
Pretending it isn’t there: how we think about the nuclear threat - monort
https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/06/pretending-it-isnt-there
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qubex
Like the author, I spend a significant amount of time pondering the utter
horror that nuclear war would entail, the death and destruction it would rain
upon innocent _hundreds of millions_ of innocent civilians. I find myself
pondering whether my own home city of Milan, a relative backwater
strategically, would nonetheless be worth a deliberately targeted warhead
"just for the sake of thorougness". What that would look like, what it would
cause, what would happen to me and everybody I know, what the aftermath would
be. It's truly horrifying.

In a certain sense I get annoyed whenever I read or hear endless hand-wringing
over the latest terrorist attack (Manchester and, as of last night, London now
featuring largely in the European public discourse, as well as the
bewilderment that Italy itself has not yet been a theatre for such
atrocities). Why does it annoy me? Because in terms of impact what these hate-
fuelled young men can do is negligible compared to what a single high-impact,
low-probability event involving thermonukes could entail.

Every morning I wake up and read the latest outrage tweeted by Trump, and I
find myself quaking in fear at the thought that whilst he rabidly poked at his
twitter account in the dead of night an aide was not far away with a nuclear
briefcase that can inflict essentially infinite damage upon the world, and
that it'll be in his possession for the next 1,326 days and nights.

