I agree that nuclear weapons are the best example for both discontinuity and for decisive strategic advantage; I also agree the United States possessed decisive strategic advantage with nuclear weapons, and that we elected not to employ it (by ignorance and/or the value alignment of the US government).
However, I am skeptical of the metrics we are considering here. What is the motivation for using cost/TNT equivalent? Intuitively, this seems to be the same mistake as measuring AGI’s power in operations per second; there is a qualitative difference at work which such numbers obscure. Further, this is not the mechanism that militaries use in their planning. To illustrate the point, consider the last paragraph of page 3 in this memo (which is one of the sources provided in Gentzel’s information hazards of the Cold War post here). I will quote one line in particular to prime the intuition:
(Single rather than multi-weapon attack on each target is the rule in order to conserve delivery forces.)
I think the key insight was hit on in the AI Impacts blog post which accompanied the cost analysis:
And in particular, there are an empty three orders of magnitude between the most chemical energy packed into a thing and the least nuclear energy packed into a thing.
Dollars and TNT equivalents give the illusion that these things are fungible; if we consider the bombing campaigns in WWII where more destructive power was delivered than with the nuclear bombing missions, we notice that those were entire campaigns and the nuclear bombings were missions. This is the implication of that big jump in energy: it only takes one successful long-range bomber to kill or cripple any city on the face of the earth.
I think our ability to reason about this, especially in a fashion where we can usefully compare it to AGI, is improved by sticking more closely to the strategic implications. One possibility: in lieu of cost, time; in lieu of energy, targets destroyed. So the new metric would be time per target. This seems to map more closely to considerations of how quickly an AGI can accomplish its goals.
It’s not clear that the US could have employed nuclear weapons decisively. The US had nuclear weapons, true, but the only way of delivering those weapons was by plane, and aircraft of that era were relatively easy to shoot down. The only nuclear capable bomber the US had at the end of World War 2 was the B-29 Superfortress, and it was clear that it was increasingly obsolete in the face of the new generation of jet-powered fighters and interceptors coming into service with both the US and Soviet air forces.
Moreover, as this AskHistorians question points out, the US nuclear inventory was extremely thin prior to about 1950 or so. According to Schlosser, the US barely had a dozen weapons in 1948, and of those, the majority were unusable, due to lack of maintenance. It’s not clear that the US could have bombed the Soviet Union into oblivion, even if it had chosen to do so—the Soviets would have been able to shoot down most of our nuclear-capable bombers, and what got through would have been completely insufficient to inflict lasting damage on an industrialized economy.
You raise some good points, but I think they do not change the conclusion. I think the key intuition where we differ is that I believe the requirements for decisive strategic advantage are lower than most people expect.
1) The historical data about the production and deployment of nuclear weapons is predicated on the strategic decision not to exploit them. When comparing weapon volume and delivery, we would be thinking about the counterfactual case where we did decide to exploit them, ie: wartime production continues unabated; weapons are maintained with intent to use them; delivery systems are still being deployed in a wartime context (after air superiority campaigns, etc).
2) Bombing the Soviets into oblivion was not the criteria for victory. The overwhelming total destructive capability developed during the Cold War was not calculated for delivery—it was calculated to have enough capacity left over after receiving a first strike to deliver sufficient destruction. The correct criteria for victory are the ones that were in play during WWII: enough to make any given power surrender. With American war production unaltered, I suggest that very few successful nuclear missions would have been required—just the capitals of the belligerents, and their primary war production centers. The dozen weapons in 1948, had they been well-maintained, would have sufficed. I note that the Lend-Lease program was necessary to provide the Soviets with enough air power to defend against the Nazis; lacking further support, they would have had little with which to defend against American air forces.
The source linked in the AskHistorians answer specifies:
“There has been no attempt to estimate the quantity of atomic bombs which would be required to conduct a prolonged war of attrition,”
And:
The analysis quickly fesses up to the fact that the only nation they’re concerned about is Russia, because they’re the only one who is projected to be even remotely on par with the United States from a military point of view for the next decade.
I am making a few assumptions here—namely that the decision point for exploiting strategic advantage was counterfactually made around the same time the US forces met the Soviet forces in Berlin, if not before. Further, I would not consider local problems like insurgencies or rebellions to challenge the fundamental advantage, because they are largely only a question of how much of the local resources can be safely exploited. The key element, in my view, is that no government could oppose the will of the United States, as distinct from a stricter standard like the United States assumes total control over all population centers. It is sufficient to be the only one who can fully mobilize any resources.
While I think the US could have threatened the soviets into not producing nuclear weapons at that point in time, I think I have trouble seeing how the US could put in the requisite controls/espionage to prevent India/China/Uk etc from developing nuclear weapons later on.
Why would the controls the United States counterfactually put in place to maintain nuclear monopoly be less effective than the ones which are actually in place to maintain nuclear advantage? There would be no question of where or when nuclear inspectors had access, and war would’ve been a minimal risk.
As of about 10 years ago MAD conditions no longer apply. I don’t have a source for this because it was related to me directly by someone who was present at the briefing, but around 2006-07 our advanced simulations concluded that the United States had something like a ~60% chance of completely eliminating Russia’s second strike capacity if they had no warning, and still a ~20% chance if they did.
I was able to find a Foreign Affairs article that discusses some of the reasons for this disparity here. The short version is that we were much more successful in maintaining our nuclear forces than Russia.
I feel the need to add an important caveat: MAD as a strategic situation may not apply, but MAD as a defense policy still does. Moving away from the defense policy is what the Foreign Affairs article warns against, and it is what the book I am reading right now concludes is the right course. In historical terms, it argues in favor of Herman Kahn over Schelling.
I agree that nuclear weapons are the best example for both discontinuity and for decisive strategic advantage; I also agree the United States possessed decisive strategic advantage with nuclear weapons, and that we elected not to employ it (by ignorance and/or the value alignment of the US government).
However, I am skeptical of the metrics we are considering here. What is the motivation for using cost/TNT equivalent? Intuitively, this seems to be the same mistake as measuring AGI’s power in operations per second; there is a qualitative difference at work which such numbers obscure. Further, this is not the mechanism that militaries use in their planning. To illustrate the point, consider the last paragraph of page 3 in this memo (which is one of the sources provided in Gentzel’s information hazards of the Cold War post here). I will quote one line in particular to prime the intuition:
I think the key insight was hit on in the AI Impacts blog post which accompanied the cost analysis:
Dollars and TNT equivalents give the illusion that these things are fungible; if we consider the bombing campaigns in WWII where more destructive power was delivered than with the nuclear bombing missions, we notice that those were entire campaigns and the nuclear bombings were missions. This is the implication of that big jump in energy: it only takes one successful long-range bomber to kill or cripple any city on the face of the earth.
I think our ability to reason about this, especially in a fashion where we can usefully compare it to AGI, is improved by sticking more closely to the strategic implications. One possibility: in lieu of cost, time; in lieu of energy, targets destroyed. So the new metric would be time per target. This seems to map more closely to considerations of how quickly an AGI can accomplish its goals.
Edit: accidentally a word
It’s not clear that the US could have employed nuclear weapons decisively. The US had nuclear weapons, true, but the only way of delivering those weapons was by plane, and aircraft of that era were relatively easy to shoot down. The only nuclear capable bomber the US had at the end of World War 2 was the B-29 Superfortress, and it was clear that it was increasingly obsolete in the face of the new generation of jet-powered fighters and interceptors coming into service with both the US and Soviet air forces.
Moreover, as this AskHistorians question points out, the US nuclear inventory was extremely thin prior to about 1950 or so. According to Schlosser, the US barely had a dozen weapons in 1948, and of those, the majority were unusable, due to lack of maintenance. It’s not clear that the US could have bombed the Soviet Union into oblivion, even if it had chosen to do so—the Soviets would have been able to shoot down most of our nuclear-capable bombers, and what got through would have been completely insufficient to inflict lasting damage on an industrialized economy.
You raise some good points, but I think they do not change the conclusion. I think the key intuition where we differ is that I believe the requirements for decisive strategic advantage are lower than most people expect.
1) The historical data about the production and deployment of nuclear weapons is predicated on the strategic decision not to exploit them. When comparing weapon volume and delivery, we would be thinking about the counterfactual case where we did decide to exploit them, ie: wartime production continues unabated; weapons are maintained with intent to use them; delivery systems are still being deployed in a wartime context (after air superiority campaigns, etc).
2) Bombing the Soviets into oblivion was not the criteria for victory. The overwhelming total destructive capability developed during the Cold War was not calculated for delivery—it was calculated to have enough capacity left over after receiving a first strike to deliver sufficient destruction. The correct criteria for victory are the ones that were in play during WWII: enough to make any given power surrender. With American war production unaltered, I suggest that very few successful nuclear missions would have been required—just the capitals of the belligerents, and their primary war production centers. The dozen weapons in 1948, had they been well-maintained, would have sufficed. I note that the Lend-Lease program was necessary to provide the Soviets with enough air power to defend against the Nazis; lacking further support, they would have had little with which to defend against American air forces.
The source linked in the AskHistorians answer specifies:
And:
I am making a few assumptions here—namely that the decision point for exploiting strategic advantage was counterfactually made around the same time the US forces met the Soviet forces in Berlin, if not before. Further, I would not consider local problems like insurgencies or rebellions to challenge the fundamental advantage, because they are largely only a question of how much of the local resources can be safely exploited. The key element, in my view, is that no government could oppose the will of the United States, as distinct from a stricter standard like the United States assumes total control over all population centers. It is sufficient to be the only one who can fully mobilize any resources.
What are your thoughts?
While I think the US could have threatened the soviets into not producing nuclear weapons at that point in time, I think I have trouble seeing how the US could put in the requisite controls/espionage to prevent India/China/Uk etc from developing nuclear weapons later on.
Why would the controls the United States counterfactually put in place to maintain nuclear monopoly be less effective than the ones which are actually in place to maintain nuclear advantage? There would be no question of where or when nuclear inspectors had access, and war would’ve been a minimal risk.
I’m curious what type of nuclear advantage you think America has. It is is still bound by MAD due to nukes on submersibles.
I think that US didn’t have a sufficient intelligence capability to know where to inspect. Take Israel as an example.
CIA were saying in 1968 ”...Israel might undertake a nuclear weapons program in the next several years”. When Israel had already built a bomb in 1966.
As of about 10 years ago MAD conditions no longer apply. I don’t have a source for this because it was related to me directly by someone who was present at the briefing, but around 2006-07 our advanced simulations concluded that the United States had something like a ~60% chance of completely eliminating Russia’s second strike capacity if they had no warning, and still a ~20% chance if they did.
I was able to find a Foreign Affairs article that discusses some of the reasons for this disparity here. The short version is that we were much more successful in maintaining our nuclear forces than Russia.
I am not certain how the intervening years have affected this calculus, but based on the reaction to Russia’s recent claims of nuclear innovation, I suspect they are not changed much. I am reading a book called The Great American Gamble: Deterrence Theory and Practice from the Cold War to the Twenty-First Century, by Keith B. Payne, which I expect will shed considerably more light on the subject.
Interesting. I didn’t know Russia’s defences had degraded so much.
I feel the need to add an important caveat: MAD as a strategic situation may not apply, but MAD as a defense policy still does. Moving away from the defense policy is what the Foreign Affairs article warns against, and it is what the book I am reading right now concludes is the right course. In historical terms, it argues in favor of Herman Kahn over Schelling.