The Terror of Threes in the Heavens and on Earth Physicists have long explored how phenomena in groups of three can sow chaos. A new three-body problem, they warn, could lead to not only global races for new armaments but also thermonuclear war.
By William J. Broad June 26, 2023 | Updated 1:52 p.m. ET
Isaac Newton was baffled. He was already famous for discovering how gravity holds the universe together and for using that knowledge to predict the movements of celestial bodies, such as the moon’s path around the Earth. Now, by taking the sun’s gravitational tugs into account, he sought to improve his lunar predictions. Instead, it made them worse.
The setback, Newton’s friend Edmond Halley reported, “made his head ache, and kept him awake so often, that he would think of it no more.” Newton felt his defeat so keenly that he recalled it more than once in his old age.
Today it’s called the three-body problem. Famous in science and science fiction for orbital perturbations and chaotic phenomena, it’s recently become a concern of atomic experts and military planners. As Beijing rapidly expands its nuclear arsenal, they warn that the world of atomic superpowers is about to escalate to three from two. The outcome, they add, compared with the Moscow-Washington standoff, now 70 years old, could represent a dangerous new kind of unthinkable.
The looming era could encourage “states to resort to nuclear weapons in a crisis,” Andrew F. Krepinevich Jr., a senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security, recently warned. He cited the natural instabilities observed by physicists and astronomers as a portent.
Experts say the tripolar age could put human survival at risk. But they also cite a number of three-body lessons from nature — starting with Newton’s — that illuminate the issue and suggest possible ways forward. So far, however, no answer stands out. The world’s nuclear thinkers are finding the knotty topic to be as intractable as it was for Newton.
“We have a conceptual problem,”
Ernest J. Moniz
“We have a conceptual problem,” said Ernest J. Moniz, a physicist who as the secretary of energy in the Obama administration oversaw the U.S. nuclear arsenal. “We’ve got to change the traditional approach of equalizing weapons or strategic delivery systems, but how to do that is still unclear.”
“Things are changing very rapidly”
France A. Córdova
France A. Córdova, an astrophysicist and past director of the National Science Foundation, said the study of three-body phenomena in the natural sciences could nonetheless help reveal the military risks. “Things are changing very rapidly,” she said. “Anything that helps in understanding that is great.”
Security-minded hawks want to expand the American arsenal in response to China’s nuclear rise and the threat of Beijing’s closing ranks with Moscow. Doves see a window for three-body downsizing. They want to break the problem into smaller and more manageable parts. For instance, they argue that Washington should deal with the two superpowers independently and seek diplomatic bonds that reinforce two-body stability.
Recently, the Biden administration called for a further simplification. Jake Sullivan, the national security adviser, argued that the American response should focus less on the quantity of the nation’s nuclear arms than on their quality. To deter attacks successfully, he said in a speech, the American military has no need for arms that “outnumber the combined total of our competitors.”
In the 70 years since the United States embarked upon World War II, the reputations of many senior field commanders have ebbed and flowed. None has withstood the judgment of history more so than that of GEN Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Over the course of the European war, Eisenhower made numerous critical decisions involving the selection of subordinates, military strategy, and the cohesion of the Western Alliance, but three controversial decisions stand out and mark Ike as a great commander: the decision to launch D-Day, the broad front strategy and the redirection of Allied forces from Berlin toward the Southern Redoubt in April 1945. Ike’s three critical decisions as Supreme Commander not only dictated the course of the war in northwest Europe, but also laid the foundation for the postwar world.
70 years since the United States embarked upon World War II, the reputations of many senior field commanders have ebbed and flowed. None has withstood the judgment of history more so than that of GEN Dwight D. (Ike) Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force. Over the course of the European war, Eisenhower made numerous critical decisions involving the selection of subordinates, military strategy, and the cohesion of the Western Alliance, but 
