The New Nuclear Danger
Since the end of the Cold War, the risk of nuclear-armed superpowers triggering Armageddon has been substantially reduced. But it has been replaced by the increasing threat of smaller countries, usually ruled by unstable or dictatorial regimes, pursuing nuclear weapons to shore up their own safety and geopolitical interests.
BERLIN – As someone who was born in 1948, the risk of a nuclear World War III was a very real part of my childhood. That threat – or at least the threat of East and West Germany both being completely destroyed – persisted until the end of Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union.