Avoiding Armageddon - an alternative approach

The Economist asks What if South Korea got a nuclear bomb? 'Public support is high....' and, after all,

North Korea is believed to have dozens of nuclear weapons; its arsenal is already projected to grow into the hundreds by the end of this decade. ...Detractors counter that the [Korean] peninsula will inevitably become a much more dangerous place if South Korea goes nuclear. ....Untested leaders on both sides of the border will have their fingers on the nuclear trigger. The finale of this drama could see them stumbling into Armageddon. What if South Korea got a nuclear bomb?, 'Economist', 17 August

'[T]hem or 'us'? Because a nuclear exchange would be a global catastrophe, even it it did not spark a wider conflict. How are we, that is, the non-existent 'international community', going about reducing the probability of a nuclear conflict? It's a subjective view, but I'd say we're failing. Along with everyone else in the world, I can't see how we could convince those in control of nuclear weapons not to use them. What I can suggest is that we put in place incentives that would reward people who can achieve a sustained period of nuclear peace. If there are such incentives in place today, they're too meagre, because they're not working. We can't yet identify the best approaches to nuclear peace, but we can encourage people to research, experiment and follow such approaches.

Ideally, we'd also channel the market's efficiencies into efforts to bring about nuclear peace. We can do this, I suggest, by issuing Nuclear Peace Bonds. These bonds would be redeemable for a fixed sum only when nobody detonates a nuclear device that immediately kills, say, 100 people; such a period of nuclear peace to be sustained for, say 30 years, before the bonds would be redeemed. Backed by a combination of governments, non-governmental organisations, philanthropists and ordinary people, they would encourage a number of peace-generating approaches. Some would be less promising than others: the way the market for the bonds would work means that these efforts would be terminated and resources diverted into the more promising initiatives. 

A Nuclear Peace Bond regime would reward those who achieve peace, whoever they are and however they do so. It’s an admittedly unconventional approach. In its favour is that the funds used to back the bonds could be payable only if the bonds succeed, and nuclear peace reigns. And, the relevant question is: what is the alternative? The current approach has brought us to the brink of nuclear catastrophe. The taboo against threatening the use of nuclear weapons has already been broken. It now appears inevitable that, unless we actively support and pay for nuclear peace, the taboo against their use will also be broken. It’s now time to encourage and reward diverse, adaptive and successful ways of dealing with the looming nuclear threat.