The Nuclear Dividend?

Many people imagined the thermonuclear bomb would lead to humanity’s destruction. Quite frankly it's still an open question. It's a fact, however, that today I woke up seeing the nuclear fireball I wanted to see. 

There’s also no denying that a nuclear stalemate has defined great power politics for the last eight decades. This has led to a dangerous but long lasting stability. 

Direct confrontation between two nations which possess thermonuclear weapons is still as unthinkable as ever; it leads to the darkest corners of the decision tree where we all don't get the chance to wake up again. 

Presumably everyone in power, no matter how insane they might seem on the surface, is aligned with the human instinct of accumulating power and furthermore to the point, principally interested in enjoying and perpetuating the fruits of that accumulation. If that assumption fails, however, and those in power are motivated differently, then truly only god knows the full implications. 

Confrontation between a state that has nukes, and one that doesn't have nukes, however, is still permitted. So is a fight between two states with completely conventional militaries. Hell, it might even be encouraged by the feedback loop that Perpetual War creates perpetual money. The missiles and bombs and bullets might get used up today, but the money that gets created to finance war stays around forever. 

The overarching theme of the New Deal and WW2 was that government stimulus, paired with consistent monetization of government debt by the Federal Reserve, could create economic growth and increase the power of the government. 

After WW2 ended, governments needed a reason to spend more than they collected. You can only hand out so many government entitlements before you start looking like a socialist. The threat posed by the Soviets possessing nuclear weapons filled the gap nicely. If only one nation, the US, had the bomb then there would have actually been less of a need for the military industrial complex to grow. Thus the nuclear stalemate has led to a nuclear dividend of money creation enabled by the peace that is no peace, Pax Americana.

Of course, the process only reached its current level of perfection and efficiency after the start of the War on Terror. By declaring war on fear itself, it absolved national leaders from having to declare war against another nation at all. War could exist perpetually because there was no war, just a peacekeeping mission, a drone strike, seal team six, or a cruise missile flying nap of the earth to its target.  

While it is a fact that we have avoided nuclear confrontation, one cannot help but see the similarities between this and certain trading strategies such as writing naked options… i.e. picking up nickels in front of a steam-roller. The probability that the strategy works tomorrow is very high, but the downside is so catastrophic that it could wipe out all the accumulated gains of humanity since our forefathers first ventured out of the trees and onto the savannah.