Once again, the world has been gripped by the fear of nuclear annihilation as Russian autocrat Vladimir Putin orders soldiers to practice deploying tactical nuclear weapons. This comes in lieu of a surge in hostilities between the West and Russia as Putin refers to Western “threats” as cause for the sharp escalation, referring to the British and French calls for a more aggressive approach from Ukraine and the new $400 million military aid package from the US. Adding to the already immense tensions, President Putin has suspended Russia’s participation in the New START Treaty, an agreement for nuclear arms reduction between Russia and the United States that CNN stated was “the last remaining pact that regulates the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals.”
The prospect of nuclear war has plagued the minds of millions around the globe ever since the weapon’s first use on Japan in 1945; since then, there have been numerous instances where an apocalyptic future usually confined to films and television seemed inevitable. From the Cuban Missile Crisis to the excessive collection of threats made by North Korea, it seems as though every generation of Americans is bound together by their shared experience of nuclear peril, presenting the illusion that since nothing has ever come of these fears in the past, they never will. The UN’s 2023 State of World Population report stated that it would only take 400 nuclear bombs to wipe out all of humanity and life on earth, and since the combined number of American and Russian warheads reaches 11,133 (accounting for 90% of all the nuclear warheads on earth), an armed nuclear conflict between the superpowers could end the world nearly 28 times over. This puts into perspective the power of Russia and what it could do with it to force the world to contort to its will. While the threat of nuclear destruction is nothing new, its immense potential to reshape the world is undeniable, and sadly, all the people of the world can do is hope and pray that their leaders won’t lead them directly into the jaws of extinction.
