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During the cold war, there was a clear narrative: an ideological opposition between the US and the Soviet Union. Moments of great tension were understood as episodes within that narrative. The closest we came to nuclear confrontation was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the two countries seemed on the edge of war. But the crisis itself was finished inside a fortnight, and there was a wider framework to fall back on. The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty calmed the waters.
Then, in the early 1980s the tough-talking but critically derided , Ronald Reagan was elected US president. He reignited the cold war rhetoric and began escalating the arms race, and there was an assumption – particularly in Europe – that nuclear destruction was creeping closer. But it was still within a recognisable context. That ended with the collapse of communism, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. For a while the world felt a much safer place than it had been.
But the cold war was replaced by uncertainty. And now the uncertainty is combined with the unpredictability of Donald Trump. The recent bombing raids in Syria and Afghanistan were isolated moments, without any sense of programme or continuity. Nor does there seem any logic to why North Korea should have suddenly become a pressing issue. Incidents that seem to arrive out of the blue can be much more frightening. We're probably not on the verge of nuclear war, but it's destabilising if we can't make sense of events.
Is the world more dangerous now than during the cold war?
[Related]: Nuclear war will ignite in May 2017, mystic Horacio Villegas says
What do you think ?
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:24PM (3 children)
Full retard, huh? Who, exactly, is it that screws the world up, time and time again? Think about it for awhile.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Sunday April 23 2017, @03:53PM
(Score: 3, Touché) by dry on Monday April 24 2017, @02:44AM
America, the country you forgot to put at the top of your list up the page. They're just about the only country that routinely wages war all over the globe, have a system which gives one man way too much power and have a lot of power to give him. There's other nutcases, but generally they can't do much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 24 2017, @09:15AM
1) The greatest danger probably comes from the USA. The Military Industrial complex you mentioned. I can't even recall a single good thing the CIA has done. The USA has probably overthrown more democracies than it has helped install.
2) Trump is not exactly the most stable of persons. If the US system works as designed[1] there's nothing preventing him from launching nukes other than himself. Can you say there's no way he'd launch nukes for stupid/bad reasons?
North Korea is like a toddler with a BB gun. Might put someone's eye out but the rest of the world will be fine.
The USA is like a toddler with nukes. Trump has a really bad day, throws a tantrum and much of the world won't be fine.
[1] An insane and stupid design.