A World Led by the Illiterate: Nuclear War, a Scenario, Is A Book No One in Power Has Read, a Brutal Truth About Ignorance, Arrogance, and the Sleepwalk Toward Annihilation

“The greatest enemy of the moral life is not evil but indifference. It is the inability to see beyond the self, to recognize that the world is not a stage for our ambitions and appetites.” - Chris Hedges

“The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.” - Carl Sagan

“War does not determine who is right, only who is left.” - Bertrand Russell

The tragedy of our age is not that we lack information, but that those in power believe they have the best and strongest military in the world. We are ruled by men and women who mistake their lack of wisdom and technology for progress. They are functionally illiterate in the moral and existential sense, unable to grasp the consequences of their own nuclear killing machines. Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario should have been required reading in every government office and military. Instead, it gathers dust, while the world drifts closer to nuclear conflict. The leaders of nations speak of deterrence and peace, yet their actions resemble gambling amateurs in a cheap casino, doubling down on a high risk bet of no chance of winning.

The geopolitical stage today resembles an asylum governed by some individuals that have narcissistic personality disorders with sociopathic tendencies who have mistaken political and military power for intelligence.

Nine countries (and counting) possess nuclear weapons, each try to hide their imperial ambitions in the language of defence, security, deterrence, and sovereignty; yet their motives are nakedly tribal, power hungry, egotistical, and the illusion of controlling other nations/peoples.

Some of these nuclear armed countries expand under the banner of peace, other nuclear countries arm itself under the pretense of protection and deterrence, and some construct alliances beneath the veil of economic cooperation, and others hold their nuclear card/threat to countries "Strength through Peace" with regime changes. All are driven by the same ancient motivation of wanting more power and fear disguised as strength.

Nuclear missiles and weaponized EMP satellites are not aimed at ideological differences, but more so at economies, the need for critical military resources, and the myth of national exceptionalism. Each nation clings to the belief that it can manage the nuclear military abyss, and wishful thinking that even gen-AI-powered technology will obey its master’s hand.

But as Annie Jacobsen's book describes, history has already judged such arrogance and ignorance and such countries will realize their actions are suicidal for their nations. If leaders of countries read this book, some may change their mind on the lunacy of nuclear weapons and nuclear war.