Hawaiians respond to a threat of nuclear attack and a survivor tells of coping with the Hiroshima bombing. Cold War era fears and tensions about nuclear weapons resurface in our era, and take us back in time to – once again – face the prospect of an apocalypse of our own making.

The clear and present danger of nuclear escalation that once lurked over the civilised world’s head has dissipated into the ether, and the nonchalant manner that the world has adopted toward it raises many questions, Stewart Mackinnon writes.

Ukraine’s is an attractive cause for many U.S. policymakers: Hence the willingness of some to play chicken with nuclear-armed Russia.

When Vladimir Putin was recently asked about the potential use of nuclear weapons in the context of Ukraine, an understanding of back-alley Russian slang was needed to understand his response.

China, Russia, India, Pakistan, and North Korea each deployed more nuclear weapons last year, according to SIPRI.

As the West pours more advanced weapons into Ukraine that have the range to strike, not only inside Russian occupied territory in Ukraine, but inside the internationally recognized territory of Russia itself, the risk of nuclear war looms. Russia’s nuclear deterrence policy states that Russia “hypothetically” could allow the use of nuclear weapons only if there is “aggression using conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is threatened.” Recently, there has been a gathering flurry of articles arguing that the US should take that risk.

Unless Biden changes course, we’re entering the most dangerous period since a nuclear war almost started in 1983

Before the participants stumble into nuclear conflict, Russia & the US should work out nuclear-arms agreements

WASHINGTON (UrduPoint News / Sputnik – 23rd February, 2023) The US and Russia are unlikely to restart nuclear negotiations until the United States gets a new president because the Biden administration is entirely focused on undermining Moscow and continuing the conflict in Ukraine, experts told Sputnik.

The nuclear landscape today is far more complicated than it was during the Cold War. Tensions between the United States and Russia are at highs not seen, perhaps, since the Cuban Missile Crisis. At the same time, China appears to be aggressively increasing its nuclear capabilities, while North Korea conducted far more missile tests in 2022 than in any year since 1984. This environment is all the more reason to champion arms control over a potentially escalatory new arms race.