I'm honestly surprised it hasn't happened yet. Anybody with an Internet connection and access to the proper materials can construct a very crude single-stage low-yield nuclear device that could fit in the back of a cargo van. The following is my personal opinion and does not necessarily reflect the views of this organization: It is only a matter of time before a nuclear weapon is detonated by a hostile entity, but it most likely won't be one nation state attacking another nation state. The stability of Iran's leadership and the possibility that they might have secretly acquired nuclear weapons makes them a wild card. With Israel being the only nuclear superpower in that region, the risk of a nuclear war is low, with the exception of Iran. The creation of the State of Israel after World War 2 did not help matters, but that was a UN decision, not solely America. But the history of that region has been bloody for thousands of years. Are we making things worse? Yes, probably. If that condition were to change, we would immediately reassess the situation and adjust the DEFCON level accordingly.Īs for the Middle East, those conflicts have been raging for longer than America has been a country, so we are hardly "starting" wars over there. Our assessment was - and still is - that as long as the US and NATO stay out of that conflict, it will remain conventional and localized to that small region. With this last instance of NATO/Russia, we made the determination very early that Russia probably only had designs on the SE corner of Ukraine, and a full-scale invasion of Ukraine or further into the EU was not likely. In that specific instance, the rationality of the leadership on both sides and the many decades that conflict has simmered on slow boil would be big factors. A conventional war started by India/Pakistan? The threshold is much lower to go nuclear than it is for NATO/Russia/China and so we would probably be quicker on the draw. Every conflict is unique and there are multiple factors in determining how high the threshold for use of nuclear weapons is in each case.
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