comments:
Nuclear weapons. Yeah, yeah, the obvious elephant in the room. But, look at it this way, say a country like N. Korea launched a nuke at the US. The decision window would be short, about 20-25 minutes to decide what to do. Now, US missiles flying back might trigger a Russian response because their tech isn't as good as ours. That would trigger even more launches. The whole thing is a huge domino chain falling, with the end of the world as the result. Doubtful? Give this a read: Nuclear War: A Scenario by Anne Jacobsen. It really brings home how fast things escalate. Nuclear weapons don't seem like threats because they're unthinkable for use. What happens if you think about it? There is only one scenario other than an asteroid strike that could end the world as we know it in a matter of hours: nuclear war. And one of the triggers for that war would be a nuclear missile inbound toward the United States. Every generation, a journalist has looked deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment: the technologies, the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are vital to how we understand the world we really live in—where one nuclear missile will beget one in return, and where the choreography of the world’s end requires massive decisions made on seconds’ notice with information that is only as good as the intelligence we have. Pulitzer Prize finalist Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario explores this ticking-clock scenario, based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy to the response plans, and have been responsible for those decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War: A Scenario examines the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch. It is essential reading, and unlike any other book in its depth and urgency. Drones, sure. But when you talk world ending, billions and billions dead, hands down nukes are truly terror made real. PS: you won't survive either. Many of us think we will but you won't. You will envy the dead if you do.