text: r19. These shocking details about the possibre international consequences of anucrear war need !o be brought to the attenti.on of the general public because it isprecisery these kinds of details which also go into the cruel logic of nucleardeterrence, narnely, the nore horrendous their consequences, the less will be thelikelihood of the actua.l- use of nuclear r1'eapons. A fundanentally questionable A/37/386 Engl ish Annex Paqe 55 assumption in the nuclear-de ter rent logic, hovrevert is that' in the post-r4'ar conte;t, the fact that nuclear weapons have not been used so far provldes no guaranteeagainsttheirfutureuse.stracegiccalculationsaboutthesituationsior their actual use have been nostly based upon surprise-free scenarios. But no serious observer of the global strategic scene in the 1980s is r.riuing to assert that the next decade witi ue surprise-free. Events with a triggering potential' najor failures of corulunication, nuclear accidents and severe international crises have all occurred more than once, and sCrnetines in pairs, during the last three and a half decades - but never sinultaneously. Should there be such a simultaneity, and it cannot be ruled out as unlikely, then it would be rather unrealistic to assune that the logic of nuclear deterrence will hold as r.rell in the future as it is sonetines believed to have held in the past. L2O. Tt{o relatively recent disclosures need to be nentioned in this context' In the first place, although it is reasonable to assune that every accldent involving a r.reapon of rnass destruction, and particuarly the nuclear weaPon systems' that could have been kept secret would have been covered fron public knowledge' it is now generally known thatr betvteen 1950 and 1975 alone, at leasC 68 serious accieents occurred. At least i.n a few cases, such accidents involving a computer nalfunction did result in false alerts denanding a graduated escalation to a fuller vtar. Secondly, it is aLso by now widely kno$n that, out of the 130 conflicts experienced by the developing countries since the Second World war' at least 80 *aia ,aportad to have been viewed by one or the other of the nuclear Pol'ers as
analysis: The text appears to be discussing the consequences of nuclear war and the logic of nuclear deterrence, with a focus on the potential international consequences of such a war. The language used is technical and strategic, with references to nuclear weapons, deterrence, and international crises. The text also touches on the reliability of nuclear deterrence and the possibility of accidents or failures in communication.