At dinner with my mom on Monday, she mentioned that she'd recently watched the new Bob Dylan movie, A Complete Unknown. A bit of the film takes place during the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. She confessed that she, who was born in 1946, had largely forgotten how frightened people were at the time, with many people leaving large cities (potential targets) in a state of panic.

Our conversation reminded me of a question I've been turning over in my head since 2022—namely, why has the risk of nuclear war apparently been completely dismissed by much of humanity, including our so-called leaders?

I grew up reading Cold War history that told of near misses, mishaps, and miscalculations in the business of maintaining the Mutually Assured Destruction nuclear doctrine. On a few occasions, the world came very close to annihilation.