Open conflict between Russia and the United States is
heating up in Syria. After American forces shot down a Syrian fighter jet, Russia suspended use of an Obama-era communications line used to prevent collisions and conflict, and threatened to shoot down American planes.
America's Syria policy was and continues to be absolutely moronic. But this alarming development is also a reminder that
there is simply no alternative to diplomatic engagement with Russia, the world's only other nuclear superpower. That's something both the American military, and liberals fired up over Trump's Russia scandal, would do well to remember.
In the discussion about
climate change risk management, I have argued that somewhat unlikely disaster scenarios deserve serious consideration, because it's worth a substantial cost to avoid even a small chance of a huge harm. (It's basic insurance reasoning.) The same is true of nuclear war.
An all-out nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia is one of the few things that could threaten human extinction. Hundreds of millions, perhaps billions, would be
killed in the immediate attack, blowing the world economic system apart, and beginning what would probably be several years of nuclear winter, devastating agriculture. People might survive in remote locations — perhaps Australia and New Zealand — but it's not at all guaranteed in such an extreme scenario.
It would be the worst disaster in history, by several orders of magnitude.
Comment: Spring 1985, interagency committee meeting on the U.S.'s covert policy in Afghanistan. Fred Ikle, who helped push the new policy is asked if Russians shooting down U.S. planes dropping weapons for the Afghan terrorists might start WWIII. Ikle responds:
"Hmmm, World War III. That's not such a bad idea."
These are the kind of people we're dealing with here. (Source: Steve Coll's
Ghost Wars, p. 128)
Comment: Spring 1985, interagency committee meeting on the U.S.'s covert policy in Afghanistan. Fred Ikle, who helped push the new policy is asked if Russians shooting down U.S. planes dropping weapons for the Afghan terrorists might start WWIII. Ikle responds: These are the kind of people we're dealing with here. (Source: Steve Coll's Ghost Wars, p. 128)