This past Monday, January 3, the leaders of five nations released a ‘rare’ joint statement suggesting that a nuclear war can never be ‘won’.
The statement (which, as mentioned, was ‘rare’) was endorsed by the U.S., China, Russia, Great Britain and France — five nations who together have over 10,000 nuclear warheads just sitting around, waiting for the popcorn to pop.
From the statement (which you can view here):
We affirm that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. As nuclear use would have far-reaching consequences, we also affirm that nuclear weapons — for as long as they continue to exist — should serve defensive purposes, deter aggression, and prevent war. We believe strongly that the further spread of such weapons must be prevented.
Obviously, the five nations (or at least, their leaders) think nuclear weapons serve a useful purpose, “as long as they continue to exist”. To prevent war. Defensively. Deterring aggression.
If you point your nuclear missiles at the other guy, and he points his nuclear missiles at you, that will definitely prevent anything bad from happening. Or so the joint statement suggests.
But it will also prevent anything good from happening.
As we all know, the whole point of getting involved in a war is to win. Winning a war is about the best thing that can happen to a nation, right up there with being the first to send a man into outer space.
The U.S. wasn’t the first to send a man into outer space, of course, but we were first to send men to the moon. As Albert Einstein once said, “You can’t win ’em all, but you can be a good sport about it.”
Russia and the U.S. have actually been doing a pretty good job of acting like they don’t want a nuclear war. The U.S. had about 23,000 nuclear warheads in 1985; the number is now down to about 5,500. Still enough warheads to destroy every living thing on Planet Earth, but even so, some kind of improvement.
Russia had about 40,000 warheads in 1985; they are reportedly down to about 6,200.
This reduction of weapons resulted in part from an agreement signed by U.S. President Reagan and General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev. That 1985 agreement stated, in part:
The sides, having discussed key security issues, and conscious of the special responsibility of the USSR and the U.S. for maintaining peace, have agreed that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought…
The new agreement, signed on January 3, 2022, also affirms that a nuclear war “cannot be won and must never be fought.” (A little plagiarism here?)
But I think there’s a key point that these five nations — U.S., China, Russia, Great Britain and France — are missing.
Whenever you have a winner, you also have a loser. (Denver Bronco fans have been reminded of this fact nearly every weekend, this season.)
So if a nuclear war cannot be won, then — by definition — a nuclear war cannot be lost.
But a non-nuclear war can be lost, and losing a war is bad for a nation’s pride. Like, practically every war that the U.S. has been involved in since 1965, we eventually lost. Losing is not fun. (Ask the Denver Bronco fans.)
Four of the five nations — Russia, Great Britain, France and the U.S. — have been quite happy to send their armies and navies and fighter jets into nations that do not yet have nuclear weapons: Iraq. Afghanistan. Crimea. Libya. Vietnam. Cambodia. Chad. Mali. Somalia. But these non-nuclear wars can be (and often are) lost.
The great thing about a nuclear war is, you can’t lose it.
Unless you want to count “not a single thing remaining alive” as “losing”.