Einstein once said that he did not know how World War III would be fought, but World War IV would be fought with sticks and stones. Nuclear abolitionists, in their zeal to put the nuclear genie back in the bottle, will bring that about.
Several months ago, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published an article by Zak Kallenborn in which he defended nuclear weapons and their utility. Rebuttal articles published made two fundamental arguments. First, realism predicts the unavoidability of war, which requires the elimination of nuclear weapons. Second, deterrence is unreliable because previous close calls predict future failure.
The authors believe that reducing nuclear weapons to [near] zero limits the danger in inevitable future wars because future cheating or proliferation would only take place in small numbers, thereby limiting the damage of nuclear use. History and game theory prove this argument dangerously flawed.
For two millennia, major power wars occurred several times per century. Oxford’s Max Roser charts this bloody cost over the past 600 years. In that time 5–10 people per 100,000 population died in these wars, most of them civilians. In the past century deaths topped 100–200 deaths per 100,000 population.
Then after World War II something happened. Over the past seven decades this death rate has plummeted 99 percent to near zero (0.1/100,000 population). This is in spite of small spikes, which are attributable primarily to ethnic genocide in the (non-nuclear) global South. The world did not magically become more pacific. It built nuclear weapons.
The same abolitionists who criticize Kallenborn are horrified by the scale of the slaughter in Gaza and Ukraine. Over 315,000 Russian and 31,000 Ukraine troops are dead in Ukraine and 12,000 Hamas fighters in Gaza. Nuclear abolitionists fail to grasp, this is a mere drop in the bucket compared to great power war.
For example, during World War I, there were 480,000 casualties in 7 days at the Battle of the Marne. There were 848,614 casualties at Passendaele and another 946,000 at Verdun. During World War II, more than 61,000 British civilians died in the Battle of Britain. Over 83,000 British and American airmen died over Germany
European deaths during World War II are estimated at 28.7 million people. Great-power war gave rise to Joseph Stalin and Adolph Hitler, who exterminated over 30 million people between them. Stalin’s genocide of 3.5 to 7 million Ukrainians in 1932 and 1933 is the historical context for Ukrainian resistance today.
When it comes to killing civilians, the Japanese beat Stalin and Hitler combined. They killed over 300,000 Chinese during the “Rape of Nanjing.” China suffered over 35 million casualties during the Japanese occupation. When atomic bombs dropped on Japan, the Japanese army was still killing an estimated 250,000 Chinese every month.
During World War II, conventional bombing raids killed more civilians in a single night than both atomic bombs. In the Dresden firestorm, caused by allied conventional bombing, 135,000 Germans were incinerated. The ability of today’s conventional weapons is even greater.
The only answer to the horror of war is to keep the peace through effective deterrence. To do this, those who would wage war must know the reward does not justify the risk. Deterrence does this at every level of conflict.
Arms control treaty regimes, the source of stability for nuclear disarmament advocates, are largely a failure. Despite the existence of the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, Iran, Iraq, Israel, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, and South Africa all sought or obtained the bomb. The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty also failed to stop nuclear testing, with the violations of India, North Korea, and Pakistan. China, Egypt, Iran, Israel, Russia, and the United States have either not signed or ratified the treaty.
Russia breached the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty during the Obama administration and then suspended participation in New START in 2023. As a result, for the first time in five decades, there is no nuclear arms limitation treaty between the United States and Russia/Soviet Union. Russia already maintained a policy of escalate to de-escalate during New START negotiations and, in fact, Chinese, North Korean, and Russian military doctrines all contemplate nuclear warfighting across the spectrum of conflict.
Deterrence is working every day and is not reserved for discussions of nuclear war. As China, Iran, North Korea, and Russia coalesce in an authoritarian coalition, deterrence remains the last best hope for averting war. It works along the entire continuum of conflict, reducing the likelihood of war. In short, nuclear weapons save lives.
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Colonel Kirk Fansher (US Air Force, Ret.) is a Senior Fellow at the National Institute for Deterrence Studies. The views expressed are the author’s own. |
From what I gather here and in the comments as well as years of research and military experience myself. The argument is that the threat of nuclear war saves lives, but it is also just as obvious that it has not and will not prevent continued buildup or war. Therefore, the takeaway I am left with is that it is not a matter of if but when they will be used and while you argue they save lives today, the moment they are used, the threat will unravel and a full blown nuclear war will undoubtedly kill more people than any previous wars combined. I think Musk has it right, we need to invest in becoming a multi-planet species before this can happen.
Your 31,000 Ukrainians dead is way low by about a factor of 10 (One Source: COL Retired Douglas Macgregor) . The number of Ukrainian dead is closer to 310,000+. The massive killing needs to end.
An excellent piece, driven by data and logical rigor. The fact is, if “a coalition of the willing” somehow ever really existed and did get rid of most of the world’s nukes, cheaters and rogue states would still have some and would face NO constraints on aggressive first use. Worse, in a world where any “deterrence” is merely conventional, hard and tragic experience shows that such deterrence often fails. Witness World War I and World War II. Also, those who oppose America’s nuclear deterrent modernization and rightsizing seem to forget that, despite our great country’s flaws, we are generally NOT an expansionist militaristic nationalist dictatorship. It is freedom’s adversaries in Russia, China, DPRK, and Iran who are the bad guys in their use of offensive nukes for coercion and to shield (even foment) their aggression! Finally, nuclear weapons do exist; the tech and engineering are out there permanently on the Internet and in libraries globally. if Earth ever did denuclearize, that inevitable next big World War would surely lead to many neo-Manhattan Projects to recreate H-bombs which would be used galore — bringing on exactly the nuclear holocaust that the anti-nuclear advocates claim their way will prevent forever. AND, need it be pointed out that much more weakening of America’s nuclear deterrent, and of our will to use it, will wreck our extended deterrence Nuclear Umbrella, triggering a nasty wave of worldwide proliferation — again, the exact opposite of what the anti-nuke folks are trying to achieve.