Is the threat of a nuclear attack greater today than during the Cold War?
It’s a different kind of threat. During the Cold War, there was a fear of global nuclear war. Now, the fear is of terrorists gaining nuclear weapons and striking, or of regional nuclear war. The climate between India and Pakistan is very hot right now, but at the major power level the threat has been reduced. Today, Russia, China and the U.S. are not in a situation, as in the Cold War, in which there is intense rivalry that could heat up into war. What about the possibility of an accidental nuclear war? That possibility exists, at a minimal level, although we don’t know how well Russian nuclear weapons are protected or maintained. But the threat of an inadvertent nuclear war was much more real during the Cold War. The U.S. and former Soviet Union instituted safeguards to prevent accidents. Do new nuclear powers have the same safeguards? The conflict between Pakistan and India in Kashmir is creating a lot of instability in the region, and the safeguards the superpowers have are missing
