2024 Is The Year We Learn To Fear Nuclear Weapons Again

After the end of the Cold War, the world lives under the threat of nuclear conflagration. The world’s nine nuclear powers have the ability to end all life on Earth. Russia and the United States have the power to launch world-ending weapons in the hands of a single man. This has been true for decades, but for a long time the public could safely ignore the danger. But something changed and people learned to fear them once again.

I’ve been covering nuclear weapons for a decade now, and I’ve watched it go from a sideshow to mainstream news over the past two years. In 2024, something changed. The amount of nuclear stories and public interest in nuclear weapons has changed.

Every time Vladimir Putin makes a vague threat a a cascade of stories hit the news channels. Every progress report to Congress China’s nuclear arsenal now appears in the national press. three weeks ago, 60 Minutes cut off a bunch of nuclear coverage from the last decade and left it as it is A long video on YouTube. The New York Times has spent the past year producing an incredible publication investigative journalism about nuclear weapons. One of the biggest TV shows of the year is an adaptation of a video game set in a post-nuclear wasteland.

How did we get here? How did nuclear weapons go from Cold War interest to major public concern? These weapons have hovered over our heads like a sword of Damocles all my life, but people have ignored them.

Matt Korda, who monitors nuclear weapons for the Federation of American Scientists, pointed to TV shows like FwholenessThe New York Times’ nuclear coverage and the doom that reigns in American life. “The mood right now is apocalypse. Doomerism. The apocalypse comes to people’s minds a lot,” he said.

last year, Oppenheimer told the story of the birth of nuclear weapons. A few months later, Amazon was released Fallout, a nihilistic and absurd journey through the wastelands of nuclear-ravaged California. Both were huge hits.

Korda also pointed to the election, especially when it’s between Biden and Trump. “Both were very old. Both parties fought to claim that the other candidate was historically dangerous to the country. There were signs of depreciation on both sides.”

“I have to think that it had a real effect on people accepting that one of these two men would be in charge of a very destructive nuclear arsenal, and that there were serious problems with both of them in that respect,” Korda said. “The election has made people more aware that the nuclear system we have in place is specifically designed to concentrate power in the hands of a single person.”

Biden was 82 years old when he left office. Trump will be 78 years old when he takes office and 82 years old when he leaves office. Putin is currently 72 years old. Earlier this week, the New York Times published an inquiry into the president’s sole authority to launch nuclear weapons. The Times asked all 530 members of Congress how they felt about the President having this ability the end of all life on earth. The answers represent an interesting cross-section for understanding an idea.

Many were concerned about the president launching a nuclear weapon as a first strike, but were fine with the president launching a nuclear weapon in response. Democrats called Trump unstable. Republicans have noted that Biden’s chances are diminishing. Some gave nuanced and complex answers about deterrence, escalation, and sole authority. Many did not answer, some gave yes or no answers, but those who answered deeply did so thoughtfully and thoughtfully.

It’s something that comes to their mind.

Nuclear threats were part of the first Trump administration, it’s true. But the conversation around nuclear weapons is different now, and worse. “What was scary about the first Trump administration was Mr. Trump’s cavalier approach to nuclear threats and, in particular, to North Korea. So, you know, the fire and fury in the fall of 2017 and then, of course, all the ultimately failed talks with Kim Jong Un throughout his presidency,” Sharon Squassoni, a congressional arms control veteran and research professor at George Washington University, told Gizmodo.

He also cited Russia’s full-scale intervention in Ukraine in 2022 and Putin’s continued drumbeat of nuclear threats as something to fear. “For the first time, we are facing a country that has openly threatened to use nuclear weapons,” he said.

“The other thing that goes along with this is the collapse of all these arms control treaties,” Squassoni said. Over the decades, a series of arms control treaties between the US and Russia have eased tensions. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, America even helped Russia dismantle nuclear weapons and use nuclear material in nuclear power plants. This is over.

During the first Trump administration, America withdrew from the Reagan-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. The treaty halted the medium-range nuclear weapons of both countries. A year later, the United States took out The Open Skies Treaty allows rival countries to openly monitor each other to avoid misunderstandings. In 2023, Russia withdrew from the treaty banning the testing of nuclear weapons.

The only remaining nuclear arms control treaty between the US and Russia is now the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). The Obama-era agreement limits the number of nuclear warheads both countries can deploy. It will expire in 2026 unless both sides agree to renew it. But to implement it, both sides must allow their rivals to inspect nuclear weapons facilities. Putin said he would no longer allow the treaty to be enforced and would likely die.

Add to this the fact that America, Russia and China are increasing their nuclear arsenals. China is digging holes in its deserts to fill with new intercontinental ballistic missiles. America is modernizing its forces and preparing to spend billions of dollars on its silos and ICBMs. Russia is testing a new nuclear cruise missile and recently launched a new type Medium-range ballistic missile in Ukraine in November.

“We are in a new nuclear arms race. It’s not just rhetoric,” former congressional staffer-turned-proliferation watchdog Joseph Cirincione told Gizmodo. “Almost all of the nine nuclear-weapon states have multibillion-dollar programs. Most of all in the USA, Russia and China.”

According to Cirincione, the US annually spends $70 billion on new nuclear weapons and an additional $30 billion on missile defense systems. This money has a tangible impact on the communities where it is spent. Nuclear weapons disrupt the reality of the places where they exist.

To build its new Sentinel-class ICBMs, the US will have to dig huge new silos and build massive underground structures in Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska and North Dakota. Different parts of this project will touch 23 different states. There will be contractors where they build silos build temporary cities to host a flow of workers. General Dynamics, a contractor working on new nuclear submarines, visits schools to teach students what it’s like to work in the nuclear industry and involve them in future submarine construction.

All this affects the public consciousness. What was once an ancient weapon from a bygone era has returned with a vengeance. It is not some abstract weapon of war, but an integral part of American society. It’s part of the post-World War II myth that we tell ourselves and some say protects us from bigger and more terrible wars.

“I think nuclear weapons have a special place in American fears because the main narrative that’s been taught about nuclear weapons is that we used them to end war. The second story taught about nuclear weapons is a short step to assuming that nuclear oblivion is inevitable when tensions flare between the two nations with the largest arsenals, the United States and Russia pointing enough at each other to end the world forever. ” Kelsey Atherton, editor-in-chief of the Center for International Policy, told me.

“In a sense, Americans understand nuclear weapons as the thing that ends major wars and forget everything else about them, and popular coverage (especially on television) is terrible at putting nuclear weapons in context,” he said. “This means that when something as surprising as the use of an IRBM in Ukraine happens, it is filtered through the shallowest understanding of nuclear risk combined with an apocalyptic video.”

This will speed it up. Putin is not going anywhere. China has no reason to slow down its nuclear ambitions, and President Trump and the GOP want more nuclear weapons. We are in a new nuclear age, where the fear of total oblivion in nuclear hell is more possible than it has been since the 1980s.

We can try to understand it, we can lobby our leaders to stop it, we can watch TV shows and movies that help ease the anxiety. What we cannot do is ignore it.