RPG Review Issue 3, IT News, A Nuclear Weapons Free World?

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RPG Review Issue #3 has just been made available. It includes reviews of Mouse Guard and Houses of the Blooded, designer's notes for Fire & Sword, Summerland and Gulliver's Trading Company, an interview with Steve Long, the use of classic AD&D scenarios in a Middle-Earth campaign, a Paranoia scenario and a GURPS Bunnies & Burrows easter special scenario "Return to Druid's Valley" (derived from Different Worlds issue #3), Sexuality in Blue Planet, a rewrite of the core mechanics for Palladium, QAD; a complete roleplaying system, an RPG crossword puzzle and, of course, more friendly advice from Orcus. On a related note (news from allandaros), two classic game designers, Aaron and Allston and Dave Arneson are both seriously ill. Allston is recovering from a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery and Arneson is losing his battle with cancer. Played another session of Dragon Warriors on Friday night, Hacker with ser_pounce and hathalla on Saturday and Gulliver's Trading Company on Sunday.

Already mentioned heavily on el-jay and elsewhere is the Federal government's decision to establish a public-private company to the tune to provide fibre-to-home service. Contrary to the hyperbolic claims, the $43 billion dollar over eight years price tag is fairly modest; indeed it is somewhat less than the personal income tax-cuts announced in the last (2008-2009) budget which occur over five years. On a much more personal scale, I've finally started adding new content on my IT website, after many months of being a content-free zone - installation steps for scientific software, probably of minimal interest to only the few who use these obscure (but important) programs. Going to the Linux Users Victoria meeting tonight; will be interesting to hear arjen_lentz explain why failure is not an emergency.

Two days ago, in Prague, Obama called for the abolition of nuclear weapons: "So today, I state, clearly and with conviction, America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons.". I haven't seen a statement this strongly worded since the times of Gorbachev, and hope that something comes out of it. Of course, ending nuclear weapons isn't necessarily a path to peace and security as the President claims. I tend to think that path is a world without standing armies (I must elaborate that letter into a general article).

Comments

[ikilled007.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure what I think about nuclear weapons. Since I was a child I've been hearing the argument that nuclear weapons are the only reason there hasn't been a major war in Europe since WWII. Also that major world powers will never go to war -- China, Russia, the US, etc.

And yet we still get major proxy wars like Korea and Vietnam and Afghanistan (Russian invasion) and Iraq vs Iran, etc. So I'm not sure how great an argument that one is.

I honestly just don't know. I know what does bother me is the chance of a nuclear accident (mobile launcher or silo detonation, misfires, etc.) and the possibility of a lost weapon, especially as major nuclear powers disintegrate (USSR, for instance).

The genie is out of the bottle, and now what do we do?

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

A deterrence theory had some mileage, I agree. But it was incredibly risky and assumed (a) rational actors (if Al-Qaeda had nuclear weapons, do you really think the threat of retaliation would worry them?) and (b) rational decision making (consider the poor information that led to the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban missile crisis).

The inevitably arms race a nuclear deterrence generates also created the military-industrial complex with its influence, if not control, over democratic governments (and the enforcement of "barracks socialism" in the Eastern bloc).

You are right to worry about 'lost' weapons and the like - South Africa doesn't have this problem (or at least they won't contribute to it) anymore because they dismantled the half dozen that they had.

Major stockpiles are still significant; and I guess it will remain a problem whilst some of the arms limitations agreements are (a) vague (SORT) or (b) never implemented (START II).

Let see where this goes.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_zombiemonkey/]

We all talk a lot about 'accidental' triggers to nuclear war, but they have nearly happened about three times to my knowledge, and that's just in the US. Once when the US nearly nuked one of their own states in the late 80's, another time when a downed comms line to an airbase led some idiot to think a first strike had occurred in the late 90's, and another garbled story I've half-heard about something to do with an aircraft carrier in the early noughts.

And this barely managed monster has encouraged tinpot nutbars across the world to 'catch up' to the big boys. In fact the deterrent has not so much limited the nuclear powers from fighting each other - there's no real gain there anyway, they're more value as economic partners - but has rather given them free reign to be the bullies in the playground with less influential nations.

This leads to a lot of jingoistic macho bullshit. Hence we hitch our cart to big bullies like the US, hence Kim Jong-Il gets all Clint Eastwood-y and wants to stand up to Japan and the US. Hence Japan - terrified to the shithouse of being nuked again, is prepared to bomb N Korea to the stone age if they even look like they can fire a nuke at Japan.

For me, the deterrent argument has never held water. It foments a different kind of war, it promotes nuclear/military rivalry. In that heated atmosphere everyone's capable of doing something phenomenally stupid.

Obama's statement was positive and hopeful. It would be a lot more progressive if the US immediately started dismantling its stockpile, ceased production of any new weapons and stopped supplying weaponry to its allied nations.

The man who saved the world....

[tcpip.livejournal.com]

Perhaps the closest the superpowers came to nuclear war was when Stanislav Petrov had his finger on the button; and decided it was all a false alarm.

Overall, I think I prefer a military model of 'defensive deterrence'; a regulated militia based on small arms, something incapable of engaging in an offensive war, but incredibly difficult to invade. Whilst I often cite Jefferson in this regard, I'm thinking the origins of the idea come from Machiavelli; both in his advice in The Prince and The Art of War and moreso from his experience as head of the Florentine militia.