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Nuclear War Has Become Possible Again

The rise of tactical nukes means that nuclear war is no longer as unthinkable as it once was.

Dominic M. Lawson
7 min readMar 31, 2020
Image by WikiImages from Pixabay

Nuclear Dance

A world in which every media story was not so intensely focused upon the COVID-19 may seem like a distant memory at the moment, yet it was only some weeks ago when the United States announced something that, had it not be drowned out by the emergence of this pandemic, could have become one of the major stories of the year.

This story was that the Pentagon had conducted a war game which simulated a nuclear exchange with Russia.

Whereas something like this would normally be kept secret for only the eyes of the US’ highest military and political leaders, the Pentagon took the unique position of being completely open about the simulation and American action taken within it.

During the simulation, the US responded to a Russian conventional attack in Europe by launching a ‘low yield,’ or tactical nuclear weapon against the Russian military.

This is only the most visible example of how tactical nuclear weapons are playing a greater role in the thinking of the world’s most powerful people. These weapons have largely been ignored by the general public, yet the past decade has witnessed…

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Dominic M. Lawson
Dominic M. Lawson

Written by Dominic M. Lawson

Geopolitics, international affairs and technology. Follow me on Twitter @DominicLawson

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