Since the break-up of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, general anxiety about nuclear war has lessened, and rightly so. Though the risk of a nuclear wolrd war between yje Unites States and the Russian Federation is much less, other risks have grown.
Three 'nuclear wapen states' have not signed the non-proliferaion treaty and ome has not even acknowledged it has them. Those states are Pakistan, India, North Korea and Israel. Two of those are uneasy neighbors with a history of conflict: India and Pakistan. North Korea considers South Korea and the USA its enemies.
According to Brecher & Wilkenfeld the moment that had the largest probability of unleashing a nuclear world war was the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. They estimated that probability as around 25%. They saw the primary conflict at the end of the 80s as the Israel-Arab tensions. By the way, SIPRI estimates that today Israel has around 80 nuclear weapons. In the whole world we are over 10,000.
Reading a couple of recent analyses, it seems to me that the three major dangers are:
Use of nuclear weapons by North-Korea against South Korea and the USA.
A nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan
A nuclear exchange between the USA and the Russian Federation.
The first seems the least unlikely, but will be by far the smallest. The second will be larger, but even less likely and the third is very unlikely, but may be incomparably larger.
And what about terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear weapon? It will be horrible, but most milited and unlikely to set off a nuclear war, though it seems nort impossible in the second scenario. And if Islamists would set off a nuclear bomb in or near Israel, that would certainly set off a chain reaction. (Excuse the wording.)
What is probably the most unmanageable factor in creating havoc? Psychopaths, like the pilot flying the passenger plane into a mountain. But nowhere can a bomb be launched by a single individual. Smuggling a device into a city requires fewer people, but seems still a far cry from a lone wolf set-up.
The general consensus among the specialists is that the chance on a nuclear war today is definitively larger than during the Cold War, though most probably not as world-wide as it was envisaged then.
But one large bomb on Israel will destroy so much, that no restraint can be expected in the response. Or one nuclear missile on Seoul or a large Indian city will not go unanswered, if only because you don't know if more are coming.
The UK, France and China have also nuclear weapons, but the chances of them unleashing a nuclear war seem slim.
How to manage this risk? The challenge boils down to: how to avoid the first nuclear explosion?
Read my chapter 10 in 'People Make the World' for a more general analysis.
Sunday, February 12, 2017
Tuesday, December 13, 2016
Referendums, populism and deliberative polling
Democracy is good. Churchill in the House of Commons, 11 November 1947: It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government — except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.
And before that on 8 December 1944: The ordinary man who keeps a wife and family, who goes off to fight for his country when it is in trouble, goes to the poll at the appropriate time, and puts his cross on the ballot paper showing the candidate he wishes to be elected to Parliament— he is the foundation of democracy. This man or woman should do this without fear and without any intimidation or victimization.
Democracy is good. The ultimate in democracy are referendums. So referendums are the ultimate good.
Are they?
In theory yes, in practice no. Everything under the sun has its conditions. Conditions to exist, and conditions to exist well. If I look at the Brexit-referendum and before that the Ukraine-referendum in the Netherlands, I see a fundamental weakness and a fundamental error.
The fundamental weakness was the lack of a sturdy, disciplined public debate. When that is not in parliament, where is it? In the newspapers, on radio and television, on the internet. The problem is that very few media are geared to non-partisan debate. Most media are either partisan or commercial and so geared to sales and not to debate. And how to make a debate so lively and so interesting that it is followed and echoed in homes and public places?
Somehow, politicians consider referendums not sexy, like elections or parliamentary debate. Also interesting how abstract and far were the arguments for against how lively and near were the arguments against.
The only solution I know that directly addresses this problem is the 'deliberative polling' (google that!), in a sense the return of ancient Athenian democracy. Representatives are drawn by lot, like in a jury. They get full access to interest groups and to expert opinion. And the deliberations are public. Anyway, talk shows are not enough, especially when politicians are lukewarm for a fight outside parliament.
The fundamental error is to submit foreign policy issues to a referendum. Imagine asking the workers in a factory to vote on sales strategy. They should vote on production matters, if anything. In referendums, people shouldn't vote on foreign issues but on domestic issues.
No one in his right mind would ever suggest to have the Home Office absorb the Foreign Office. Though once I heard a human resources manger advocate that sales should be under human resources, because both were about people.
Don't treat external matters as internal matters.
Referendums try to involve citizens in politics, as citizens have distanced themselves form politics in recent years - or rather: recent decades. Confidence in politics, politicians and political parties has diminished. But going to the ballot box on referendum day is attracting smaller crowds, not larger crowds. We can't blame people for that. We let them vote on complex issues, without committed champions with a compelling story on both sides of the issues.
When we want more direct democracy, we need not less, but better populism, as the Belgian David Van Reybrouck argues convincingly in, among others, Tegen Verkiezingen (against elections). It starts with preparing referendums better: stronger debate, about domestic issues.
Referendums are no escape for lazy politicians. They heat up politics. They should.
And before that on 8 December 1944: The ordinary man who keeps a wife and family, who goes off to fight for his country when it is in trouble, goes to the poll at the appropriate time, and puts his cross on the ballot paper showing the candidate he wishes to be elected to Parliament— he is the foundation of democracy. This man or woman should do this without fear and without any intimidation or victimization.
Democracy is good. The ultimate in democracy are referendums. So referendums are the ultimate good.
Are they?
In theory yes, in practice no. Everything under the sun has its conditions. Conditions to exist, and conditions to exist well. If I look at the Brexit-referendum and before that the Ukraine-referendum in the Netherlands, I see a fundamental weakness and a fundamental error.
The fundamental weakness was the lack of a sturdy, disciplined public debate. When that is not in parliament, where is it? In the newspapers, on radio and television, on the internet. The problem is that very few media are geared to non-partisan debate. Most media are either partisan or commercial and so geared to sales and not to debate. And how to make a debate so lively and so interesting that it is followed and echoed in homes and public places?
Somehow, politicians consider referendums not sexy, like elections or parliamentary debate. Also interesting how abstract and far were the arguments for against how lively and near were the arguments against.
The only solution I know that directly addresses this problem is the 'deliberative polling' (google that!), in a sense the return of ancient Athenian democracy. Representatives are drawn by lot, like in a jury. They get full access to interest groups and to expert opinion. And the deliberations are public. Anyway, talk shows are not enough, especially when politicians are lukewarm for a fight outside parliament.
The fundamental error is to submit foreign policy issues to a referendum. Imagine asking the workers in a factory to vote on sales strategy. They should vote on production matters, if anything. In referendums, people shouldn't vote on foreign issues but on domestic issues.
No one in his right mind would ever suggest to have the Home Office absorb the Foreign Office. Though once I heard a human resources manger advocate that sales should be under human resources, because both were about people.
Don't treat external matters as internal matters.
Referendums try to involve citizens in politics, as citizens have distanced themselves form politics in recent years - or rather: recent decades. Confidence in politics, politicians and political parties has diminished. But going to the ballot box on referendum day is attracting smaller crowds, not larger crowds. We can't blame people for that. We let them vote on complex issues, without committed champions with a compelling story on both sides of the issues.
When we want more direct democracy, we need not less, but better populism, as the Belgian David Van Reybrouck argues convincingly in, among others, Tegen Verkiezingen (against elections). It starts with preparing referendums better: stronger debate, about domestic issues.
Referendums are no escape for lazy politicians. They heat up politics. They should.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)