1989
It's 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall. It is hard to describe to anyone too young to remember it the sheer joy of the occasion. The ending of the Cold War was a time of indescribable relief for millions. The constant fear of death through nuclear war had been around for decades. No matter how much we fear terrorism these days it is nothing compared to the constant worry of instant global disaster that was part of so many people's lives.
Re: 1989
I suppose that depends whether you believed in MAD.
The unspoken premiss of MAD is that your opponent doesn't want to die. On the whole, this was likely to be correct. Both western and communistic ideologies grew out of the Englightenment, which held that life was better than death.
But we are now one coup away from nukes ending up in the hands of people who don't play by those rules. At least some of them will not mind using them, because they do not fear being killed in the retaliation. Our best hope is that the top guys are more inwardly fearful than the foot soldiers, and can keep them in line.
That still seems pretty scary to me.
The unspoken premiss of MAD is that your opponent doesn't want to die. On the whole, this was likely to be correct. Both western and communistic ideologies grew out of the Englightenment, which held that life was better than death.
But we are now one coup away from nukes ending up in the hands of people who don't play by those rules. At least some of them will not mind using them, because they do not fear being killed in the retaliation. Our best hope is that the top guys are more inwardly fearful than the foot soldiers, and can keep them in line.
That still seems pretty scary to me.
Re: 1989
Apologies for the automatic moderation on this site. I need to fix it.
The problem with the MAD premiss was that an infrastructure was set up to implement it. There were several occasions during the Cold War when false alarms nearly triggered first strikes. The ideologies may have been that life was better than death, but that was not what was programmed into the computers, or was the policy for those in the military who had control.
The problem with the MAD premiss was that an infrastructure was set up to implement it. There were several occasions during the Cold War when false alarms nearly triggered first strikes. The ideologies may have been that life was better than death, but that was not what was programmed into the computers, or was the policy for those in the military who had control.
Re: 1989
Oh absolutely. If you create a system with the potential for a disastrous cock-up, eventually you will get a disastrous cock-up. MAD was extremely dangerous.
My point was about the human component, and that we are still in a scary situation. Any individual wrong turn will probably have less immediately disastrous consequences. But each individual wrong turn is orders of magnitude more likely when you have religious lunatics who wish the end of the world with their fingers on the button.
My point was about the human component, and that we are still in a scary situation. Any individual wrong turn will probably have less immediately disastrous consequences. But each individual wrong turn is orders of magnitude more likely when you have religious lunatics who wish the end of the world with their fingers on the button.