A lot of people want to eliminate nuclear weapons, but how many if them have looked at the consequences?

Ukraine gave up their nuclear weapons, and as a result hundreds of thousands of people have died.

I am not aware of any significant casualties from the possession of nuclear weapons by any nation that has had operational nukes for more than 2 years.

It seems that if we want to reduce casualties, then we want everyone to keep their nukes.

Please tell me if I am wrong.

Nuclear weapons shift from a very high probability of something with relatively small consequences (conventional war) to a low probability of something with absolutely catastrophic consequences.

What risk of global catastrophe is worth it to reduce or end conventional war? One in a million per year? One in a thousand per year?

The actual risk of nuclear war is extremely hard to estimate. My reading of Cold War history is that it’s closer to one in a hundred per year than one in a million. Having a multitude of nuclear-armed states makes it worse. I don’t find this tradeoff to be even remotely worthwhile.

>It seems that if we want to reduce casualties, then we want everyone to keep their nukes.

More guns meaning more safety is very logical idea, it makes total sense until the next school shooting happens and reminds everybody that people in general aren't consistently reasonable and well-meaning.

How does this work? Let's say tomorrow China attacks India and doesn't at all nuclear weapons - what do you think India will do? Just use nuclear weapons on China and then of course Chinna does that too and they happily annihilate each other into sunset? I can imagine this being done by a completely failed state with nothing to lose and that too is maybe (NK? Maybe even PK though I am not really sure about this one).

As cheeky as it sounds we might need "greener" and "safer" alternatives to nukes but retaining the power for immediate devastation :D

You are right right now. It remains to be seen if you are right forever. When have humans not done the stupidest thing possible that is available to them?

To your first question, I wonder what the outcome would have been if Ukraine had nuclear weapons? Ukraine and Russia just unloading on each other? This question isn't rhetorical or sarcastic, I don't know.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/comments/15mjkut/w...

There's several other counterfactuals you're not considering besides "Ukraine keeps their nukes and doesn't get invaded". Like, what if Ukraine kept their nukes, but Putin invades anyway[0]? Either they launch to make good on the threat and break the nuclear taboo, or they don't launch, in which case they wasted a bunch of money maintaining a nuclear arsenal that isn't useful.

"Breaking the nuclear taboo" is a problem because the only advantage nukes have is deterrent. They are very good at killing civilians and terrorizing states into surrender[1]. But throwing a nuke at a line of incoming Russian tanks would be utterly stupid. They're just too damned big. And the more you normalize the use of nuclear weapons, the less that deterrent effect matters, even outside of the usual "mutually assured destruction" scenario of a superpower vs. superpower nuclear exchange.

The significant casualties you're ignoring are as follows:

- Wasted taxpayer money from maintaining very expensive missiles and nuclear material that don't actually stop invading forces

- Low, but not non-zero probability of a nuclear accident caused by mishandling the nuclear material in the weapon (e.g. that one time we almost nuked North Carolina[2])

- Extremely low, but still not non-zero, probability of escalation to superpower conflicts that would result in the destruction of major population centers in a matter of hours[3].

[0] Remember, Putin is dumb, he thought he'd crush Ukraine in a matter of hours. Do you really think nukes will stop him?

[1] e.g. how we got Japan to go from conditional to unconditional surrender by flattening two cities

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1961_Goldsboro_B-52_crash

[3] Yes, this is potentially survivable, if you happen to be in a concrete basement, aren't in the fireball radius, follow proper decontamination procedure, have uncontaminated food and water for several days, etc. You still don't want this.

If you view the utility function of the modern geopolitics as keeping the maximum number of people safe, then reducing the number of entities with control of nuclear technology is the optimal approach, with the cost of smaller nations being sacrificed for the "Greater Good".