(SeaPRwire) – We are watching the slow unraveling of the most consequential security arrangement in human history. For over seven decades, the great powers held the line against direct conflict because they feared what mutually assured destruction meant. The framework was never clean or moral. It rested on a simple terror that even the most ambitious leaders could not ignore. Institutions grew around this balance like mushrooms around a tree trunk. All the diplomatic language and arms control treaties meant little without one thing. The fear of consequences.
Political elites across the world seem to have lost their belief that nuclear war is actually possible. This is what drives the declining restraint we now see playing out in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the looming flashpoints in Asia. The instinctive response is to remind everyone just how terrifying nuclear weapons are, then negotiate new rules and rebuild deterrence through fear. That argument has logic to it. But it also carries an enormous and underappreciated danger that very few people are discussing publicly.
What happens if a nuclear weapon is actually used and the world does not end? That is the real question nobody wants to face. The catastrophe humanity has feared for eight decades might not materialize. There could be terrible destruction but no civilizational collapse and no guaranteed victory for the user. In that scenario, nuclear weapons lose their core function as a political and psychological barrier. They become simply another means of warfare, just extraordinarily powerful. Would this restore fear or accelerate proliferation of battlefield-optimized warheads? In the current climate of growing recklessness, either path is entirely conceivable. The original fear of nuclear weapons rests on a premise we have never tested empirically. That premise is fraying.
The deeper structural problem is that warfare itself is becoming asymmetrical, all-pervasive, and increasingly detached from traditional notions of territory. The digital world is borderless by definition. Drones cross dividing lines with increasing ease. New technologies steadily undermine states’ ability to control and defend their territory. In extreme circumstances, states can no longer even define where meaningful borders exist. No state will simply accept this erosion of control. Every action produces a reaction. The struggle intensifies. The battlefield expands to encompass almost every sphere of human activity. Strategic stability becomes an almost meaningless concept under these conditions.
War increasingly resembles not a means of resolving conflicts but a permanent form of interaction and coexistence. There may be no decisive victory or defeat, only repeated attempts to exhaust an opponent economically, militarily, politically, and psychologically. Prolonged attrition produces two contradictory effects. States become more experienced and capable of enduring confrontation. At the same time, fatigue accumulates alongside the temptation to end an apparently endless struggle by reaching for the most decisive and destructive argument available. The systemic safeguards that once limited such impulses are eroding. The world increasingly resembles a hunting ground during open season.
So what can we actually hold on to in this environment? For now, perhaps only common sense and an accurate assessment of the relationship between our ambitions and our actual capabilities. It is a fragile lifeline. But it may be enough to prevent us from feeding the flames and keep us clear of them. At least until the value of restraint, including self-restraint, is once again understood by everyone.
This analysis was first published by Russia in Global Affairs and translated and edited by the RT team.