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What are people's guesses for when the first nuclear weapon (since WWII) will be fired?
Could it happen before 2030? Before 2040? In our lifetimes? And between which actors, and in what context? And how would the likelihood of this change depending on political changes like upcoming elections (both in the US and elsewhere?) This isn't necessarily referring to a MAD scenario or global nuclear war, simply any non-test use of such weapons by a state or group for military purposes.
I'm far from an expert on geopolitics but my sense is that these are the regions where this is likeliest to happen:
1/ The Middle East
Since the start of the Israel/Gaza war, US and global efforts have been overwhelmingly focused on convincing Israel to abandon military action. Whether or not you agree with that, it's hard to imagine that Hamas/Hezbollah/The Houthis/Iran will look at this and feel anything but emboldened to continue attacking Israel in the near future (as is already happening with Hezbollah in the north). An extreme hypothetical scenario is one where Iran and its proxies continue making war on Israel while Western nations distance themselves more and more, refusing diplomatic support and eventually imposing economic sanctions including prohibitions on the sale of weapons. Backed into a corner and beginning to face existential threats, Israel launches one or more tactical nuclear strikes to change the situation on the battlefield.
With the Democrats increasingly hostile to Israel and in favour of conciliatory action towards Iran, and Donald Trump's likely intention to maintain his prior administration's forceful foreign policy in the region, I think this is the one situation where the choice of next US president will have the largest impact on whether we see nuclear weapons get used.
I'm going to make the prediction that there's a 50% chance Israel launches a nuke in some capacity by 2030 if Biden is elected later this yearSince posting, people have pointed out that tactical nukes aren't especially useful for, so instead I'll predict there's a 50% chance they launch a nuke by 2040.2/ Ukraine
This is another obvious candidate for where we might see nukes used. This is something that has been talked about since 2022 although obviously nothing like this has come to pass. With greater resources and numbers of soldiers, it's hard to imagine Putin feeling the need to escalate the situation in such a manner, unless the West starts deploying their troops such that the course of the war radically changes.
This is another situation where the choice of next US president will play a crucial role, although it's less obvious IMO what effect this choice will have. Biden has been rhetorically and financially supportive of Ukraine, but has been cautious of engaging the US more deeply in the war, only recently permitting Ukraine to strike inside Russia using US weapons. Trump's friendly attitude towards Putin is well known, as is his skepticism towards foreign intervention, but he's also unpredictable and belligerent. I've seen the point made here that he may take the idea of the US "losing" in Ukraine as an affront to his pride and consequently decide to escalate.
3/ China and Taiwan
This feels less likely than the previous two examples, mostly because there's no active conflict in the region yet so there are still several further stages of escalation that would need to be crossed before nuclear weapons become worth considering for anyone involved. The US also seems to be taking steps to reduce their dependence on Taiwan. On the other hand, the US is interested in countering Chinese influence for reasons that go beyond the situation with Taiwain, and if China starts making SK and Japan worried enough to think about establishing their own nuclear programs, the US might start to find its credibility in the region tested.
4/ Pakistan and India
I unfortunately know almost nothing about the situation here, besides the fact that these are two nuclear armed neighboring states with a pretty unfriendly history, which felt like a good enough reason to add them to this discussion.
None of the above. The most likely nuclear weapon use is- and remains- a loose nuke scenario in which a nuclear weapon is stolen from a nuclear power, and used by a second or even third party.
Ultimately, nuclear weapons are very, very expensive, both in the development sense and the utilization sense, and revealed preference by all the major nuclear powers is a preference to endure non-existential attacks and even lose wars rather than use them, even when the threat of counter-use isn't present. As a weapon system, their primary use is in existential defense against invasion, and as the only actors with the ability to existentially threaten by invasion are states, there's very little actual interest in using.
The actors who get around the cost-aversion are those actors who don't care about surviving as a state.
I always thought, in a certain sense, it's kind of strange that this hasn't happened already. Possible reasons why, as far as I can guess:
Or maybe all of them at once. The idea is very popular in dramatic fiction, but somehow never seems to happen in real life. Or even has any stories leak out about it ever coming anywhere near happening.
There's also another avenue-
4. The nuclear states basically fedpost-spam the potential supplier and customer networks, so that no one know who wants to buy knows who a possible actual 'legitimate' supplier is and no one who could sell one knows who a 'legitimate' buyer is.
There are absolutely terrorist and extremist groups with high interest in WMDs and WMD-substitutes (we had the Tokyo nerve gas attacks, for one, but the field of bioterrorism is basically just weaponizing natural epidemics). However, the groups that have interest in obtaining nukes are not the same as the groups that have access to nukes, and so all you really need to do is break the chain of commerce between the client (the person who wants the bomb) and the supplier (the smuggler).
This can be done pretty effectively by just stirring doubt and distrust on both sides, especially as both sides are in a psuedo-prisoner's dilemma where both need to be hidden from the eyes of the government authorities to work. A terrorist group / proxy needs to believe they're not being approached by an agent of the government, but runs into the issue that the local government and the local nuclear handlers probably share the same appearance/accent/cultural mannerisms (because a corrupt supplier is part of the government). In reverse, the corrupt supplier needs to believe that not only is their potential contact not a member of the government as well (or an ally of their government), but that the sale won't reveal their otherwise hidden network. Both parties will be 'better off' if they can trust eachother and make the deal, but each also has major payoff incentives to 'defect' and not engage, for fear of revealing themselves.
This is why the more credible loose-nuke risks come in contexts of state collapse (where the state is no longer in a position to monitor/maintain control deterence), widespread corruption (where the ability of the state to monitor is compromised by the state's agents being routinely bribed), but especially black markets (where a standing economic exchange system exists absent, and despite, state efforts). These are the cases where there's more credibility on the suppliers as having access, and more trust on the buyers to getting away with it, and more reason for both to believe the other actor isn't part of the state.
It should be noted that the nerve gas attack in the Tokyo subway was a back up plan. The group’s original plan was to detonate a nuclear device in Tokyo. They had put together a working group of ex-Soviet scientists to build one. They didn’t get that far, but they got a hell of a lot further along than any Islamic terrorist group ever has.
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