this post was submitted on 11 May 2025
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54
If a country was confident they developed a technology that would act as a fool proof deterrent against nuclear attacks what would that mean for the rest of the world? (lemmy.world)
submitted 23 hours ago* (last edited 23 hours ago) by Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world to c/nostupidquestions@lemmy.world
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[–] CrackedLinuxISO@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 hour ago

Probably more war:

  1. Depending on the country who developed it, the risk of nuclear war could go up.

If I don't have to worry about nuclear retaliation, maybe I'm very confident in engaging in war. After all, my nukes will still work, and everyone else's won't.

  1. If the technology is shared equally to all countries at the same time, the risk of conventional war could go up.

Imagine the nuclear armed countries who are enemies of another nation with a bigger military. North Korea vs USA, Pakistan vs India. In these cases, nuclear weapons are a deterrence against the stronger opponent. Without this, the country with a stronger conventional force may be more likely to they think they'll win a war unscathed.

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

The US and / or Russia would obtain it ASAP, by hook or crook. Followed rapidly by World War 3

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

So conventional warfare?

[–] AwesomeLowlander@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago

Your premise is that nuclear warfare is no longer possible, so by default, yes.

[–] remon@ani.social 2 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

It's a bit of an oxymoron. A deterrent is about discouraging your opponent from doing something, not preventing them. So kind of by definition it can't be fool proof.

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world -1 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago)

Does anyone actually want to answer the question?

Edit:

If we are just parsing language, here is my meaning:

prevent the violent force

[–] ExLisper@lemmy.curiana.net 3 points 9 hours ago

It would just be another system they could sell to other countries. That's it.

[–] FreedomAdvocate 7 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

They already have - having Nukes.

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world -1 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

sigh

Nm

[–] blarghly@lemmy.world 2 points 4 hours ago

Also, if you meant that a country created some sort of perfect defence against nukes, then every other country would immediately start pouring money into creating their own version, while working on ways of subverting the new technology.

[–] jewbacca117@lemmy.world 18 points 18 hours ago

Turns out, having a bunch of nukes is a pretty foolproof deterrent

[–] Brown5500@sh.itjust.works 25 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

US and Russia used to have a treaty against either country developing anti-ballistic missiles. The idea was that if 1 party trusted their ABMs too much, they would no longer care about a counter attack, and that would undermine the MAD doctrine.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Ballistic_Missile_Treaty

[–] FriendOfDeSoto@startrek.website 8 points 21 hours ago

How does confidence factor into this? I've been confident in stuff before and it turned out that confidence was misplaced. Pride cometh before the fall shit. Confidence alone risks cockiness. Cockiness may lead to somebody testing your Golden Shield. Didn't work. You now don't have a country any more.

If the Golden Shield really worked it's a question of capacity. If you had enough juice in it to repel all nuclear weapons you could throw at this country in a worst-case scenario, you'd have a powerful defense against the most powerful weapon on Earth that's ready to deploy this minute. It may not save you from conventional attacks. It may not shield you from chemical or biological weapons so gruesome they aren't currently shelf-ready. But development of those would suddenly become a viable prospect. I fear it just turns the spiral of development of more destructive weaponry one more rotation. Extrapolating from the last 6000 years of history, we've gone from sticks and stones to vaporizing people into thin mist by harnessing the power of the atom. We're already in the narrow bit of the spiral. Paradoxically, developing a Golden Shield against nuclear attacks may lead to wiping our species out for good.

[–] auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

I think the US has already achieved it and aren’t saying anything.

Think how much money they’ve poured in there over the decades, as much as the rest of the world combined.

They were working on directed energy weapons in the 80s to neutralise them from space, but the tech was ‘decades away’. They had a working pilot way back in 2000 too.

[–] Ziggurat@jlai.lu 5 points 16 hours ago

The problem is that with the MAD doctrine, it's not about neutrajazing a warning shot where a tactical nuke would neutralise an aircraft carrier fleet or an tank division. It's about dozens if not hundred of nuke flying to your country.

Even 80% efficiency in the counter measure would mean remove 10 of the 50 big cities from the map. This has drastic consequences for a country. Especially in a hyper connected, advanced industry society

[–] Hegar@fedia.io 14 points 20 hours ago (6 children)

They definitely have not. Not publicizing a fool proof nuclear counter-measure defeats the purpose of achieving it in the first place.

You'd MUCH rather your opponent know a nuke strike is pointless, rather than they try and later be surprised that only one lucky one got through.

[–] auraithx@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

If made public there’d be attempts to sabotage the system that they’re avoiding.

[–] cynar@lemmy.world 5 points 13 hours ago

It depends on the reliability.

If you announce it, there are often counter measures to the counter measures. Once the enemy knows, the reliability begins to degrade. E.g. mirror finishes can disperse laser strikes, jinking can doge orbital rail guns, or dummy submunitions can overwhelm interceptor shields. Yes, these can be countered in turn, but you now have a new technological arms race.

There's also the first strike problem. If you are going to be invulnerable, then a first strike might be reasonable, before the system comes online. This was actually part of the reason the "Slam" project was stopped (a viable, but utterly batshit insane weapon system). They were worried that if the USSR got wind of it, they might decide a first strike, before it came online, was the only reasonable response.

[–] SaltSong@startrek.website 7 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Arguably, you don't tell them, and they don't try to steal the idea, or try to sabotage it, or decide to build was plans that don't depends on a successful nuclear strike.

[–] Yermaw@lemm.ee 3 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

and they don't try to steal the idea

I heard that everyone basically built nukes really fast because they suddenly discovered it was possible. The theory was pretty common among scientists but only when the first one was built they all got to work.

[–] SaltSong@startrek.website 2 points 8 hours ago

I seem to recall reading that a German scientist did the experiment that lead directly to the atom bomb before we did our in the US, but that he misinterpreted the results, and tossed the whole line of research.

[–] howrar@lemmy.ca 5 points 19 hours ago

One of the biggest challenges when creating something new is in not knowing whether or not it's possible. Once you know, you can just keep pouring resources into it and know with near certainty that you'll eventually hit your goal. Since the US already has so many other tools for avoiding a nuclear strike, there's no reason to publicise a new one. Keep it for when the other tools fail, or else everyone else will also have it and you lose your advantage before you could use it.

[–] untakenusername@sh.itjust.works 4 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Not publicizing a fool proof nuclear counter-measure defeats the purpose of achieving it in the first place.

yeah but if they don't tell anyone they can keep it secret and other countries wouldn't try to make their own

[–] Phen@lemmy.eco.br 3 points 10 hours ago

Spies are still a thing. Security by obfuscation only works when nobody is looking specifically at you.

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 2 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

Not if the technology is relatively unknown. I mean, maybe if you were alturistic.

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 1 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago)

Ok, how do you feel about elon musk (and subsequently russia) gaining access to some of our most classified data.

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 8 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

We already have it, they're called nuclear bombs, and MAD.

[–] Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world 6 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

How is that fool proof?

[–] ininewcrow@lemmy.ca 19 points 21 hours ago

“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.”

― Carl Sagan

[–] WadeTheWizard@fedia.io 14 points 21 hours ago

It is proof that humans are fools

[–] JackGreenEarth@lemm.ee 8 points 21 hours ago

Hasn't failed yet (yes I know that's the survivorship bias fallacy)

[–] drspod@lemmy.ml 2 points 22 hours ago

Something a lot like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpBAFOmdNgU