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http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htmurph/20221222.aspx
Murphy's Law: Saving the Nuclear Peace
December 22, 2022
In Ukraine the 77-year-old “Nuclear Peace” is threatened as Russian leader Vladimir Putin continues to threaten use of nuclear weapons if NATO-backed Ukraine does not stop defeating Russian forces seeking to conquer Ukraine and failing to hold on to the 18 percent of Ukraine Russia still occupies.
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Nuclear weapons are good for you. While nearly 2,100 nuclear weapons have been detonated in the last 66 years, only two of these nukes were used in war. That was enough to terrify major nations into avoiding major (but not minor) wars. The continued existence of nuclear weapons has created a new dynamic between the major military powers. This nuclear standoff came to be known as "mutually assured destruction" (MAD) during the Cold War. As a result of MAD, there has not been a war between the Great Powers in Europe since the surrender of Nazi Germany on May 8, 1945, a peace that has lasted 66 years so far. This is the longest period of major-power peace in Europe since before the fall of Rome 1500 years ago. The second-longest such period of peace among the European Great Powers was the 43 years between the end of the Franco-Prussian War (January 31, 1871) and the Austro-Hungarian declaration of war on Serbia (July 28, 1914), which signaled the outbreak of the First World War two days later. In effect, since November 5, 1988, every day that the European Great Powers have not been at war with each other has set a new European regional --and pretty much a world-- record for the duration of a peace.
Proposals to get rid of nuclear weapons not only threaten to upset this peacekeeping mechanism, but ignore the fact that nukes are seen by more vulnerable nations as the cheapest, and most certain, way to guarantee their survival against threats from more powerful neighbors. Give a nation a choice between guaranteeing their safety with an international treaty, or some nukes, which option will most choose? After Russia’s 2014 breach of a treaty promising to respect Ukraine’s borders if it gave up its old Soviet nukes, more nations are seeking nukes than are willing to get rid of them.
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The entire article is at the link.
And I found it to be interesting reading.
Zim.
Mad Poet Strikes Again.
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