Are We More or Less in Danger of Nuclear War Now Than During the Cold War?

Today, there is talk that the risk of using nuclear weapons worldwide is currently at its peak since the Cold War. The nuclear-armed nations are relentlessly increasing and modernizing their weapons, showing no inclination toward negotiations, peace talks or reducing their nuclear arsenal. We used to hear about this topic a lot more in the 1970s and 1980s, but it has since faded away for some time. But the concern is back and the number of nuclear warheads in the world is rising for the first time since the Cold War.

One of the key differences in the nuclear weapon discussion today is that there is no talk about reaching any agreements, which was the case in the past. The unabated growth of egoism—the desire to enjoy at the expense of others—has made negotiating a pointless endeavor because striking a deal with one country still fails to account for 20 or so others that will not bother negotiating.

It is indeed a grim reality and there is no way out. Everyone is simply sitting on their nuclear arsenal in a state of mutual distrust. World powers continue accumulating weapons, and countries that previously had none also enter the picture.

Is there a way out of this nuclear arms race? The bleak scenario is that we will blow up the entire planet. The more hopeful one is that we will start applying connection-enriching learning to our lives, inverting our egoistic nature of self-benefit at the expense of others to its opposite—a desire to use ourselves to benefit others—and by doing so, we will either destroy weapons made to harm and kill, or repurpose them for peaceful purposes, in the process.

It seems unrealistic to think that everyone will positively connect, and that this is the solution to the increasing nuclear anxiety—because it is indeed unrealistic.

When does it become real? All we can do is keep working on ourselves to become more caring, supportive and loving, and also continue spreading the word about how to rise above our egoism to relations of mutual consideration.

I know that this is how I will live until my dying day, and then life will go on. I trust that more and more people will think in such a way, applying increasing efforts to advance a unified human consciousness until it will eventually all click into place.

Based on the video “Why We’re Witnessing a Nuclear Comeback” with Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman and Semion Vinokur. Written/edited by students of Kabbalist Dr. Michael Laitman.

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