, Columnist
Russia Outnumbers the US 10-to-1 in Tactical Nukes. Now What?
Never mind that Vladimir Putin is breaking all nuclear taboos and China is beefing up its arsenal. US nuclear doctrine is still fundamentally sound.
From Oppenheimer, with love.
Photographer: John MacDougall/AFP via Getty Images
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Rarely has a movie timed the zeitgeist as perfectly as Oppenheimer, the story of a man, and all humanity, becoming “death, the destroyer of worlds.” Real life seems hell-bent on imitating art these days.
The blame for the global spike in nuclear anxiety belongs mainly, but not exclusively, to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Surely the situation brought about by his invasion of Ukraine and his recurring rattles of the atomic saber must also change how the US thinks about its own atomic strategy. But how exactly?