So you think you're smart, huh? Maybe even sneaky? Could you easily build your own nuclear arsenal without anyone finding out? Test your cleverness with the Stimson Center's new online game, Cheater's Risk. The background is fascinating:
As part of Stimson's “Unblocking the Road to Zero” project, which seeks to advance the debate about negotiated nuclear disarmament as a viable and practical policy option, Alex Bollfrass and Barry Blechman have developed Cheater's Risk, an online game that explores the dynamics of a world without nuclear weapons. Players take on the challenge of breaking out of a hypothetical disarmament regime without being detected by national intelligence services and international monitors. Depending on which country is selected, different pathways to the bomb are available. As the player navigates the pathways, the cumulative odds of detection are calculated. At the end, famed weapons inspector Hans Blix determines if the player has gotten away with it or has been caught. The game is founded upon empirical research, published in Elements of a Nuclear Disarmament Treaty, an edited volume showing how to overcome technical obstacles to disarmament.
When I played the game as the Netherlands, I managed to amass 1-5 nukes, but it was by sheer luck that I didn't get discovered while I acquired all the materials.
Watch the trailer:
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Cheater's Risk Trailer from Henry L. Stimson Center on Vimeo. |
Check out the game. Are you feeling lucky?
Nuclear Follies: How Not To Stem the BP Oil Gusher
Also published here.
Over the past few years, as I've written about various aspects of nuclear weapons and nuclear non-proliferation issues, I've observed one particularly disturbing trend, which is the rather cavalier attitude people have toward “nukes”. I'm not a sociologist, and I haven't conducted a formal study, but there's a tendency among people online and offline to say “just use a nuke”. Or, “why can't they nuke 'em?”, as if nuclear weapons were shotguns, and the use of one wouldn't have catastrophic global consequences.
Never has it been more apparent that there's a lot of misunderstanding (deliberate or otherwise) regarding nuclear weapons than recently. I'm talking about the appalling, misguided idea that we can “just nuke” the BP oil gusher and it will some how “be okay”.
Here's the Global Security Newswire's “Quote of the Day” from June 3, 2010:
Then there was an NPR article from June 4, 2010 entitled:
Stopping A Spill? There's Always The Nuclear Option
Even Mother Jones mentioned it as a possibility, though it was more tongue-in-cheek than some of the other articles out there.
Okay, guys, I'm going to say it slowly, loudly, and clearly:
The use of a nuclear weapon to stop the BP oil gusher is not an option. It is, in fact, the worst possible thing we could do. Here's why.
Geopolitical Implications: Let's Cause An International Incident!
Way back in 1963, after almost two decades of nuclear testing, the United States and the former USSR were the first of a large number of countries who signed the Limited Test Ban Treaty, also know as the Partial Test Ban Treaty:
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