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Reading this question: Why don't all countries attempt to get rid of all nuclear weapons? I realised that:

  • Due to MAD doctrine, countries are unlikely to destroy their nuclear arsenals.
  • Nuclear weapons are more accessible as time goes by.
  • Eventually all the countries would have nukes or capacity to build them quickly.

So in case that all the countries become nuclear powers...Would MAD doctrine cause global peace or at least the end of serious wars?

user16993
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    Civil wars are still serious wars... – user5751924 Sep 21 '17 at 15:21
  • All wars are serious to be honest. I meant one country invading another it a Total War like WW2 – user16993 Sep 21 '17 at 15:23
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    Yes, but not in the way you're thinking of. – Peter Sep 21 '17 at 15:33
  • In which way? Could you elaborate? – user16993 Sep 21 '17 at 15:35
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    Dead people don't fight no more. – Peter Sep 21 '17 at 15:35
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    Only if the "leaders" (people w/ power to use those weapons) are mentally stable enough not to use them. If even one leader follows the "suicide bomber" theory (death for glory is a good thing), this wouldn't work. My personal opinion: some leaders are mentally stable enough, but not all of them. –  Sep 21 '17 at 16:14
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    Not likely. It clearly not true that nuclear weapons has prevented wars between nations that has them. – user3528438 Sep 21 '17 at 17:09
  • A nation having nuclear weapons usually implies it has sufficient economic and technological advancement to afford, understand, build, maintain, control, and deploy them. That would require a different state of the world than exists, even without such weapons. – agc Aug 22 '18 at 05:59

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nobody knows.

How much do you trust the least trustworthy government? If Somalia had nukes in 1990 where would they be today?

How much risk can you tolerate to interfere with a foreign government? Will stopping say a provincial genocide be enough provocation for a central government to start a nuclear war?

Since the answers to those questions are not very well defined some kinds of fighting would still be conceivable. "No first use" is a reasonably popular doctrine so it may be nukes just get ignored: Chinese, Indian and Pakistani soldiers have killed each other.

So far no (publicly confirmed) nuclear armed state has been in a fight for survival.

  • Since you can't put the Genie back in the bottle, it's only a matter of time before any country can do it. Meanwhile, it is in our (America's) best interest to delay that day until that weapon becomes obsolete. And it can become obsolete due to many reasons: from technology to intimidation. – Frank Cedeno Sep 21 '17 at 18:00