When the bombs start to drop (or more likely, the intercontinental missiles start to fly), we want to be far, far away from any location of strategic value, be it a population centre, military base or hub of infrastructure.But if we wait for the missiles to launch, it's already too late. How can I survive a nuclear attack? 1) Identifying Attack Targets That leaves us to ponder a single, extremely salient question: So regardless of the cause, the chances of a nuclear attack aren't to be trivialised. But with the stakes so high, that incompetence could be the last action humanity ever takes upon the face of the Earth. Milo Beckman, FiveThirtyEightįrom black bears scaling perimeter fences, to the Northern Lights triggering a state of full alert, the weakest link in the nuclear chain of command has always been plain old human incompetence. The real risk, embarrassingly enough, is accidental strikes.Īmidst the chaos of an international crisis, global catastrophe could arise from a mere technological error - it only takes one falling domino to trigger an avalanche of self-defense responses. The very existence of nuclear weapons leaves the threat of a world-ending cataclysm hanging over our heads by a very, very fine thread. Whether it's North Korea's insane posturing, the actions of a US president described by his own military as easily baited and quick to lash out, or the escalating tensions between a growing number of nuclear states (Russia, India, Pakistan.), the threat of nuclear war feels more credible than it has since the Cold War.Įven if we assume the world's leaders are sane enough to avoid nuclear Armageddon, we're by no means safe.
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