On 1, whilst that should reduce your belief that Trump himself will fire nuclear weapons, it is a fairly weak argument for several reasons: first, many many people have had something to protect yet engaged in reckless behaviour anyway with no regard for others. It’s on a much smaller scale than starting a nuclear apocalypse but we should still consider that family members are only a weak protection, especially if, as others have argued, Trump is highly impulsive. Further, it only holds if Trump really does value his family highly, higher than his own self image, and given that he is a massive narcissist I’d say that’s not guaranteed by any means.
The second issue is that there are more ways for MAD to occur than simply Trump ordering an attack. A nuclear war could be started by other nations, and there is reason to believe that Trump leads to a higher probability of this. First of all, he has encouraged nuclear proliferation, which will simply increase the number of actors capable of an attack and thus inevitably increasing the probability. Secondly, many non-nuclear nations may be tempted to acquire some if they believe they are undefended, which again is something that Trump has stated. Perhaps Japan feels endangered by North Korea and starts their own weapons program as the US pulls out troops or some such. I believe Scott Alexander made a similar argument over at SSC, probably better worded than mine.
I have no disagreements on point 2, and no comment on 4.
Regarding 3, I think this is a false argument. The issue I have is that ‘Islam’ is not a nation state or even a physical construct
, you cannot start a nuclear war with ‘Islam’. Presumably when you refer to Islam you are talking of the danger of a terrorist group or possibly ISIS. However, its difficult to see any MAD situation with such groups—for one, it is extremely unlikely that they are ever able to acquire more than one weapon and thus they can’t ‘retaliate’ further. In addition, if they were able to succeed with a nuclear attack, there would also be nothing for the US or others to retaliate against. You cannot launch a nuclear strike against Al-Qaeda, and though ISIS do have land to attack they are now so spread out that it simply wouldn’t make sense to go with a nuclear option over conventional warfare (albeit this can change over time).
On 1, whilst that should reduce your belief that Trump himself will fire nuclear weapons, it is a fairly weak argument for several reasons: first, many many people have had something to protect yet engaged in reckless behaviour anyway with no regard for others. It’s on a much smaller scale than starting a nuclear apocalypse but we should still consider that family members are only a weak protection, especially if, as others have argued, Trump is highly impulsive. Further, it only holds if Trump really does value his family highly, higher than his own self image, and given that he is a massive narcissist I’d say that’s not guaranteed by any means.
The second issue is that there are more ways for MAD to occur than simply Trump ordering an attack. A nuclear war could be started by other nations, and there is reason to believe that Trump leads to a higher probability of this. First of all, he has encouraged nuclear proliferation, which will simply increase the number of actors capable of an attack and thus inevitably increasing the probability. Secondly, many non-nuclear nations may be tempted to acquire some if they believe they are undefended, which again is something that Trump has stated. Perhaps Japan feels endangered by North Korea and starts their own weapons program as the US pulls out troops or some such. I believe Scott Alexander made a similar argument over at SSC, probably better worded than mine.
I have no disagreements on point 2, and no comment on 4.
Regarding 3, I think this is a false argument. The issue I have is that ‘Islam’ is not a nation state or even a physical construct , you cannot start a nuclear war with ‘Islam’. Presumably when you refer to Islam you are talking of the danger of a terrorist group or possibly ISIS. However, its difficult to see any MAD situation with such groups—for one, it is extremely unlikely that they are ever able to acquire more than one weapon and thus they can’t ‘retaliate’ further. In addition, if they were able to succeed with a nuclear attack, there would also be nothing for the US or others to retaliate against. You cannot launch a nuclear strike against Al-Qaeda, and though ISIS do have land to attack they are now so spread out that it simply wouldn’t make sense to go with a nuclear option over conventional warfare (albeit this can change over time).