M

Your submission is now a Draft.

Once it's ready, please submit your draft for review by our team of Community Moderators. Thank you!

You have been invited to co-author this question.

When it is ready, the author will submit it for review by Community Moderators. Thanks for helping!

Pending

This question now needs to be reviewed by Community Moderators.

We have high standards for question quality. We also favor questions on our core topic areas or that we otherwise judge valuable. We may not publish questions that are not a good fit.

If your question has not received attention within a week, or is otherwise pressing, you may request review by tagging @moderators in a comment.

You have been invited to co-author this question.

It now needs to be approved by Community Moderators. Thanks for helping!

{{qctrl.question.title}}

{{qctrl.question.predictionCount() | abbrNumber}} predictions
{{"myPredictionLabel" | translate}}:  
{{ qctrl.question.resolutionString() }}
{{qctrl.question.predictionCount() | abbrNumber}} predictions
My score: {{qctrl.question.player_log_score | logScorePrecision}}
Created by: Metaculus-Partners and
co-authors , {{coauthor.username}}
Flourishing Futures Nuclear Risk Tournament Szilard Fortified Essay Contest

Make a Prediction

Prediction

Barrett et al. (2013) distinguish between accidental/unauthorised, inadvertent, and deliberate nuclear launches or detonations:

  • "In an accidental or unauthorized launch or detonation, system safeguards or procedures to maintain control over nuclear weapons fail in such a way that a nuclear weapon or missile launches or explodes without direction from leaders."

  • "In an inadvertent detonation, the attacking nation mistakenly concludes that it is under nuclear attack and launches one or more nuclear weapons in what it believes is a counterattack."

  • In a deliberate detonation, the attacking nation decides to launch one or more nuclear weapons either in response to a genuine nuclear attack or without believing that it is under nuclear attack.

The only non-test nuclear weapons to date, by the US in 1945, were both deliberate. But a future nuclear conflict could in theory begin with any of those three types of detonations, which could then be followed by detonations from the same or other types.