Growing up in Manhattan in the 70s I was a pretty confident kid, strolling the streets of Harlem without great concerns. But I did have a fear of death. It would hit me like a wave of panic, unrelated to no immediate threat. (I still have these panic attacks.) I believe this fear also surfaced cryptically in a couple of episodes in which I feared I was going to become blind. I also remember feeling an imminent threat to my life: when someone told me the bubble-gum tattoo on my arm would not let my skin breathe, when the solar system's plants fell into alignment. Those seem really far fetched now. I also had a fear of nuclear war, and remember having very vivid dreams with missiles and nuclear explosions. This was before films like 'The Day After". I was certainly very receptive to life-threatening scenarios, but this one in particular must have been fostered by something, cold-war talk, school filme, nuclear fall-out shelter signs. I don't know. I suppose this fear was more generalized. I would imagine those that grew up in the states and had nuclear attack drills (where they protected themselves under their desks!), those that lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, would have this fear as well. Despite MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction), it was not far-fetched, but rather quite palpable.
In the 80s, the world went through great shifts, among them a number of pacts drawn between Gorbatchev and Reagan procurring some degree of nuclear disarmament. Reagan talked about Star Wars, a plan that hit a dead-end at the time but is now re-surfacing. But there was a genuine sense that the threat of a world-wide nuclear conflict was subsiding. (More regional threat persisted, as India and Pakistan, recurrent partners in war, became nuclear nations.)
I have more recently been afflicted by renewed fear of the use of nuclear weapons. And once more I do not think these are unwarranted. These fears derive largely not to the (very real) possibility of a terrorist nuclear softbomb attack. Or the threat of a nuclear launch from Iran or North Korea. (Incidentally, I recently read how a nuclear warhead travelling on a Scud missile that did not hit ground, but exploded one mile high could generate electromagnetic waves strong enough to burn out electricity in huge areas, say the whole eastern US.) My fears derive from the pro-nuclear plans of the Bush Administration. This is not militant anti-US sentiment. These same ordering of blame, with the US as highest on the scale of threat to Nulcear peace, was voiced by Jimmy Carter.
The Bush administration is pursuing plans to biuld new forms of nuclear weapons, such as the Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator, or bunker-buster, and the mini-nukes. These are concieved not as weapons of dissuasion, in the context of MAD and détente, but as weapons that military officers are authorized to recruit in the course of conventional war. The Nuclear Posture Review makes it clear that these weapons are part of the arsenal to be called upon. At the same time, the US is backing away from treaties upon which Nuclear peace is based, such as the Test Ban Treaty and the Non-Proliferation Treaty. (There will be a round of talks on the NPT in NYC this May.) In addition, the invasion of Iraq has sent out a clear message to other countries on the "Axis of Evil" list. Compliance with US demands achieves little: afterall Iraq did not have WMDs, as it stated when pressured by the US. UN inspections had kept this from happening, and although inspectors were stating there were no WMDs, the US conjured its own evidence, and went ahead with its apriori plans anyhow. So what's the point of playing the game, if yo get beat up in the end, regardless of what you do. Might as well get ready for what is bound to come. Naturally North Korea assess possessing Nuclear Weapons is its only defense against an invasion by the US. NK is also playing the diplomacy game, trying to secure economic benefits. But then it had been promised, by Bill Clinton, to recieve aid in restructuring its Enery sector. That door was closed by Bush, who first broke off talks with NK, then ignored them as he was busier on the other side of the world.
The Russians now have a new ICBM (Intercontinental Ballistic Missile), the SS-27, a much faster version of the SS-25. The US's National Missile Defense system was based on the SS-25. It has failed tests repeatedly, and faced hurdles that were not of mere implementation and which further research could resolve, but unsurmountable problems (such as how to distinguish between real and dummy warheads in weightlessness). But it will be totally useless against the SS-27. (The NMD is expected to cost between $800 bn - $1.2 trillion by 2015.)
The peace movment in the past was able to mobilize against the lunacy of nuclear weapons. We must raise the No-Nuke flag once more.
