By now we have all been sufficiently bombarded with the fear of a nuclear conflict on television and online, given the recent tensions with North Korea.
The North Korean missile program has recently been able to repeatedly and successfully launch intermediate range ballistic missiles, including a very dangerous launch over the Hokkaido island of Japan. Western intelligence agencies say that not only does North Korea now possess a missile that can reach parts of the continental United States, but that they have also been able to miniaturize their nuclear arsenal so that the nuclear payload can be delivered via such a vehicle.
On our home front, the president of the United States has not practiced effective international diplomacy to calm the tensions. In fact, he has only inflamed the situation when offering "Fire and Fury" as a means with which he plans to address the North Korean threat. We have a wide array of military assets in the Korean peninsula and have conducted military exercises with the South Korea as a show of force. None of this has worked, nor will work, to resolve the tensions.
The leader of North Korea, Kim Jung-Un, is following in his father's footsteps in attempting to flaunt his country's military in order to gain international attention and at times blackmail countries for economic concessions. However, with the escalated nuclear capabilities of the North, there is no longer an aura of invincibility for the US and its allies. There is, for the first time, substantial fear.
While we remember the days of the Cold War, when Soviet Union squared off with the United States, and its days of escalating Nuclear capabilities and countermeasures, this confrontation is quite different. In the days of the Cold War, both sides had professionals of distinguished integrity that held human life in highest regard, and intervened in order to preserve it.
One notable example is when the Soviet physicist, Andrei Sakharov, made a breakthrough in high yield nuclear ordinance in 1960. Despite demands from the Politburo for the most powerful bomb ever created, he intervened and convinced them to reduce the yield by half. As a result, he may well have saved all life on earth. While the bomb RDS-220 (commonly known as Tsar Bomba) had yield of half of the original design, the test detonation was still a devastating event that wiped out a village, was felt over a thousand miles away, and its blast wave orbited the earth thrice.
Such men of integrity and courage are rare. In fact, I am beginning to doubt that many exist anymore in today's world. I certainly doubt that there are any left in a repressive and dictatorial regime of the North Korea.
