That's pretty overstated (there are many different types of wars, prevented by many different means), but a decent case can be made that nuclear weapons reduce the chance of some conventional wars between nuclear armed States.

However, nuclear war between the US & USSR was not prevented by the existence of nuclear weapons. Even ignoring the logical absurdity this would require, the simple fact is that nuclear war nearly happened on many occasions as a result of various misadventures, and it was a matter of pure dumb luck that it didn't. It literally is just an accident of fortune that we didn't have a world-encircling cataclysm. Your and my existence hinges merely on happenstance. Huge amounts of documentation attest to this. The best single-volume account is probably Eric Schlosser's Command and Control.

Nuclear weapons don't prevent war. They reduce the frequency of some types of conventional war, at the cost of making cataclysm absolutely inevitable. They will be used at some point, whether by malign choice or accident. It is only a matter of time.

There are a whole bunch of other questions discussed by military historians which complicate the matter further, arguing (for example) that nuclear weapons increase the number and length of proxy wars. But even that's all a detail in the face of the manifest fact that if nuclear weapons continue to be deployed, we will have a nuclear war one day.

So perhaps we should be working on some less risky peace-building efforts, while there's still time?

" Even ignoring the logical absurdity this would require, the simple fact is that nuclear war nearly happened on many occasions as a result of various misadventures, and it was a matter of pure dumb luck that it didn't."

No - this is false.

It was the existential and immense nature of the consequences of war that enabled the parties to 'back down'.

Without nukes - the US and USSR would have likely started a bunch of scuffles here and there.

There's a great chance that US/USSR navies duked it out over Cuba - because the consequences would have been likely very limited - unless they escalated of course.

Yes, we were lucky that it didn't go down as well, but nukes have been a huge factor in keeping the war basically cold..

"some less risky peace-building efforts" - there is really no such thing. 'Balancing Power' is what creates peace for the most part.

Two Soviets who personally prevented nuclear war.[0][1] If these don't sound like 'dumb luck' to you, well... It wasn't 'the parties' that backed down, it was the world's immense luck to have a particular individual being in the right place who didn't follow orders, and didn't go along with the consensus.

Why these guys aren't better known, I have no idea.

[0] http://time.com/4947492/stanislav-petrov-soviet-officer-nucl...

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasili_Arkhipov

I raise your hypothetical destruction three persons who engaged in all out Warfare, either against ones own nation or against one another, with thorough destruction and civilizational decline.

[0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_Zedong

My assumption is that those scientists working on the bomb, where perfectly aware of what humanity was capable of (even with democracy and hightech) and decided to raise us this rockets as a monumental finger of "Never again or never ever after!". Way to go to tame a beast, who thinks you are a useful plaything. Well played Mr.Oppenheimer.

Rage all you want upon this monument of reason, erected against the intellectual treason you commit against the humanity that is- not the humanity you wish for.

The inferno of the first WorldWar, the Inferno of the second WorldWar, the various Colonial Wars and all the useless carnage before - these all started with a humanity capable of deducing deterrence, but true deterrence appeared first in presidential discussions after the existence of ICBMs.

I don’t think you clicked on either of the links in the comment you’re replying to.

Sorry, I didn't really understand a word of that.

Yes, no "dumb luck" prevented nuclear war, but the actions of two true heroes who were brave enough to go against the grain and the possibility of extreme consequences from their regime.

You're ignoring the many cases meticulously documented from official sources by Schlosser and others where accidents and rogue orders only didn't set off a world-scale nuclear war because of lucky breaks (literally in some cases -- the hardware breaking) and disobedient underlings. There is really little debate about this amongst historians. The documents are there.

Run the experiment several times, and this luck inevitably runs out. Continue with nuclear weapons, and there just will be a nuclear war.

I've read the books, and frankly it's freaky. It looks a lot like anthropic selection, which is a conclusion I don't want to come to--and which should be false, it's not like nuclear war would cause extinction.

I don't have a good explanation for that number of coincidences, though.

> Without nukes - the US and USSR would have likely started a bunch of scuffles here and there.

They did.

but the scuffles were not direct confrontations between the armed forces of the superpowers (the nukes held them back, they were afraid of a possible escalation); the wars were always in far-off places between proxies (or that the other side was a proxy)

I don't consider proxy wars to be "better wars", I'd consider them even worse than conventional warfare because it's people, sometimes whole nations, dying for somebodies else cause.

they are still better than what WWIII would look like

" dying for somebodies else cause."

False. 'Proxy wars' is a misleading title.

The Korean war was not a 'proxy war' it was a real war, that happened to also be a proxy for other powers.

Country A does not fight random country B for no reason.

They are generally real conflicts where their actions may happen to have geostragetic alignment with other powers.

> Country A does not fight random country B for no reason.

No, they usually don't. But countries, nations, and people often have very long lasting disagreements. Instrumentalizing those, for another "bigger" cause isn't really that hard of a task for the far more influential and powerful countries C and D.

C and D end up supplying A and B with money, weapons, training and sometimes even direct manpower.

The result is usually a conflict that escalates much more quickly in scope and severity than it would have without the involvement of C and D.

A century of suffering in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia is the consequence of those little wars.

These predate the US-USSR cold war, though. They're rooted in good old fashioned colonial exploitation.

The Soviets distributed kalashnikovs, rpgs and other weapons with missionary zeal to attain world communism. The US did all sorts of nasty stuff.

The outcome is a tire fire that will burn for my lifetime at least.

Nuclear weapons are the reason Russia can invade Ukraine without consequence. And annex Crimea, and attack Georgia.

They are the reason that Turkey can shoot down Russian fighters without Russia attacking Turkey.

They are the reason USA can invade Iraq, Afghanistan, etc. without being counter-attacked by others.

Because of nuclear weapons, we can have dozens of "wars" all the time where nobody has the courage to stop the 10Ks of deaths in each one because we're terrified of millions of deaths.

I don't know how you can say it stops countries from going to war. The largest nuclear powers are in a constant state of war, daring anyone to stop them.

While undoubtedly tragedies in their own right, Ukraine, Iraq, etc. are tiny conflicts in comparison to major industrialized economies making total war on each other in the years before nukes existed.

By the most liberal estimates, the Iraq war killed 1 million. World War 2 killed 70 million easy.

10M deaths not inflicted through nuclear exchange is still better than 10M deaths that happened, from conventional exchange in a war that starts from one party retaliating after a shot down plane.

Current situation sucks, but I'm not convinced removing nukes from the equation would improve it.

For 10M to die, 10M need to show up when the invitations to please attend the war appear in their mailboxes. I, for one, will decline. I'd rather spend my time watching the highlights on TV, between the cricket of course. Should things go bad for "my" side, I'd go camping until it all blows over. Nuclear war is going to ruin my fishing, and probably my weekend - that won't do.

You're assuming you'll be the attacking side.

Compare with a story of a real country not so long ago. A large power invented a false reason to start a war, and then suddenly the country gets bombed all across the territory, and few days later there are shock troops in the capital. Total death toll of citizens of this country is, to date, around 0.55M [0].

Were you living there, I'm not sure you'd have time, or capacity, to "go camping until it all blows over".

Now this situation - and a bunch of similar ones in recent years - only reinforces the perception that if you don't have nuclear weapons, or don't have very close friends with some, you risk being abused or outright invaded by the larger players. It's actually no surprise NK is so aggressive in their nuclear program.

--

[0] - I'm counting the 0.37M of those who opposed the invasion and 0.18M who switched sides.

It will be like a invitation to work from your boss- you simply will decline, because hey basic income.

Your argument is a contradiction to itself. Ukraine was invaided after it gave up its stockpile of nuclear weapons.

https://en.m..org/wiki/Nuclear_weapons_and_Ukraine

The USA convinced every nation it's at odds with that they should pursue nukes when it toppled Gaddafi after he voluntarily quit pursuing them.

The US did not topple Gaddafi. He was in the midst of civil war when NATO did some intervention, mostly led by UK and France.

Gulf Arab states on the ground hunted him down, it was Qatari forces that likely killed him.

The US did some drones, AWACS and coordination, but to suggest it was the US is not quit fair.

Gaddafi was one of the longest-serving leaders in the history of the entire Middle East. It is a pretty widely held opinion that he would still be in power had he kept pursuing nuclear arms.

Current US Intel chief on this subject: https://theintercept.com/2017/07/29/dan-coats-north-korea-nu...

iirc Libya had the highest per-capita GDP / quality of living/(?) in Africa before, now there are people being sold as slaves

Yes, https://www.globalresearch.ca/libya-from-africas-richest-sta... , and yes http://time.com/5042560/libya-slave-trade/

Yes. The USA should quit meddling in places it doesn't understand at all.

"Don’t invade a country if you are too lazy to learn the language." is a good rule of thumb here.

http://www.pieria.co.uk/articles/why_the_worlds_biggest_mili...

Isn't lybia a dictatorship in both cases anyway ?

" Libya had the highest per-capita GDP / quality of living/(?) in Africa"

Except for the part where Gaddaffi was using his military against half his nation in revolt.

In this case, perception is reality. If the rest of the world thinks Gaddafi was toppled because he gave up his nukes, then it’s true. At least as far as the decision to pursue a nuclear program. It’s certainly what North Korea thinks.

"If the rest of the world thinks Gaddafi was toppled because he gave up his nukes, then it’s true"

This is not what the world thinks.

Gaddafi was not about to obtain nuclear status - not even close.

There's no way he would have been allowed to anyhow.

Libya is a fairly small country, smaller than Chicago, fragmented, spread apart, with no industry other than some oil.

North Korea is not remotely comparable to Libya - I don't think the North Koreans see a true analogy.

I think the north Koreans see that any state opposing a major force in recent history got pushed over and trampled upon for oil and various reasons. Well except for Pakistan. Pakistan is a ally. Does not even have to export oil to be one. Okay, it has al quaida hide outs - but it is a really good friend. Loyal, as long as the bri- the budget doesn't run out. Totally different from afghanistan.

Another great country, that totally does not get pushed around comes to mind. Israel. Surrounded by enemys, with some really nasty wars in its recent history- that suddenly stopped.

Or India, dear god, that country was fractured and ripe for the taking- and yet, suddenly its independence is well respected- just like it is by all those companies and foreign powers in africa.

I wonder why.(not)

Delusional Intentions do not equal good outcomes, just because they timewise correlated.

"a major force in recent history got pushed over and trampled upon for oil "

This is ridiculous.

The US didn't take a drop of Iraqi, Kuwaiti or Libyan Oil.

The US could take all the Oil in the Middle East in a heartbeat if it wanted to.

This whole 'war for Oil' bit is mostly rubbish.

'War for continued access to energy' yes - but the us is not grabbing resources with military power, moreover, North Korea has nothing anyone wants.

Did you mean Saddam Hussein?

Nope.

MAD worked when nation-states thought that nuclear weapons and their secrets should be protected at all costs.

If a nation-state is doing it's dirty work through a terrorist organization, MAD no longer works.

The bulk of research funding in the departments I studied in went to development of technology to support identification and attribution of rogue nuclear weapons attacks, over any other peaceful or constructive use of nuclear technology.

Nuclear weapons states and their force commanders are well aware of this capability. It’s been publicly advertised for decades for deterrence.

Nuclear weapons prevent war between nations wielding nuclear weapons. It did not prevent proxy wars. Also because of nuclear weapons noone dares to intervene when countries like the US or Russia invade other countries (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine). At worst they get a slap on the wrist from the UN, but they have permanent veto rights there too ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

That depends on your definition of "world war". Currently, with the U.S.'s War on Terror it does seem like everybody is fighting somebody.

Since we're on the U.S. - they have nukes and a clear technological superiority to everyone else. I don't see them doing much for world peace though.

There hasn't been a day without war since WW II ended.

Veto power in the security council strongly correlates with being a nuclear power.