Sword of Damocles

The term existential is sometimes applied in a casual way to punctuate a number of outstanding threats e.g. global warming, AI, a virus, the national debt. Yes, indeed, many such concerns carry the label existential.

Then there is Existential. We will address the one topic truly worthy of such a superlative tag, a threat we have lived with (and have thus far survived) for some eighty years. The subject, of course, is the terrible swift sword of a nuclear exchange. The focus article for what could be the most sobering MM discussion yet is (click) Mushroom Cloud Over Manhattan.

The described fact pattern is entirely plausible. The details of the scenario may be graphic but are not gratuitous. The matter-of-factness in the telling actually understates the horror. In any event, the point of our discussion is more philosophical in nature.

First, though, put yourself in the shoes of the one(s) facing the mother of all lose/lose propositions. You have minutes to decide whether to open the gates of hell in response to . . . what exactly? – a single device just took out NYC and blips on a screen showing incoming missiles.

Uncertainty reigns as to the origin of that single device and the credibility of the missile warning. The only certainty is that the decision to respond would most definitely trigger a massive like-response by adversaries, marking the end of civilization as we know it.

Tick. Tick. Those minutes are down to six before that would-be foreign missile attack takes out our response option. Two minutes now. On the one hand, there is no option: every monstrous crime requires a proportionate – or better still, a punishing – response. Standing down would mean those NY deaths would have been in vain.

On the other hand . . . . . where did that original nuke even come from? How certain are we about those missiles? (Remember Stanislav Petrov, the Soviet radar officer in 1983 who averted a potential nuclear war by disregarding official protocol in deciding not to notify superiors after their nuclear-warning system indicated that the U.S. had launched five missiles, guessing correctly that might have been a false alarm?). Fog of armageddon: Who even to target?

So how does your psyche process this civilization-ending nuclear overhang? Perhaps we have become inured to the danger after that stay of execution known as the Cuban Missile Crisis (JFK reportedly put the odds of that scenario going sideways at one in three). We’re well beyond any of the duck-and-cover and backyard bomb shelter fantasies of the time.

This parade of horribles brings to mind that serenity prayer about having the grace to accept those things we cannot control, the courage to change those we can, and the wisdom to know the difference. Otherwise, assume the fetal position.

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