The continuing threat of nuclear war

Abstract

This article argues that despite the Cold War ending more than thirty years ago, citizens and officials still live with the fear of nuclear war. It claims that the risk of global nuclear war is near zero but not zero, with a small chance each year, which leads to an unacceptable probability of catastrophe over a greater time period. Reducing the risk requires acknowledging both the reduction in nuclear weapons and the threat of global war. Any accidental or unauthorized nuclear launch, even from a single submarine, bears devastating consequences that could affect countries far from the detonation site. Regional nuclear tensions in South Asia, such as the India-Pakistan conflict, pose grave dangers due to the high density of their urban populations, which could lead to massive casualties. Nuclear winter, a theory that gained prominence in the 1980s, posits that even a small-scale nuclear war could cause global-scale climate anomalies by injecting black carbon particles high into the atmosphere, which could persist for a decade or more. – AI-generated abstract.