Nuclear attack fears still a reality

Seventy-three years ago the world was shocked and numbed to witness the first and only nuclear attack.

Japan was fire-bombed with two nuclear bombs, the consequences are still being felt today.

Ever since, Japan was nuclear incinerated, world leaders have had the wisdom to avoid another nuclear war. Humanity witnessed the terrifying destructive power of nuclear weapons and vowed never to repeat the mistake.

There is a frightening real risk that mankind has not witnessed its last nuclear war. We live in the shadows of a new and deadly cold war. Many sober observers believe the world is closer to nuclear war now than at any time since the Cuban missile crisis.

Cold war tactics are now in the realm of the rationality of irrationality. It is the equivalent to nuclear roulette, a version of political roulette in which the entire world is at stake, with a two- or three-chambered revolver.

Every small conflict pulls the trigger in nuclear roulette. In the metaphor of nuclear roulette, every day we pull the trigger of the many chambered nuclear gun pointed at the head of civilization.

Brinkmanship is a shared risk of war in which each side pushes the other towards the brink of disaster. These two deadly nuclear scorpions will not survive a strategic nuclear exchange.

The only way to survive nuclear roulette is to put down the atomic gun.

The current constellation of global events make nuclear war virtually inevitable. We cannot continue on our current course forever.

Farouk Araie

Johannesburg