only say what I care about. This film at least touches on a few commonplace issues in the academic circle of international relations: counterfactual reasoning, alliance theory and nuclear arms race theory.
The first is the methodological counterfactual (counterfactual), which has recently become obsessed with this method. Simply put, it's a "if...then..." question. Would World War II have happened if Hitler hadn't been born? Would the Soviet Union have collapsed if Gorbachev hadn't been in power? These classic questions have attracted countless historians and international relations scholars. It seems like a topic that is sprayed on the forum. It is almost impossible to reflect rigorous arguments and scientific methods in the discussion without deep precipitation. The reason is very simple. When we were in the methodology class, some classmates stood up directly: "Teacher, this is nothing that happened. You can say this or that. How can it become evidence?"
Specific to this film, "if...then..." is everywhere. One of the questions I'm most concerned about is (I wrote it based on the film, I haven't read the original):
What if: Dr. Manhattan dropped nuclear bombs in four regions of the world
. : The probability of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union will drop significantly.
To prove this conclusion, you must first have a certain understanding of the basic ideas of counterfactual reasoning.
Think of an X, Y axis, where the Y axis represents the phenomenon you want to explain, and the X axis represents the reason you hypothesize.
If there are enough points on this map, and they are roughly distributed along a curve, then you can draw the so-called "rule". As for whether this rule is good or bad, it depends on the concentration and dispersion of the point distribution , and the number of points. Generally speaking, the "laws" in international relations are described in an imprecise language. For example:
the enemy of the enemy is our friend.
An arms race can easily lead to misjudgment among countries.
A country with a rapidly rising national power is prone to collide with the existing international order, thus causing war.
A multi-functional international organization can nurture groups of experts with transnational identities, thereby changing the preferences of member states.
These assertions actually contain the meaning of "if...then...". The key is to prove that every unit change in X will bring a constant change in Y. Therefore, for each virtual value of X, theoretically, the value of Y can be obtained. As long as you can prove that your formula is correct, the reality is far more complicated than that. The reasoning of this movie is quite realistic, specifically:
what if: Dr. Manhattan drops nuclear bombs in four regions of the world (the four regions are New York in the United States, Chicago (?), Moscow in the Soviet Union, and Hong Kong in China).
Then: the United States and the Soviet Union would feel a common threat.
Then: the US and the Soviet Union will de-escalate the nuclear arms race and jointly deal with this new enemy.
(to be continued)
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