Some sixty years ago, American psychologist Abraham Maslow formulated a five tier hierarchy of needs. First, food and shelter followed by safety and so on, not that each need had to be satisfied fully to move to the next.
It
might explain why thousands marched in the Campaign for Nuclear
Disarmament in the 1950s when bellicose threats by leaders were not
uncommon. Among the more notorious was Khruschev's, 'We'll bury you,'
in 1956 during the Suez adventure by Britain, France and Israel. They seized
the Canal after the Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser had
nationalized the controlling Suez Canal Company. Receiving no support from President Eisenhower, they somewhat shamefacedly retreated.
If one presumes all of those tensions were over with detente, then political and economic rivalries compounded by spheres of influence and their expansion have been overlooked. Thus to Ukraine with President Vladimir Putin unable to retreat further when NATO attempted to plant a dagger in the heart of Russia.
Well, some of the tensions have returned, and while an all-out nuclear war is still unthinkable, it can happen by miscalculation. For example, when one side deploys tactical weapons that a commander in an asymmetric war is unable to resist using against a large grouping of elusive combatants.
If fewer nuclear weapons are more desirable, the question remains, how few? Hence the START treaty signed by George Bush (Senior) and Mikhail Gorbachev although proposed originally by Ronald Reagan. It removed 80 percent of their nuclear weapons. So how many nuclear weapons are there in the world thirty years later, and how safe are we?
According to the latest count, Russia possesses 6,257 nuclear weapons of which 4587 are operational. In numerous ICBM silos and 11 nuclear submarines that can patrol close to U.S. shores, it is a formidable arsenal.
Of course the world has changed and Russia has removed all of its nuclear weapons from Ukraine. At the same time, it is developing new weapons and new delivery methods. This includes the very serious threat of a nuclear-propelled cruise missile with unlimited range. A very serious threat because cruise missiles can fly close to the ground under the radar. There is also Sarmat, a new ballistic missile capable of carrying up to 15 nuclear warheads, each with its own target. Thus a single missile could destroy just about all US major cities.
So
what has the US been up to? It has 5600 nuclear weapons of which 3700
are operational. ICBMs based both in the US and the territory of its
NATO allies place some of these next door to Russia. The very limited
warning time requires a hair trigger response and should give us pause.
Let's hope Putin is not enjoying a sauna at the time and some general
frightened with a use-it or lose-it scenario decides to let loose and
save his motherland.
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