“Greatly reducing the threat of nuclear war is a crucial step toward a safer world and a better future” 

Our Proposal:

• All nuclear powers reduce their stock piles to between ten and thirty ICBM missiles each
• Store all the ICBM’s in silos at one neutral location

The Goal:

• Reduce the risk of a nuclear war
• Realize a worldwide halt to the manufacturing of nuclear weapons
• Help prevent nuclear proliferation

Explanation:

Nuclear weapons are a threat to human civilization, and even to the existence life itself on Earth. Sadly, however, completely eliminating them is not a realistic possibility any time soon. There is simply too much mutual suspicion, especially between the democratic nuclear powers such as the United States, United Kingdom, and France on one side and nuclear-armed autocracies such as Russia, China, and North Korea on the other.

Nuclear weapons act as insurance against being overthrown by a hostile outside power, which is why power-addicted autocrats in particular (such as North Korea’s parade of Kim-family monarchs) covet them and will never give them up willingly. The Iraqi and Libyan dictators also tried to acquire nuclear weapons precisely for this reason, but their regimes were toppled before they could do so; imagine how different the world would be had they succeeded.

There is a significant possibility that the Nuclear Club will continue to expand as more nations seek their own nuclear insurance policy against outside threats. Iran for example is ever closer to possessing nuclear weapons, and this could push Saudi Arabia to do the same. South Korea may also start a nuclear weapons program due to doubts about the U.S. commitment to respond forcefully to a full-fledged North Korean attack.

If more nations acquire nuclear weapons, the potential for the unthinkable grows accordingly.

Mitigating the Danger

Until that happy day comes when the world abolishes nuclear arms, the best hope for preventing a catastrophe is simply to mitigate the risk of them ever being utilized, either intentionally, by human error, or by a technical glitch (AI-based or otherwise).

There are reasons to believe a revolutionary accord between the world’s nuclear powers could be achieved. For one, there is widespread awareness that a nuclear conflict would be senseless and suicidal for any nation involved, not to mention the devastating collateral damage that would be inflicted on the rest of the world. Second, developing and maintaining nuclear weapons is very costly; the United States alone is expected to spend over six hundred billion dollars between the years 2021 and 2030 maintaining its nuclear arsenal. Even ultra-paranoid, power-obsessed autocrats should find the cost savings appealing—less money for nuclear arms means more money for personal Swiss bank accounts.

Additionally, nuclear proliferation increases the risk of not only nuclear conflict, but also of the nightmarish possibility of terrorists surreptitiously obtaining a weapon. This should concern everyone; no nation is immune to being potentially targeted by mass-murdering fanatics.

To address these dangers, the Solutions Party proposes the following:

1. All nuclear-armed nations each reduce their arsenals to between ten to thirty warheads, all mounted on ICBM’s. This could mean a worldwide total of about two hundred nuclear-armed ICBM’s
2. Deploy all of these ICBM’s together in one neutral and difficult-to-access location; for example, a remote island in one of the world’s oceans
3. The island would be divided into sections, one section assigned to each nuclear-armed nation
4. Each nation’s section would have non-blast proof silos to hold its own ICBM’s
5. Each nation would administer their weapons independently
6. Each nation would have a port in their assigned section to bring personnel, maintenance materials, and other supplies as needed
7. Limits on anti-ballistic missile (ABM) technology could be considered

An example of the envisioned island in this proposal is illustrated below:

If the above proposal were adopted, the following benefits could be realized:

1. No more spending on new nuclear weapons
2. Many fewer weapons means far lower maintenance costs for everyone
3. No risk of a surprise attack; the launch of an ICBM would immediately be known by all
4. No way to launch a nuclear first strike on another country’s nuclear arsenal without incurring catastrophic self-inflicted damage (and essentially attacking the other nuclear powers, including allies)
5. No way the island could be infiltrated
6. No way for a weapon to be stolen or otherwise taken off the island in an non-authorized way
7. Inspections to verify treaty compliance among the members would be easy to carry out
8. No need to rely on automated hair-trigger (AI) technology to control the ICBM’s   

While the number of nuclear warheads would be greatly reduced in this proposal, especially for the U.S. and Russia, enough would remain to form a strong deterrent. Image the cataclysmic effects of thirty nuclear-armed ICBM’s hitting a country’s major cities. In a real world situation can one truly argue that five thousand nuclear bombs are more of a deterrent than twenty or thirty? Very importantly, due to the overwhelming superiority of our conventional forces (especially when combined with the forces of our allies), taking nuclear weapons out of the picture as much as possible worldwide would strengthen America’s security.

Supplementing this proposal with a rigorous, well-coordinated, and international non-proliferation effort would obviously be crucial to keep the Nuclear Club from expanding.

Beating the “Invulnerable” Autocracies

Autocracies are a corrupt and miserable form of government in which the tools of the state are used by a small (and too often ruthless) ruling elite to enrich themselves, their families, their military and political allies, and—above all—to ensure a lock on power. Make no mistake: the world’s autocrats know that democracy’s success is a threat to their tinpot empires, and thus they and their anti-democratic allies are actively working to destroy it worldwide. We must not allow that to happen. Quite the opposite: the Solutions Party believes that we must work toward a world that is free of autocracies.

Historically, the overturning of autocratic regimes has come about by either overwhelming internal revolts, invading armed forces, or the death of the autocrat. We are now however entering an age in which nuclear-armed autocratic regimes are effectively immune to collapse. For one, internal revolts are ceasing to be a threat due to ever more Orwellian internal security infrastructure; it is virtually impossible for an opposition to mount a serious challenge to an autocrat when all conversations, written communications, and movements are monitored, automatically analyzed, and immediately acted upon with brutality if anything even remotely suspicious is detected. Second, external threats are effectively neutralized by having a nuclear arsenal. Third, not even the autocrat’s death necessarily means the end of the autocracy; as we have seen in countries such as North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela, a hand-picked successor just takes the reins of power—and often ends up being even more bloodthirsty than his predecessor. (It should be noted that it is not outside the realm of possibility that future autocrats will be immune to even death, at least from natural causes.)

So is there hope that democratic change could ever occur in seemingly invulnerable, nuclear-armed autocratic nations?

The Solutions Party believes the answer is affirmative. The keys to victory in this longterm, future-defining struggle are freedom and prosperity. Specifically, winning comes down to shoring up the world’s democracies, starting with our own, and achieving widespread prosperity throughout the non-autocratic world. If the freedom and prosperity gap between the democracies and the oppressive autocracies becomes sufficiently large, the pressure on the latter will become great enough to perhaps start steering them toward democratic change. That is the hope anyway, and there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic: did not the collapse of communism come about precisely because of the freedom and prosperity gap that existed with the free market-based Western democracies?

History has repeatedly shown that the addiction to power is an illness that can in extreme cases turn those who have it into vicious mass-murderers. With such depraved individuals there exists the danger that holding on to power means more than anything—even the world itself. This is why it is crucial to take measures to significantly diminish the possibility of nuclear conflict, particularly one started by a psychotic autocrat. While the proposal presented here is obviously not a guarantee against such a nightmarish scenario, it should at least help reduce the probability of it occurring.

Imagine: a world free of both nuclear weapons and autocracies. Let’s start the long journey to make it a reality.