<story><title>Deliberately optimizing for harm</title><url>https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/deliberately-optimizing-harm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>derefr</author><text>On a tangent: it occurred to me recently that we also don&amp;#x27;t see much use of ICBMs with non-nuclear payloads, despite these being a fairly-obvious &amp;quot;dominant strategy&amp;quot; for warfare — and one that &lt;i&gt;isn&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; banned by any global treaties.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m guessing the problem with these is that, in practice, a country can&amp;#x27;t use any weapons system that could &lt;i&gt;potentially&lt;/i&gt; be used to &amp;quot;safely&amp;quot; deliver a nuclear payload (i.e. to deliver one far-enough away that the attacking country would not, itself, be affected by the fallout) without other countries&amp;#x27; anti-nuke defenses activating. After all, you could always &lt;i&gt;say&lt;/i&gt; you&amp;#x27;re shooting ICBMs full of regular explosive payloads, but then slip a nuke in. There is no honor in realpolitik.&lt;p&gt;So, because of this game-theoretic equilibrium, any use of the stratosphere for ballistic weapons delivery is &lt;i&gt;effectively&lt;/i&gt; forbidden — even though nobody&amp;#x27;s explicitly &lt;i&gt;asking&lt;/i&gt; for it to be.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting to consider how much scarier war could be right now, if we &lt;i&gt;hadn&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; invented nuclear weapons... random missiles just dropping down from the sky for precision strikes, in countries whose borders have never even been penetrated.</text></item><item><author>openasocket</author><text>Fortunately we don&amp;#x27;t see any real work in the chemical and biological weapons space anymore. While it would still be pretty handy for terrorist groups, in actual warfare chemical weapons aren&amp;#x27;t super useful. See &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;acoup.blog&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;acoup.blog&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...&lt;/a&gt; .</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>stickfigure</author><text>&amp;gt; despite these being a fairly-obvious &amp;quot;dominant strategy&amp;quot; for warfare&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think these are quite as viable as you think. ICBMs are &lt;i&gt;expensive&lt;/i&gt;. Probably tens of millions of dollars each, for a single-use item. Cruise missiles cost $1-$2 million to deliver the same payload and have a better chance of surprising the enemy.&lt;p&gt;ICBMs have longer range, but how often do you need to strike targets more than 1000km past the front line? They&amp;#x27;re inherently strategic weapons.</text></comment>
<story><title>Deliberately optimizing for harm</title><url>https://www.science.org/content/blog-post/deliberately-optimizing-harm</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>derefr</author><text>On a tangent: it occurred to me recently that we also don&amp;#x27;t see much use of ICBMs with non-nuclear payloads, despite these being a fairly-obvious &amp;quot;dominant strategy&amp;quot; for warfare — and one that &lt;i&gt;isn&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; banned by any global treaties.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m guessing the problem with these is that, in practice, a country can&amp;#x27;t use any weapons system that could &lt;i&gt;potentially&lt;/i&gt; be used to &amp;quot;safely&amp;quot; deliver a nuclear payload (i.e. to deliver one far-enough away that the attacking country would not, itself, be affected by the fallout) without other countries&amp;#x27; anti-nuke defenses activating. After all, you could always &lt;i&gt;say&lt;/i&gt; you&amp;#x27;re shooting ICBMs full of regular explosive payloads, but then slip a nuke in. There is no honor in realpolitik.&lt;p&gt;So, because of this game-theoretic equilibrium, any use of the stratosphere for ballistic weapons delivery is &lt;i&gt;effectively&lt;/i&gt; forbidden — even though nobody&amp;#x27;s explicitly &lt;i&gt;asking&lt;/i&gt; for it to be.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s interesting to consider how much scarier war could be right now, if we &lt;i&gt;hadn&amp;#x27;t&lt;/i&gt; invented nuclear weapons... random missiles just dropping down from the sky for precision strikes, in countries whose borders have never even been penetrated.</text></item><item><author>openasocket</author><text>Fortunately we don&amp;#x27;t see any real work in the chemical and biological weapons space anymore. While it would still be pretty handy for terrorist groups, in actual warfare chemical weapons aren&amp;#x27;t super useful. See &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;acoup.blog&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;collections-why-dont-we-use-chemical-weapons-anymore&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;acoup.blog&amp;#x2F;2020&amp;#x2F;03&amp;#x2F;20&amp;#x2F;collections-why-dont-we-use-ch...&lt;/a&gt; .</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>importantbrian</author><text>To tie this in with current events this is exactly what makes the no-fly zone idea in Ukraine so dangerous. All of the things you have to do to establish a no-fly zone and take away the enemy&amp;#x27;s ability to fire into and effect your no-fly zone look the same as a prelude to an invasion or nuclear first strike. This is made worse by the fact that many of the weapons systems you would be using are dual use. Meaning they were designed to deliver conventional or nuclear weapons. It&amp;#x27;s a massive gamble that the actions won&amp;#x27;t be misinterpreted or used to justify moving up the escalation ladder.</text></comment>