Unlike during the Cold War, the probability of a surprise strategic nuclear attack from any side is virtually zero. The most probable path to a civilization-ending strategic nuclear exchange starts with a conventional war that escalates with the use of a small, tactical battlefield nuclear weapon, that escalates further into a strategic counterforce (air force bases) and then countervalue (New York City, Los Angeles, etc) exchange.
I don’t know how to “reduce the risk of nuclear war” other than giving each nuclear power what it wants - the freedom to exercise regional hegemony. This means the US letting Russia dominate Eurasia and reassemble the Soviet Union, and letting China dominate Asia.
The betrayal and suffering that would cause for hundreds of millions of humans from Taiwan and Japan to Lithuania and Romania is frankly unconscionable.
This is completely inconsistent with the U.N. Charter and Geneva Conventions, is a return to the Cold War at best and at worst demands we forget everything we learned from WW1 and 2, sweeping all of that history aside in an apparent attempt to repeat it.
Allowing nuclear countries to threaten the use of nukes in order to successfully commit atrocities with conventional weapons is not distinguishable from "might makes right". The U.N. charter and Geneva Conventions were created to avoid those very things. Setting them aside, in particular without a replacement, does everything possible to put us on the path to another world war. Everything starts to unravel.
I agree and would argue further that it would embolden belligerent aspirational regional hegemons such as Iran, and scare vulnerable US allies such as Japan and Saudi Arabia into to accelerating their nuclear weapons aspirations.
TL;DR appeasing current nuclear powers will greatly accelerate proliferation and paradoxically increase the risk of nuclear war. Quite the conundrum…
I don’t know how to “reduce the risk of nuclear war” other than giving each nuclear power what it wants - the freedom to exercise regional hegemony. This means the US letting Russia dominate Eurasia and reassemble the Soviet Union, and letting China dominate Asia.
The betrayal and suffering that would cause for hundreds of millions of humans from Taiwan and Japan to Lithuania and Romania is frankly unconscionable.