An Atomic Counterfactual

What if the bomb had never been invented?

Let’s start with an easy counterfactual: The time is now but nuclear weapons do not exist. What does the war in Ukraine look like?

I think there’s little question that NATO (as an alliance or its members independently) is much more heavily involved. At a minimum, NATO members are sending offensive weapons — tanks and jets — to Ukraine. But given public opinion, and the demonstrated weakness of the Russian military, I think NATO does much more than that, starting with a no-fly zone. So there’s aerial combat with the Russians. Perhaps that escalates and NATO troops are also on the ground. If so, things probably get nastier outside Ukraine — I’d want a well-stocked bomb shelter if I lived in Poland or the Baltic countries — but not for long. Russia loses this war. Quickly and badly.

But that’s first-order thinking. Let’s back up: If nuclear weapons did not exist, would Russia have invaded Ukraine at all?

I think not. Even if the horrendously poor performance of the Russian military could not have been foreseen, NATO intervention would have been seen by the Kremlin as a substantial risk. And there would have been no threat of escalation to nuclear weapons — a threat Putin has made explicitly and repeatedly — to mitigate it. So if nuclear weapons did not exist, the war in Ukraine would not have happened.

But nuclear weapons have been such a giant presence in the world since 1945 that you might think this is rather like saying, “what if gravity suddenly reversed? Would it change the war in Ukraine?“ Well, yes. But what’s the point of even thinking about it?

This is where it gets weird. And unsettling. Because unlike gravity, nuclear weapons may not be an inevitable and inescapable feature of the modern world.

Check out this argument: 1) The successful invention of the atomic bomb in the 1940s required an almost incomprehensible expenditure of resources; 2) even if that were done, scientists were not remotely sure an atomic bomb would actually work; 3) no country but the United States could afford the resources to take this enormous gamble; 4) such a fantastically expensive, scientifically sophisticated gamble was profoundly contrary to the way the United States had always approached war in the past and was preparing to make war in the 1940s; 5) it would only have taken three or four officials to say, “that gamble is too risky, let’s put all those resources into building more tanks, ships, and planes,” to ensure the Manhattan Project never happened.

And finally, 6) if the Manhattan Project had never happened, and atomic bombs had never been proven to work during the Second World War, neither the United States nor any other country may have subsequently had the necessary combination of know-how, resources, and emergency to ever try and develop an atomic bomb.

Meaning the atomic bomb may never have been invented.

Got that? If a few American officials had not made the surprising decision to gamble massively on the Manhattan Project, nuclear weapons might never have existed.

This argument isn’t mine. I first heard it in a lecture by Philip Zelikow, an historian and diplomat who is probably best known as the executive director of the 9/11 Commission. The lecture is about “the uses of history.” It is fascinating throughout and well worth an hour and half of your time, but Zelikow unpacks his atomic argument between 3:30 and 28:35.

I find his argument — to use a term I reserve for extreme cases — mind-blowing. If Zelikow is right, it was actually quite improbable that the United States would develop the atomic bomb during the Second World War. And if it hadn’t, it is quite possible — I have no idea how to make that probability judgement more precise — no one ever would.

And modern history would be radically different. Not quite “gravity reverses” different. But close.

Watch the lecture. And be sure you are sitting down when you do.