Chris Blattman: recommendation

Transcript context

…Let’s say we wanted a theory of which nations were most likely to mount a geoengineering war or attack, which, probably, we haven’t seen yet, but imagine dumping iron filings in the ocean, change the climate, change the climate of your rivals. How is a theory of a geoengineering attack different? I guess it would depend a lot on the extent to which you’re able to. If I fire a missile at an enemy, I’m fairly confident that I’m going to only harm them, and I’m not going to harm me. Anytime anything you do is going to potentially blow back on you — for example, a nuclear bomb is one way to think about it — then it’s going to change your calculus because it’s going to be less attractive relative to the alternatives. There’s always going to be a selection of instruments that you could use. I’ve never thought of these kinds of attacks before. It seems to me, their risk of blowback is actually much, much higher, and there’s just a lot of uncertainties. I’m not sure why somebody would want to use them vis-à-vis one of these other, more conventional things that are much easier. Well, they’re very cheap, and it might be hard to trace. But in general, shouldn’t a theory of war be super technologically contingent? If I look who’s likely to launch a drone war, of course, I think the US, but not only. Who’s likely to launch a soldier’s war — it’s maybe negatively correlated. How can we have a general account of who’s likely to launch a war? Isn’t it always per technology?…

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