der Welt sind. Die Entscheidungen sollen jetzt nicht von der Ukraine, sondern von der Welt getroffen werden. Das Thema muss auf die höchste internationale Ebene übertragen werden.
***

The present version makes reference to the war in Ukraine and I have been amending it frequently. My rejection of the war as the mean to resolve conflicts has remained unchanged. In this text I tried to explain the wars, not to justify them. The explanation may contain the reasons that we do not accept, but the actors of the wars do. I exposed the arguments of the actors and I am not trying to justify or disapprove any of them. When I advance some or reject some, this is how the actors on one or the other side see them, not how I see them.The well being of the US citizens is the final goal of the US politics. To achieve this, the US superiority in many respects, including military superiority, is a must. Therefore, it is universally accepted in the US that this should be achieved, between other things, by the means of force and on the expense of the other nations. The ultimate and thereby the only adversary is a factor that can oppose the US force, and this is only Russia. All other forces could be ignored. It is believed that such end justifies all imaginable means. Belief that even the peaceful means are acceptable only if they will lead to the complete destruction of Russia creates unsupportable tension. The US strategy has been a slow permanent, step by step, approach to the Russia’s borders, initiation of the conflicts and regime changes in the frontiers countries and the similar efforts for the regime changes tendencies in Russia itself. The present Ukraine crises (caused by the non application of the Minsk agreements and terror of the Donbas citizens by the Ukarine and potential absorption of the Ukraine into NATO) is an example where the US may be satisfied with any solution that would even leave unresolved Ukrainian crises susceptible for some later incorporation into NATO, no matter in what form. All steps towards the ultimate target, destruction of Russia’s nuclear power are acceptable. We propose a Permanent Russo-American Conference that could resolve this tension.

Scomparire è ancora meglio che tuffarsi sott'acqua: al costume dei ranocchi, preferisco quello dei topi. Non penso, però, a quelli neri e grigi delle case e dei giardini, ma al topo giallo-rosso della foresta tropicale, che somiglia ad un minuscolo scoiattolo. Si nutre di noci, di cui nel primo autunno reca una provvista nel suo nido invernale. Là, dorme ben nascosto per sei mesi o più, mentre le foglie cadono sul terreno boschivo e le ricopre poi la neve. Io ho preso le mie precauzioni secondo il suo modello. Il moscardino, o topo di nocciole, è parente della marmotta: fin da bambino mi raffiguravo la vita di questo sognatore altamente comoda. Non è un caso che, dopo la morte del padre, io mi sia smarrito in questo mondo protettore. Nella mia solitudine, nel solaio di casa, io mi tramutavo in moscardino. Per anni, esso fu il mio animale totemico. Mi sono cercato, ai margini della foresta, un posticino per la mia tana. Il foro d'ingresso non dovrebbe trovarsi al livello del suolo, è meglio una fessura nella roccia o dentro un tronco cavo. Di là iniziai a scavare il cunicolo, giorno per giorno, sempre più in fondo, raschiando fuori il terriccio, che poi sparpagliavo perché non ne rimanesse traccia. Una volta giunto abbastanza in fondo, scavai un secondo cunicolo verso l'alto, come uscita di sicurezza. Per ogni ingresso bisogna provvedere alla sortita, per ogni via pensare al ritorno: questo mi risultava chiaro fin da allora. Il lavoro doveva avvenire in assoluto silenzio e con cautela; dall'alto vi era di giorno la minaccia dello sparviero, e di notte del gufo, al suolo animali ostili, in primo luogo la vipera-il moscardino è sempre minacciato. È il tributo che paga alla sua libertà. Dopo aver scavato i cunicoli, si passava all'abitazione, una comoda cameretta, non troppo piccina, né troppo grande. Che vi potesse stare anche una femmina, non mi veniva ancora in mente. Nemmeno per la mamma c'era da provvedere: era presente ovunque, era la tana stessa. Una volta apprestata la cameretta e levigato bene il suo ovale, scavai il cunicolo di approccio alla dispensa. Questo era più grande, con una curvatura a forma di focaccia: con un granaio

The probability of nuclear war is a major factor in many important policy questions, but it has gotten little scholarly attention. This paper presents a model for calculating the total probability of nuclear war. The model is based on 14 interrelated scenarios for how nuclear war can break out, covering perhaps the entire range of nuclear war scenarios. Scenarios vary based on factors including whether a state intends to make a first strike attack, whether the nuclear attack is preceded by a conventional war or a non-war crisis, whether escalation is intentional or inadvertent, the presence of false alarms of various types, and the presence of non-war nuclear detonations such as nuclear terrorism. As a first step towards quantifying the probability of nuclear war using the model, the paper also includes a dataset of historical incidents that might have threatened to turn into nuclear war. 60 historical incidents are included, making it perhaps the largest such dataset currently available. The paper also includes background information about probabilistic analysis and modeling to help readers understand how to think about the probability of nuclear war, including new theory for the decision to initiate nuclear war.

You're searching for the truth. What sources of information should you use and trust ? Brian Martin recommends reflecting on a topic that you know a lot about and taking note of which information sources were useful or misleading. To illustrate this process of reflection, he tells of his own experiences learning about the effects of nuclear war, the origin-of-AIDS debate and the sources of talent, in each case commenting on different sources of information that influenced him. Truth Tactics is an encouragement to learn from your own learning about how best to pursue the truths that matter to you.

The representation of modern warfare has always been problematic, but depicting nuclear war seems to be an almost impossible task for writers, inasmuch as a real nuclear conflict has never taken place, so that there is no “real” model that writers may refer to. And yet in the Cold War years the threat of WWIII was such an important and urgent issue that fiction writers repeatedly attempted to stage the unreal war, and think the unthinkable. Some of them adopted a mix of the extrapolative strategies of science-fiction and conventional, “realistic” narrative protocols; others, such as Thomas Pynchon, Philip K. Dick, and J.G. Ballard, though also using science-fictional extrapolations, opted for more unconventional narrative strategies, drawing from modernism or devising new devices. This article attempts to survey what the consequences of these different approaches have been.

The representation of modern warfare has always been problematic, but depicting nuclear war seems to be an almost impossible task for writers, inasmuch as a real nuclear conflict has never taken place, so that there is no “real” model that writers may refer to. And yet in the Cold War years the threat of WWIII was such an important and urgent issue that fiction writers repeatedly attempted to stage the unreal war, and think the unthinkable. Some of them adopted a mix of the extrapolative strategies of science-fiction and conventional, “realistic” narrative protocols; others, such as Thomas Pynchon, Philip K. Dick, and J.G. Ballard, though also using science-fictional extrapolations, opted for more unconventional narrative strategies, drawing from modernism or devising new devices. This article attempts to survey what the consequences of these different approaches have been.

What does it mean for the video game arcade to be proclaimed dead? And, how might we interpret the

arcade’s various lingering – as technology, as memory, as culture? This special issue of Reconstruction

considers the “Undead Arcade” and features articles interrogating the arcade as historical subject and

as artifact. Articles address the collection, preservation, and exhibition of arcade games; the role of

nostalgia in driving the post-arcade industry; the role of arcade game ports in home coding practices;

and the use of arcade-inspired game music.

Decamous, G., 2022. Nuclear Warfare. In: Kurtz, L.R. (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, vol. 2. Elsevier, Academic Press, pp. 200–209. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-12-820195-4.00269-7.

The main turning points of the Atomic Age are discussed through an analysis of nuclear weaponry, its buildup, and its global effects on people, the environment, and culture. Some countries covered are the United States, Japan, Russia, the Marshall Islands, Polynesia, France, India, North Korea, Canada, and Iran.

Outline
Building the Bombs: The Manhattan Project
The Types of Nuclear Bombs and Their Might
The Effects of Nuclear Bombs: Hiroshima and Nagasaki
The Cold War and the Effects of the Tests
    The US Tests in the Marshall Islands
    The French Tests in Polynesia
    Soviet Russia
The Effects of Nuclear A- and H-Bombs: Uranium Mining
Nuclear Military Strategies
    Deterrence
    Censorship
Antinuclear Peace Movements: Nuclear Culture
Two More Nuclear Nations: Iran and North Korea
      Iran
      North Korea
Nuclear War Since Hiroshima Until Today

The year 1954 saw the first public detonation of an H-bomb, a weapon whose radioactive fallout challenged the existing spatialized notions of targeting and post attack recovery by making a whole country vulnerable to the vagaries of drifting toxic clouds that drew no distinction between urban centers and rural periphery. In response, the UK government established a network of 1,518 underground nuclear fallout monitoring posts spread uniformly across the country. This article considers how planning for this new reality brought a diffusion of cold war urban anxieties and practices into the UK countryside, but in a way that was awkward and approximate. This article considers the implications of the rise of the H-bomb for the United Kingdom's (UK) experience during the 1950s of "cold war urbanism". Cold war urbanism is taken here to encompass (1) the influence of cold war anxieties upon urbanists, their professional discourses, and practices and (2) the production of built environments shaped by or in service of cold war objectives. This article investigates the UK's experience of cold war urbanism by presenting a case study that considers the planning and implementation of one of the few conspicuously cold war motivated building schemes actually undertaken in the UK: the creation of a network of 1,518 underground nuclear fallout monitoring posts spread uniformly across the countryside.

An earlier version of my Cold War literature course in which I tried to give a more comparative view of the fiction being written during the conflict by including works (some in translation) by Russian writers and authors from "non-aligned" nations.

Until recently the international security environment had come to reflect a relative calm among major powers. The numerous proxy wars of
the Cold war had largely gone silent. The number of armed conflicts between regional powers reduced while great powers did not fight each other at all. Even though military conflict continues to be a pervasive feature of the international security landscape, since the end of the Cold War interstate violence had seen a sharp decline in favor of numerous intra-state conflicts. However, in the past two years, there have been tectonic changes in the international system. New features of conflict begin to arise. As military technology continues to evolve, the
international system has once again begun to accommodate use of force by a growing diversity of actors – including major military powers
against each other.

Ever since the election of Narendra Modi as Prime Minister, India has constantly been on a quest for showcasing and exhibiting its larger than life persona and proving to an audience at home and abroad, its aspirations for greater power status. A shrewd approach, timed to perfection, in a world which despite facing the worst of constant military engagement during the Cold War, is once again slipping into hard power projection. As the contemporary world appears to be fast latching on to the trend of hyper-nationalism, promoted by effective political leadership as the expression of ultimate power projection of its respective countries, over-enthusiastic populations are happily and blindly embracing the idea without realising its consequences. The surgical strike strategy used by Modi against Pakistan must be seen as an effective tool for ensuring re-election of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), but also as an expression of hyper-nationalism. Such disturbing developments raise serious questions about deterrence stability, the future of India-Pakistan relations and changing dynamics of warfare in the region.

This is an excerpt of an interview which I recently conducted via skype with Katehon, a Russian-based geo-political think tank. I gave an historical overview of the evolution of U.S.-Russian relationships from the Cold War era to the present detailing how the previous emphasis on diffusing tensions through a succession of international treaties has been replaced by one of antagonism largely stemming from American policy in the post-Cold War which is largely shaped by the Wolfowitz and Brzezinski doctrines. American militarism as exemplified by its interventions in countries such as Iraq, Libya and Syria as well as by its abrogation of anti-ballistic missile treaties and its deployment of nuclear shields is imperiling world peace. The American-backed coup in Ukraine along with its sponsorship of the insurrection against the Assad government in Syria have created the circumstances which could lead to conflict with the Russian Federation and potentially to a nuclear war. The world is already in a very tumultuous situation, which is close to a situation that historically had been avoided at the height of the Soviet Union's conflict with America. That is, we are on the verge of a nuclear war. After the end of the Soviet Union, there were those ideas of the " end of the history " , and how America had won, and everybody would then be like America as a capitalist entity. The point though is that once the Cold War ended, it made NATO a redundant institution. If you have no enemy to fight, how do you justify your existence? It seems that a part of American policy has been predicated on this idea of creating enemies and sustaining enmities. This is not a criticism of the United States, but it is a criticism of American foreign policy, as it is dictated by the Wolfowitz Doctrine and the Brzezinski Doctrine.

The article addresses the contemporary risks of limited nuclear war and its threat for societies. It offers a critical analysis based on the difference between the strategy of a global destructive war following classical application of standard nuclear weapons, on the one hand, and the new political military plan of limited nuclear war, without its global continuation, on the other. First, the article explains the problems connected with the new US strategic documents pursuing limited nuclear war. Second, within this context of the risks of limited nuclear war, it explains conflicts of political (potentially democratic), corporate, and technical military interests in global capitalism which can lead to the limited nuclear war. Third, it concludes by clarifying the historical trajectory of debates concerning the strategies of possible nuclear war, and stresses the current real danger of limited nuclear war and its possible global escalation.

------> Now available as open-source e-book at https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/uscpress_pub/7/ <------

_Unvarnishing Reality_ draws original insight to the literature, politics, history, and culture of the cold war by closely examining the themes and goals of American and Russian satirical fiction. As Derek Maus illustrates, the paranoia of nuclear standoff provided a subversive storytelling mode for authors from both nations--including Thomas Pynchon, Robert Coover, John Barth, Walker Percy, Don DeLillo, Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Vasily Aksyonov, Yuz Aleshkovsky, Alexander Zinoviev, Vladimir Voinovich, Fazil Iskander, and Sasha Sokolov." ///// REVIEWS:

"The breadth of Maus's critical reading is impressive and sets his text apart from other treatments of Cold War literature that include Soviet and/or Russian material.[...] Highly recommended."

  -- Brian Diemert, _Choice_ (Dec. 2011) /////

"Maus's study constantly engages in suggestive juxtapositions between American and Russian works that shed fresh light on their narrative practices."

  -- David Seed, _Utopian Studies_ 23.2 (2012) /////

"Maus has read voluminously in his subject, both in the literature and in critical studies [...]. He is to be applauded for his fresh readings of dystopian classics as well as for bringing lesser-known writers into the story.[...] If a reader is looking for a quick survey of Russian and American Cold War fiction, this is it."

    -- Denise Youngblood, _Slavic Review_ 71.3 (Fall 2012) /////

"Maus’s analysis of the individual texts will give the reader new ways of thinking about them. Historians who work on the cultural history of the era will no doubt want to consider the insights he offers into the language and philosophy of satirical fiction."

  -- Mara Drogan, _Cold War History_ 13.2 (2013) /////

"On the US side, the closest analogy to the totalitarian system is the totalizing drive of certain languages—anticommunist, mediatic-consumerist, bureaucratic, technologically utopian—chiefly in the American 1950s and then again in the 1980s [...] To be sure, none of these coalesce into the langue de bois (the “wooden tongue”) that all but takes over public discourse in the East, nor do they enjoy the logistical and institutional backing afforded by the Kremlin apparatus, Pynchonian paranoia notwithstanding. And yet, Maus is right: the satire of mainstream, institutional, or 'official' idioms is one kind of literature that formally and thematically can be said to bring together—and thus render comparable—writers from saliently different systems."

  -- Christian Moraru, _American Literature_ 85.2 (June 2013)

La via che non dà garanzie di sicurezza né dall'interno né dall'esterno: questa è la nostra. Poeti e filosofi l'hanno descritta con maggior precisione e consapevolezza a ogni nuovo passo. È la via sulla quale si profilano sempre più chiare e gigantesche catastrofi. In tale angustia, all'uomo si offre la via dell'organizzazione. Il termine va inteso qui nella sua accezione più ampia, soprattutto come ordine per mezzo del sapere e della scienza. Esso implica semplificazioni economiche, tecniche, politiche. È impossibile che l'uomo, in questa situazione, disprezzi gli appigli che gli vengono offerti. Molto per questa via gli viene invece sottratto, soprattutto la decisione angosciosa, la risoluzione personale. Nel quadro di questo ordine egli si crea anche una sicurezza. Naturalmente, le innumerevoli decisioni che gli sono state sottratte si rovesciano su poche centrali. Con ciò affiora il pericolo di catastrofi universali. Si può prevedere che la restrizione della libertà durerà ancora a lungo. Essa è presente anche là dove ci si crede ingenuamente in possesso del potere di decidere. Che differenza fa se gli strumenti di sterminio vengono inventati e accumulati per incarico di oligarchie tiranniche o per deliberazioni parlamentari? Una differenza è certa: nel secondo caso la coercizione universale è ancora più evidente. La paura domina su tutti, non importa che si manifesti qui come tirannide, là come destino; finché regna la paura, tutto viene trascinato in un cerchio cupo, e sulle armi aleggia uno splendore funesto.

This article aims to present what was said by the late scientist Stephen Hawking who stated in 2018 that the human species could be driven to extinction in 100 years and that, due to this, he would force human beings to leave the Earth, as well as to demonstrate that the threats of extinction of the human species cited by Hawking can be faced without the need for human beings to escape from Earth.

This article argues that Adorno’s resistance to thinking in terms of the “Atomic Age” should warn us against too quickly adopting the term “Anthropocene” in relation to climate change. Rather than fixating on the sublime imagery of the end of the world, Adorno’s theorization of aesthetics and regression enjoins its readers to give attention to the minute and seemingly banal moments of exploitation that have made so many lives fungible. By shifting the object of metaphysical speculation in this way, Adorno’s writing remains relevant to working through the imbrication of race, gender, and capital in the yet unwritten history of environmental collapse.

The period known as the Cold War is commonly defined as lasting from 1946, the year of the infamous ‘Long Telegram’, to 1991, when the Soviet Union formally ceased to exist. When tackling the question of why this prolonged ‘cold’ confrontation between two nuclear superpowers never turned ‘hot’, one needs to examine multiple facets relevant to this conundrum.

What is the relationship between the stability of the nuclear balance among nuclear-armed states and the incidence of conventional warfare? The stability-instability paradox suggests that the more stable the strategic nuclear balance, the higher the likelihood of conventional conflict. We demonstrate the logic of this argument with a simple rationalist model of conflict and then test the argument using a new dataset of nuclear capabilities. We nd strong evidence that several measures of nuclear stability are related to a substantial increase in the probability of conventional conflict. The evidence indicates these results are not driven by the possibility that nuclear stability is endogenous to expectations of conflict.

Perhaps the most controversial aspect of the plan to overhaul the nation’s nuclear arsenal is the replacement
program for the intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force, the land-based leg of the nuclear triad that
also includes submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and heavy bombers. The current deployed fleet
of 400 silo-based Minuteman III ICBMs are distributed across three bases touching five states and are expected to
be removed from service by the U.S. Air Force in the mid-2030s.1 A follow-on ICBM system–known as the Ground-
Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD)–is scheduled to replace the Minuteman IIIs (and their supporting infrastructure)
on a one-for-one basis between 2028 and 2035.2 Many have questioned the need for this program, including former
Secretary of Defense William Perry, who has argued for eliminating all ICBMs.3
The latest independent Pentagon acquisition cost estimate to design and build the ICBM replacement ranges
from $85 to over $140 billion (in then-year dollars),4 while the cost to operate and sustain the weapons system
over its expected 50-year service life is projected at roughly $150 billion.5 This ICBM recapitalization cost is but one
piece of a larger plan to sustain and upgrade the nuclear arsenal over the next thirty years, with the total price tag
projected to exceed $1.2 trillion (in 2017 dollars).6 Separate modernization programs planned for U.S. conventional
forces will require additional outlays. These upgrades will necessitate either a significant and prolonged increase in
defense spending, which is unlikely to be forthcoming, or a reallocation of resources within the defense budget.7
Hard choices will likely be required among competing programs.
The Trump administration’s Nuclear Posture Review published in February endorses replacing and upgrading
the current Minuteman III force with the GBSD program. It will be up to Congress to assess the program’s costeffectiveness
and evaluate alternatives. This paper will examine this issue in several stages: first, by considering
whether ICBMs are needed to hedge against threats to the strategic submarines; second, by discussing their possible
benefits and risks as a warhead “sponge”; third, by examining whether ICBMs possess necessary capabilities absent
from other legs of the triad; and last, by considering the stability implications of developing a new ICBM with
enhanced capabilities. Finally, the paper evaluates alternative options to the costly GBSD program of record.

Español: Desde la Crisis de Suez de 1956 hasta la Crisis Cubana de 1962, las tensiones entre Estados Unidos y la Unión Soviética no dejaron de crecer, hasta el punto de que la guerra era una posibilidad cotidiana. Aunque el gobierno estadounidense y algunos expertos ofrecieron un discurso tranquilizador y diseñaron ejercicios de Defensa Civil para calmar a la población, varios novelistas reflejaron los miedos a una guerra nuclear y a sus consecuencias. A través de un análisis cultural de cuatro novelas escritas por cinco autores angloamericanos entre 1957 y 1962 podemos seguir el rastro de dichos miedos, comprenderlos mejor y entender de qué modo influyeron a su época.

Even when concerns about nuclear weapons are pushed out of the headlines, events have a way of reminding us that they loom in the background. With nuclear arms control facing an uncertain future and nuclear weapon states either expanding or modernizing their arsenals, Matthew Kroenig asks the right question: "what kind of nuclear strategy and posture does the United States need to protect itself and its allies in this new nuclear age?" His answer is provided in his recent book, The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy: Why Strategic Superiority Matters. Kroenig develops an argument he labels the "superiority-brinkmanship synthesis theory" to unite two longstanding U.S. objectives with regard to its nuclear-armed adversaries. The first and primary objective is to prevent nuclear war; the second is that if nuclear war should occur, the United States must seek to limit damage to itself and its allies to the greatest extent possible. Kroenig argues that a state is better able to achieve both of these objectives if it possesses nuclear superiority and runs risks in a game of nuclear brinkmanship during a crisis. He argues that this strategy also supports nuclear superior states being able to achieve their "basic goals" in a crisis by compelling nuclear inferior states to submit. Kroenig believes these benefits rationalize the United States' robust nuclear force posture that it has maintained for several decades. However, many analysts consider this posture excessive (Fetter et al., 2018) because adversaries would still be incapable of preempting massive retaliation by the United States at lower deployment levels, and dangerous because it increases the chances of triggering a nuclear war-or alternatively, the catastrophic consequences in the event of one-and may have adverse consequences for the proliferation of nuclear weapons and prevention of nuclear terrorism. Before addressing Kroenig's arguments, it should be stated that he deserves credit for writing this book. As he states at the beginning of the second chapter, "Many scholars working on nuclear strategy refrain from writing, talking, or even thinking about nuclear war." This is certainly true. Few ask what happens if deterrence fails, with most preferring to reach isolated judgements about deterrence requirements, judgements which by their very nature can only be speculative. After all, one's views in support of nuclear deterrence can be regarded as true until the first time they are not. Even among analysts who argue for today's robust U.S. nuclear posture or for the deterrence benefits of nuclear weapons deployed at far lower numbers, most acknowledge some chance that nuclear weapons will eventually be used. More than a few believe their use is inevitable.