Does the prospect of nuclear disaster still frighten anyone these days?

[Minimalist]

It's as if the fate of the world as we know it lies in a fairly delicate balance, at the mercy of the moods and ambitions of some unnamed persons.

We survived 8 years with Fuckstruck Bush's finger on the button. That's amazing.

[Mudhammam]

My greatest fear is that we get another "holy crusader" type president like G.W. who decides "Fuck it. Nuke those Muslim bastards."

I would not be the least surprised if the thought crossed Bush's poor excuse for a mind at one point or other. Nor would it surprise me to hear that a top advisor had to talk him out of giving the order.

Apparently Jeb is getting much of the old crew who used to advise Dubya back together. So your greatest fear is not unfounded.

[CapnAwesome]

No, not really. Like other people have said, I can't do anything about it. I also think it's unlikely and I think it's important to note that nuclear weapons have been dropped on people twice and tested above ground countless times and the world still ticks on pretty well.

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It's as if the fate of the world as we know it lies in a fairly delicate balance, at the mercy of the moods and ambitions of some unnamed persons.

We survived 8 years with Fuckstruck Bush's finger on the button. That's amazing.

The only person to actually drop nuclear weapons on people was a liberal democrat named Harry Truman.

[Minimalist]

And don't you forget that. But there was a war on..and one that we didn't start.

Try to imagine any of the current crop of republicunt fuckwits anywhere near the button. Scary thought.

[Thumpalumpacus]

The last time I was worried about nuclear warfare was right after 9/11. Living in Port Hueneme, CA, three hundred yards from a big Navy base sitting stride the only deep-water harbor between LA and San Fran -- I considered the possibility of a terrorist nuke being sent into the port on a container ship. The likelihood was extremely low, it seemed to me, but it did cross my mind.

The most nerve-wracking experience I had in this regard, though, was in 1991, not too long after returning to Carswell AFB from Desert Storm. We were toned out by the alert klaxon, meaning, get in our fire trucks and take up preplanned positions. My truck was to head to the north end of the runway and stand by. We'd done these drills once a month since god-knows-when, but on this day I saw something I'd never seen before: the tails of our H-model B-52s started rolling out of the alert compound, and taxiing up towards my truck, a line of fat bombers waddling up the parallel, each carrying 20 nuclear cruise missiles. The first one rolled past my truck and came to a stop at the head of the runway, and then started its slow roll. I was sure that the shit had hit the fan -- the Air Force does not like nukes to be airborne without need. But he never accelerated, merely taxied to the midpoint of the runway where it turned off and headed back into the alert pad, followed by 7 other -52s and four KC-135 tanker aircraft.

That was pretty creepy. I thought the balloon had gone up.

[IATIA]

Does the prospect of nuclear disaster still frighten anyone these days?

As long as I am close enough, "third base".

[abaris]

It seems like there was a lot of hysteria over nuclear bombs during the Cold War... and that seems to have faded completely except for an occasional and almost mechanical invocation in political rhetoric. Is the hope of complete disarmament dead?

Was there? I for one didn't wake up to worry abut the bomb every day. When Nixon was in office I was too little to worry about anything much and later on I was pretty sure that the Russians as well as the Americans weren't on a suicide trip. When I gave it some thought, that is. Which really wasn't that often.

The only time I really worried was right after 9/11 with Bush in the White House.

[robvalue]

I am very concerned about it, and I am amazed that an all-out nuclear war has been avoided this long.

[Chas]

I fear that two possibilities are all too likely.
One, that some terrorist gets his hands on a nuke and uses it on a city.
Two, a regime is run by a madman and decides to nuke an enemy.

Neither seems unlikely enough.

[Anomalocaris]

I think the possibility of a terrorist getting a nuclear weapon is the most significant threat. The possibility of a madman getting control of a country with nukes and arbitrarily using them to nuke another country is slim to nonexistent. More likely some paranoid madman in charge of a country with nukes is accidentally placed in a situation where his paranoia is triggered and he believe his enemy is about to bring down his regime, and he lashes out with nuclear weapon.

I think the most likely place where terrorist would get their hands on a bomb would be in Saudi arabia. Saudi Arabia has no bomb yet, but it is vigorously pursuing a bomb as insurance against nuclear armed Iran. Unlike other marginal nuclear powers, Saudi arabia already has a sizeable functioning intermediate range ballistic missile arsenal, sold to them by China in the late 1980s, that could stand ready to deliver any nuclear warhead Saudi arabia should come to possess. I give at least 50% chance Saudi arabia will either manage to build or buy a nuclear arsenal in the next 10 years. If Saudi arabia acquires a nuclear arsenal, that would be the place where any Sunni terrorist would most likely get a hold of a nuclear bomb.