[philwelch]

We've had about seventy years to build up a political taboo against the use of nuclear weapons, which turned out to be an important guarantee of sustained peace in the Cold War environment we ultimately ended up in. But von Neumann passed away in 1957 when we were only first developing that taboo. There would have been close to zero moral compunction against using the atomic bomb against Nazi Germany had it been ready in time. And the communist regimes in Russia and China exceeded even Nazi Germany in the amount of mass murder they committed, and if you also count the degree to which they impoverished not only themselves but the countries in their spheres of influence for decades, the continued existence of communism throughout the 1950's and beyond has been arguably the greatest humanitarian disaster in human history. And if anything, someone in the early 1950's would have expected even worse; the Soviet Union was not quite as tyrannical and murderous after Stalin than it was under him, and the same is true for China after Mao.

Von Neumann's remarks also took place in an era before we allowed the Soviets to arm themselves to the degree that they posed a serious nuclear threat to the United States. The pop culture notion that a nuclear war between the US and Soviet Union would entail both sides completely eliminating each other in the first day of hostilities was arguably never completely accurate, but especially in the early 1950's it was not even close to true. Again, we know from hindsight that allowing the Soviet Union to build a massive arsenal of ICBM's and hydrogen bombs (neither of which they had in the early 1950's) didn't lead to them actually using those weapons against us, but that was arguably an extremely lucky break for us and from von Neumann's perspective, eliminating that threat before it manifested wasn't a totally unreasonable option.

Instead it turned out that the entire free world spent the next half century living in absolute terror of nuclear war, followed by the extremely happy surprise of the Soviet Union completely disintegrating between 1989 and 1991. Again, this was a really lucky break. And it was also a lucky break that the massive Soviet nuclear arsenal stayed under the control of a sane, democratic Russian government that never reverted to authoritarianism or corruption and developed strong institutions to ensure that those weapons could never fall into the wrong hands. We'd be in for a really rough future if that arsenal ended up in the hands of a corrupt dictator who consolidated power to the point of eliminating any possible succession plan, thus guaranteeing a massive crisis when he inevitably died of old age.

[neilv]

> We'd be in for a really rough future if that arsenal ended up in the hands of a corrupt dictator who consolidated power to the point of eliminating any possible succession plan, thus guaranteeing a massive crisis when he inevitably died of old age.

If you're going to be a corrupt dictator, that perceived dead man's switch of succession chaos is a good way to die of old age?

[philwelch]

Absolutely. Well played on his part.

[soulofmischief]

> Von Neumann's remarks also took place in an era before we allowed the Soviets to arm themselves to the degree that they posed a serious nuclear threat to the United States. The pop culture notion that a nuclear war between the US and Soviet Union would entail both sides completely eliminating each other in the first day of hostilities was arguably never completely accurate, but especially in the early 1950's it was not even close to true.

Actually, Von Neumann coined and pushed for mutually-assured destruction, so it didn't matter if it wasn't in popular culture; He himself was possibly the most familiar with the concept of anyone. So it's not correct that he made these comments without proper context. He was wrong to be violently anti-communist, but MAD ended up being a crucial doctrine.

[philwelch]

I still think von Neumann would have still preferred for the US to eliminate the threat of communism before they were able to develop their own deterrent, regardless of his role in developing the MAD doctrine.

[soulofmischief]

Yeah, he self-described as "violently anti-communist".

[latency-guy2]

Soviets/Communists were hand in hand together just a few years later from Neumann's death, 1962 in fact, probably even months to years earlier as we know now that the Communists did successfully transport nuclear armaments to Cuba, fully capable of launched.

The question (that we know the answer to as well) during that period is if they would pull the trigger, and from a few parties involved, they would have. Neumann was right in my opinion, and the Communists of the world at the time were absolutely a hazard to humanity, at the very least the humanity that lived in North America.

I truly think the only reason why we are here today is MAD.