Tier Tournament [Top], R1: All nations have a right to nuclear weapons

R1) MAD There's a large claim made here - that all forms of war will be reduced by MAD. At first glance, it seems rational, since a country that acquires a nuclear weapon could respond devastatingly to a given attack. However, I think there are a number of problems with the theory behind MAD. First and foremost, it doesn't apply to non-rational actors. MAD requires that all actors be perfectly rational. Whether this is the result of hatred, desperation, or simply mental derangement, there is a distinct possibility that this will not be true. Leaders don't always function rationally. We could be talking about religious extremism, cults of personality, economic woes, a disintegrating power base, or even just a long standing enmity. Even if they are functioning rationally, there is sometimes a logical reason why an attack would do more harm than a counterattack. It all comes down to basic land area and population density. The capacity of one nation to inflict equal damage on another depends on their ability to hit equivalent targets. As an example, Israel feels the need to stockpile massive amounts of nukes in order to counter the threat imposed by a much bigger, more disseminated population surrounding them. [16] Second, MAD is a policy based off of psychology rather than logic. The argument often goes that MAD has kept us safe. "Gen Henry H. 'Hap' Arnold perhaps best answered this by asserting that modern equipment is but a step in time and that 'any Air Force which does not keep its doctrines ahead of its equipment, and its vision far into the future, can only delude the nation into a false sense of security. '"[16] In other words, as nuclear technologies have gotten more destructive, simpler to deliver, and more accurate, and as intel gets better, this concept is disappearing. The main reason MAD survives is because, when one nation attacks another, the nation being attacked will be capable of retaliating powerfully. The advancement of technology has dramatically altered this dynamic, since the capacity to retaliate can be ameliorated, and as such, has removed the benefit of psychology. Third, as I pointed out in R2, MAD ensures that the capcity to intervene in humanitarian crises is essentially nil. Many leaders would be concerned with the precariousness of their seat of power if they allowed other nations to intervene in their countries, and thus they would always at least respond with the threat, if not the actual usage, of nuclear strikes. But the problem isn't just external - it's a method for holding power over the country's own people. Many nations have shown a willingness to utilize their superior firepower to level any rebel forces or perceived opposition, often with wide collateral effect. We can look to Syria, where Bashir al'Assad and his father were responsible for countless deaths in their efforts to quell opposition forces. There's no reason to believe that, given access to a nuclear weapon, people like Assad would not at least make a very real threat to use that weapon, preempting any efforts at unseating him. Of course, we could believe Pro's analysis, and therefore that these people would still rise up, thus testing his willingness to use nukes. I think this is even worse. In the instance where Assad feels threatened for his life and power base, he's not going to hold back because of some uncertain external threat of intervention. Those external powers are going to be very wary about instigating a nuclear war for the sake of the people of another nation, and so therefore unlikely to counter Syria's threat with their own. So when the people rise up, Assad will crack down, as he always has. Only this time, nuclear weapons will be a part of that suppression. Fourth, even if we buy that MAD prevents nuclear wars, it doesn't prevent warfare as a whole. Despite the threat of nuclear launch, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, the Middle East, the Balkans, as well as many African and Latin American nations have experienced tremendous conflict. [16] And each war creates another opportunity for their use. R1a) The case study This is a good example of a standoff between two individual countries that were both rational actors. I've already shown how many of the actors in a world where everyone is allowed equal access to nuclear weapons are non-rational, but let's put that aside for now. There's a difference between having a one-on-one and a melee. The Cold War involved two strongest superpowers staring each other down. Each country was constantly engaged in spying activities, and focused on watching every move the opposing country made. This incredibly focused, highly selective effort still led to a number of extremely close calls. Note my [13], which showcases 19 incidents where we were placed incredibly close to nuclear annihilation. Pro grants that these occurred. Even in Pro's best case scenario, where we only have one country to worry about and each country involved has the best resources available to them, we came close to nuclear war. He claims that our understood the power of a nuclear strike was what prevented nuclear war, though our capacity to dole out death with one massive bomb certainly didn't affect our willingness to kill far more people with smaller ones, destroying over 90,000 lives, countless homes and untold acres of land in Vietnam. [17, 18] But if Pro is correct in this assessment, then both rational countries should have realized that there was nothing to be gained from a standoff. And yet they both were seconds away from nuclear strikes multiple times. Uncertainty is the key problem. Countries like the U. S. and USSR were both against the idea of mass annihilation, but the possibility that one would launch nuclear weapons before the other controlled their actions. Despite all their efforts to monitor each other, there were too many unknowns, and so they were constantly prepared to respond, even knowing that it was fully possible that their response meant if they were wrong. They let their fear of the unknown drive them to the brink of destruction. If uncertainty was an issue between these two nations, then we should be seriously concerned with the notion of expanding that uncertainty dramatically. Every single one becomes a point of uncertainty. They all have to be monitored in order to keep down that uncertainty, further harming relations, but that's asking too much in a world this large with so many possible actors. Each one could launch a missile at any point in time, and every other country has to be prepared to respond before it reaches them. This dramatically increases the chance that each nation will be the impetus for nuclear war. For nations that don't have advanced satellite networks, their uncertainty is even greater, and all of them are not going to have the extensive fail-safe systems that prevented the Cold War from turning hot. Even if we assume that Pro is right, and that every future interaction between nuclear nations will be akin to that experienced between these two nations, do we really want to see scenarios like these play out in practically every nation and simply hope for the best? Can we, and should we, assume that none of these interactions will play out into nuclear war? R2) Economics Please, grant this point. Pro is entirely right - prices will go down as a result of competition, more nations will have access to not only the nuclear materials, but the capacity to launch them reliably. This market will also give them access to nuclear physicists from nations that have these weapons, allowing them the capacity to create more. The economic benefits that he places in here are incredibly small by comparison to all the conceivable harms, and since this increased spread also increases the possibilities of those harms, this only supercharges the scenarios I've provided. Pro will have to show how these benefits outweigh the massive harms in relations that can result from threats and usage of nuclear weapons, and show that the increased need for defense development (which would easily swallow most, if not all, of the funds garnered) is substantially beneficial. R3) Balance of Power Here, I think Pro is arguing that the lack of retaliation in the form of a nuclear weapon makes countries with nukes feel invulnerable in their usage, but this is patently absurd. In a world where nuclear umbrellas cover many non-nuclear countries, the capacity of any nation to engage in this sort of behavior is nil. Any such retaliatory benefit exists in status quo, and it isn't improved by spreading those weapons around. Since this exists now, the idea that accidental launch is more deterred in a world where everyone has nukes is unwarranted. Retaliation for accidental launches would occur now - all that increases here is the number of countries with the propensity for fallibility on this grand scale. But I'm similarly bewildered by his later statement about the illegal building of weapons. The ways in which nuclear weapons are regulated after their creation are either voluntarily or through coercion, and this doesn't change based on how they were acquired. There's no reason MAD wouldn't still apply. Why can a country that creates a nuclear weapon illegally afford to fire one, whereas one that acquires theirs legally cannot? Does the legality of the weapon itself alter the legality of its usage? I would say not. It's better that countries that would build nuclear weapons illegally be forced to deal with the associated difficulties rather than being allowed easy access. Those countries are obviously non-rational in their illegal pursuit of these ends and thus should not be allowed easy access to such dangerous weapons. Back to Pro. 16. . http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil... 17. . http://en.wikipedia.org... 18. . https://www.greenleft.org.au...