It is Time for a Nuclearesque Treaty

we can't be lucky forever

I am of the last cohort of military officers who grew up training for nuclear war expected at any moment.

By the time I had been on this planet less than 25 years, I was cleared, if ordered, to deliver nuclear weapons—so were thousands of us. From frigates to submarines to helicopters, pointy nosed jets and prop engined patrol aircraft—our Navy was thick with nuclear weapons.

As a junior officer, it was just another PQS book, another exercise, another inspection, another qualification. No big deal. Well, it was a big deal. I saw a grown man cry over an inspection as a JO.

In hindsight, it was actually kind of amazing how we just lived with those things on a hair-trigger alert—us and the Soviets. Though we got close to a few times, no one started a war no one would win because they misread something benign or vague.

We both fought not insignificant wars with conventional weapons against each other’s proxies, but managed to keep a cool head in charge of the Big Board.

We were both good and lucky…but we are also human. With that humanity comes a gloriously complicated set of error prone systems, thought processes, and just plain incompetence that cannot be engineered out of anything we have our hands in.

There will always be wars—but wars don’t have to be existential to our species nor the nations that wage them. In WWII, all sides were equipped with chemical weapons to the gills, but no one used them…though some lobbied for their use.

As a closet optimist, I am also confident that even at the extremes—in the right conditions and in the right context—every nation wants to ensure that if the ultimate kind of war gets started, it will get started on purpose.

With the technology to deliver nuclear weapons anywhere on the globe in under an hour expanding and the number of space-faring nations expanding at the same pace—it only makes sense that good-faith nations should do all they reasonably can, while maintaining national sovereignty, to ensure, as best they can, that no one mistakes the harmless for the nightmare.

In that light, the below note will, if we are lucky, be the first step to bringing in more nations and—perhaps—making a more substantial agreement. Perhaps a treaty?

Of course, the usual transnational blobish suspects will try to expand the mandate and expand the verbiage for no other reason than that is their nature, but that would be a mistake. If anyone offers to make or call it “comprehensive”, invite them to invest their finite time in other projects.

I hope smart people in hard jobs will see if we can get something simple, direct, and clear along these lines—and get it done before the end of the decade.

t would be a good exercise in international cooperation, if nothing else. That isn’t a bad thing, and this is low-hanging fruit.

Look at the 40 nations listed in the note below. Give or take, these are your S-tier nations. Remember them.

Of course, some important names are missing: India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, People’s Republic of China, and Russia. Heck, throw in Brazil so once again we can see the B.R.I.C. construct is for malign actors on the world stage.

It is a shame we don’t see Argentina here. Their leadership in South America would have been significantly boosted had they signed on. Ditto Chile. I would hope they were asked.

This is a good step. Do not underestimate its importance…even in the busy world we have.

And yes, I fully accept that this is slightly off frequency from a regular message here: the last six years have normalized the use of conventionally armed ballistic missiles at war. Especially as subsonic cruise missiles such as the Tomahawk Land Attack Cruise Missile (TLAM) and SS-N-27 Sizzler lose their efficacy in well-defended airspace, ballistic and trans/hypersonic missiles will become the new standard.

However, the direction is correct. Conventionally armed ICBM have not joined the chat…yet…and the U.S. plans to fire the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) missile from Block V Virginia Class SSGN that could technically be called an SLBM…but these are things that talented diplomats can work out at the table.

The goal is to get everyone to the table before someone does or thinks something stupid, and there won’t be a Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov to save us all.

Side note: This is the first time that I have seen the construct, “Philippines (the)”. Is this new? In know that construct is a database/listing convention, but please tell me this is not a new standard of referring to the country in ordinary prose. Awkward and unprofessional looking as it appears that no one senior properly edited the note.