Nuclear war is inevitable?

Joseph the most political scientist, Professor of Harvard School Kennedy, author of the "soft power" concept attack on Ukraine and its rattling nuclear weapons before the West revived the debate about this type of weapons last year, when the UN agreement on a complete ban on nuclear weapons, none Of the nine states of the world, which has such weapons, has not one of the 86 countries that signed the treaty.

How can these states justify the possession of a weapon that threatens all humanity? Video of the day is a question, but it should be considered with another: if America has signed this treaty and destroyed its nuclear arsenals, could it continue to restrain Russia's further aggression in Europe? If the answer is "no", then you should think about another question: is the nuclear war inevitable? This is not a new question.

In 1960, the British scientist and writer Charles Percy Snoue concluded that the nuclear war would begin in the next decade with mathematical certainty. It was probably an exaggeration, but many believed that Snow prediction would be good if the war began during the century. In the 1980s, campaign leaders for "freezing of nuclear weapons", including Helen Caldikott, have eaten sleeping, warning that nuclear weapons will "make nuclear war with mathematical certainty" supporters of nuclear weapons.

The chances of a residue will be 50%; But if you throw it ten times, then the chances will fall at least once, increase to 99. 9%. If over the next 40 years the chances of the onset of nuclear war are 1%, then in eight thousand years these chances will increase to 99%. Sooner or later we will not be lucky. And even if we reduce these risks every year, we will never be able to reduce them to zero.

However, in the case of nuclear weapons, such a metaphor about the tossing of the coin is misleading because it estimates unrelated probability, while the real relationships of people are more like playing gambling shuler stones. What happened after the first throw changes the chances of the next. 1963 - immediately after the Caribbean crisis - the probability of the beginning of the nuclear war was lower, because in 1962 its chances were higher.

Simple averaging laws are not always applied to complex human relations. And in principle, the right decisions of people are able to reduce the likelihood of a negative result. The chances of the onset of nuclear war are determined by both unrelated and interdependent probabilities. Absolutely random war can correspond to the coin toss models, but such wars are very rare, and any accident can be limited.

Moreover, if a random conflict is limited, it can cause actions in the future, which will even limit the likelihood of a greater war. And the longer this period will last, the higher the chances that the situation will change. After eight thousand years, people can find much more relevant problems than nuclear war. We just don't know what interdependent opportunities can be.

However, if you rely on our analysis for post -war history, we can conclude that the annual probability will not be the highest. It is known that during the Caribbean crisis, US President John Kennedy assessed the possibility of nuclear war in the range of 33% to 50%. But it was not necessary to talk about an unlimited nuclear war.

From an interview with the participants of those events in their 25th anniversary, we learned that, despite the huge advantage of American nuclear arsenals, Kennedy held back even the smallest prospect of nuclear war. And the final result is difficult to call a clean victory of America; It was a compromise that involved the silent withdrawal of US missiles from Turkey. Sometimes the argument of mathematical inevitability is used to promote the idea of ​​unilateral nuclear disarmament.

If you turn the slogan of the Cold War, it is better for future generations to be red than dead. However, it is impossible to prohibit knowledge of nuclear weapons, and to coordinate the abandonment of these weapons for nine (or even more) countries that have nuclear weapons and ideologically so different will be, to put it mildly, it is incredibly difficult. Unilateral steps without reciprocity can strengthen the positions of aggressors, which will increase the possibility of sad end -shpil.

We simply do not imagine that the far future generations will consider it useful what risks they will consider acceptable, or what people will appreciate in eight thousand years. Our moral obligations to them make us very carefully about survival, but this task does not require a complete absence of risks. We must provide future generations with the same access to important values, including a level of survival.

This is very different from trying to aggregate the interests of unknown people of the future for centuries in some unknowable amount for today. Risk will always be an inevitable component of human life. Nuclear restraint is based on the phenomenon of application. If the weapon is not used at all, it cannot restrain anyone. But if it is too applicable, then a nuclear war can begin with all the accompanying destruction.

Given this paradox of applicability and interconnected probabilities in human relations, we cannot find an unambiguous answer to the question of what is the "fair restraint". Nuclear restraint policy is not completely wrong or absolutely correct. Our consent with the restraint policy should contain certain conditions.

According to the traditional theory of the just war we have inherited over the centuries, three important conditions must be met: fair and proportional motives, restrictions in means, and a prudent assessment of all consequences. Guided by these conditions, I formulated five nuclear Maxim. In terms of motives, we must understand that self -defense is a fair but limited motive.

In some of the means, we should never treat nuclear weapons as usual weapons, and we should minimize losses for innocent people. As for the consequences, we need to reduce the risks of nuclear war in the near future and try to reduce our dependence on nuclear weapons subsequently. The bombs have some risks in the basement, but not as large as bombs on the front line. The war in Ukraine reminded us that it was impossible to avoid uncertainty and risks.

The purpose of the gradual reduction (but not cancellation) of the role of nuclear weapons remains as important as always. Richard Garvin, who designed the first hydrogen bomb, calculated that "if this year the likelihood of nuclear war is 1%, and if we can reduce it to 80% from the level of last year each year, then cumulative probability of nuclear war will be all time. 5%. We can live with such probability based on morality.