Whipping up a tempest

From the current Economist: 

Mr Trump is expanding his threats, promising to hold Iran to account for the Houthis' attackes and warning them of 'dire' consequences. Yet his approach is only hardening the mullahs' hearts. They may seize the chance to rally their embittered people against a common enemy and go for confrontation and a nuclear momb. Israel might then join the fray. The Houthis would come to their patron's [Iran's] aid and fire again at Gulf cities and oil terminals. It is all too easy to imagine the worst. America’s strikes on the Houthis could whip up a regional tempest, the 'Economist', 20 March 2025

Indeed. I keep returning to the possibility of a nuclear exchange, because it would be a catastrophe in its own right, as well as a terrible portent. We could rely on some combination of world governments to make nuclear conflict less likely but, in today's political environment, I think we should look for a complementary solution. 

My suggestion is that we issue our own (pdf) Nuclear Peace Bonds. All it would take would be for some interested philanthropist to put up the funds, and let the market for the bonds do the rest. Of course, once the ball got rolling, contribution from other bodies and members of the public could be solicited, which would swell the total redemption rewards. Even governments, if they could put aside their short-term interests for a moment, could add to the pot. 

The goal of sustained nuclear peace would actually make an ideal target for the Social Policy Bond idea. One, because it's a complex, long-term goal that will require diverse, adaptive solutions. Two, it's an easy goal to verify. And lastly, it's a goal that, on all the evidence, including that of the above excerpt from the Economist, is unlikely to be reached under current policy. The idea would be to issue bonds that reward a sustained period of nuclear peace. This could be defined, as, say the non-detonation of a nuclear device that kills more than 100 people for 40 years - the long time period is necessary so that systems are put in place that work in the long term. With sufficient backing the bonds would help offset and (one hopes) outweigh the incentives currently on offer to the military-industrial complex and to ideological and religious fanatics.

Those billions of us who would benefit from nuclear peace are presumably a massive numerical majority, but we currently have few means of channel our wishes effectively. The tendency is to assume that governments will do what's necessary, with the support of hard-working, well-intentioned people in the private sector. But the rewards to all these people are not linked to their success. This is unhelpful in itself but, more importantly, it discourages investors who, seeing little opportunity to benefit from working to reduce nuclear conflict, will focus instead of less edifying enterprises. Most important of all is that our current strategy is just not working.

We need to reward those who achieve nuclear peace at least as much as those working to undermine it. We don't know exactly how to reduce the chances of a nuclear exchange, nor who will be best placed to do so, over the long period during which our goal is to be achieved, but we have no excuse for not encouraging people to find out. Nuclear Peace Bonds would apply the Social Policy Bond principle to this goal. Investors in the bonds would form a protean coalition of people dedicated to achieving it as efficiently as possible. Their goal would be exactly the same as society's. Human ingenuity knows no limits. Currently, too much of it is devoted to relatively unimportant or socially questionable goals. Nuclear Peace Bonds would channel our ingenuity, and stimulate more of it, into minimising the risk of a global catastrophe. 

My short piece on Nuclear Peace Bonds is here. The links in the right-hand column of that page point to papers on similar themes: Conflict Reduction, Disaster Prevention, and Middle East Peace