Until recently, I thought that the risk of a nuclear war in the 21st century, while not zero, was nevertheless very low and the marginal bit of effort spent reducing it further was probably not a good use of resources. But in the past two weeks, a series of articles on Vox.com have led me to rethink that view. The most detailed of them is worth reading for full context, but I think the key points are these:
- Some experts are starting to worry that recent events in eastern Europe have raised the risk of a NATO-Russia nuclear war.
- This is because Putin is feeling vulnerable and threatened, and is using nuclear saber-rattling to compensate, doing some things even Cold War-era Soviet leaders avoided (because they felt more secure in their position).
- While nobody wants an all-out nuclear war, a particularly worrisome scenario is that Putin does something which, he expects, will scare NATO into backing off, but instead leads to a spiral of escalation.
I doubt the EA movement is well positioned to do anything about this in the short term. In the long term, building the EA movement inside Russia and other belligerent countries seems like a really good idea.
How about incentives in Russia? I worry somewhat about making Western countries less bellicose while leaving Russia highly bellicose. Mumble mumble nuclear deterrence game theory mumble mumble. The first solution that comes to mind is not always the best one.
The Global Priorities Project is run by the Centre for Effective Altruism, and has had meetings with policymakers in the United Kingdom. However, it's correct this might not be enough of an organizational front to have an effect on nuclear armament policy. I think if there was something effective altruism felt the need to do, say, within the next five to ten years, effective altruism would support existing organizations who already have leverage with the government. I think there would be a need to assess what would constitute effective action in this area... (read more)