Counterfactual thinking & nuclear risk in the digital age: The role of uncertainty, complexity, chance, and human psychology

Will emerging technology increase the possibility of nuclear war? Given multitude ways intersects with weapons, critical thinking about an imagined future that goes beyond net assessment, myopic mirror-imaging, and extrapolation present trends should be a core task policymakers. This article builds on notion “future counterfactuals” to construct imaginative yet realistic scenarios consider exchange. It highlights role counterfactual can play in challenging conventional wisdom risk analysis, war-fighting, linear thinking. In emphasizing uncertainty, cognitive bias, fundamental uncertainty world politics, also contributes literature inadvertent accidental war.