Three physicists on cooperation between rivals, from fusion to nuclear restraint
Dennis Whyte shows that rival powers have shared fusion science since the Cold War and still build ITER together, while Carlo Rovelli and Max Tegmark point to the treaties, weapons bans and individual acts of restraint that kept nuclear rivals from destroying each other. Together they argue that cooperation between enemies has a real record, and they are frank about its costs: slow megaprojects and far too much reliance on luck.
Rivals can cooperate, even bitter ones with nuclear weapons, and the Cold War shows it. But the record has limits: big joint projects are slow, and several escapes from nuclear war came down to one person. That is the shared conclusion of three physicists asked separately about a dangerous, divided world.
Dennis Whyte, who directs MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, describes fusion as one of the few fields where East and West collaborated. The work was declassified because everyone was stuck on the physics. When the Soviets claimed their tokamak had reached far higher temperatures, Western scientists doubted it until a British team measured the plasma with a laser. In the mid-1980s, when Reagan and Gorbachev's other talks had stalled, they chose a fusion project as a symbol, which became ITER. Whyte is also its practical critic. He likens its seven partners to seven chefs in the kitchen, and found it strange that the planet had essentially one attempt. His answer was SPARC, a much smaller machine designed by 20 to 25 people in about two years, which he says was fast because of the tools and knowledge ITER built.
Carlo Rovelli argues from history. Kennedy and Khrushchev corresponded, the Cuban Missile Crisis ended with both sides stepping back, and Reagan and Gorbachev's treaties cut warheads dramatically. His lesson is that "living together on the planet is more important than overpowering your enemy." He says the United States now faces a choice between defending military dominance, at the risk of a third world war, and turning rivals into collaborators.
Max Tegmark tells the same crisis differently. A Soviet submarine with a nuclear torpedo needed three votes to launch, and Vasili Arkhipov refused the third. Tegmark says accidental nuclear war has almost happened about a dozen times, and warns that "relying on luck is not a good long-term strategy." His working model is the biological weapons ban, which followed after Matthew Meselson persuaded President Nixon, and has held for 50 years. Meselson's rule is that verification need not be perfect, because even a small chance of being caught deters cheating. Tegmark wants a similar stigma against autonomous weapons, holding that algorithms should never make life or death decisions.
Where they differ is how much weight the record can bear. Rovelli reads the Cuban Missile Crisis as proof that leaders can step back; Tegmark reads it as a warning, because the outcome depended on who happened to be aboard. Rovelli speaks of whether to cooperate, while Whyte speaks of how: build shared knowledge, then leave room for several independent tries. Joe Rogan raises the hard case that shared nuclear power led to weapons. Whyte's reply is that fusion is different, since it has no chain reaction and cannot release its energy explosively.
What to do with it: when a problem is too hard for one country, open it up. Check a rival's claims by measurement. When talks stall, find a shared project. Use big collaborations to build common knowledge, then run several attempts with small teams where speed counts. Do not demand perfect verification before agreeing to a ban. Keep a human in decisions to kill, keep communication open with adversaries, and replace luck with preparation.