Nuclear technology is hours away from reducing the value of all human civilization by 10%, and for all we knew that figure could have been 100%. That’s the nuclear threat. I wouldn’t even classify that as a “geopolitical” threat. The fact that Soviet nuclear technology pretty quickly became comparable to US nuclear technology isn’t the most salient fact in the story. The story is that research got really close, and is still really close, to releasing hell, and the door to hell looks generally pretty easy to open.
Nuclear technology is hours away from reducing the value of all human civilization by 10%, and for all we knew that figure could have been 100%. That’s the nuclear threat. I wouldn’t even classify that as a “geopolitical” threat. The fact that Soviet nuclear technology pretty quickly became comparable to US nuclear technology isn’t the most salient fact in the story. The story is that research got really close, and is still really close, to releasing hell, and the door to hell looks generally pretty easy to open.