machado: the threat of nuclear war has always existed, but something about the invasion of ukraine feels different

there is a briefcase, though. in the u.s., it’s known as the nuclear football, and it goes wherever the president goes . it comes complete with instructions on how to carry out a nuclear strike and what locations to target, as well as a radio and code authenticators. all the president has to do to ok an attack is use a code — called a “biscuit” — to prove his identity (bill clinton once famously lost the biscuit for months). more worrying, maybe, is that the president doesn’t need approval from anyone to make the call — not congress, or even the military.

russia also has a briefcase. it’s called the cheget, named after mount cheget, one of the nation’s popular ski destinations. like the u.s.’ nuclear football, the cheget is never far from the president and,  according to reuters , connects to russia’s strategic nuclear network so the president can easily communicate attack orders.

this past weekend, after russia began its attack on ukraine, president vladimir putin said he was putting nuclear forces “on alert,” using the phrase “enhanced combat duty.” and  even though military experts don’t seem to know what that means exactly , you couldn’t be blamed for worrying, even just a little.

russia has never used nuclear weapons in war, but  the federation of american scientists estimates  that it has almost 6,000 nuclear weapons — more than any other country — of which, 1,588 are deployed and ready to go. take a moment to consider the ballistic missile exercises putin ordered pre-attack, and well, you may find your concern ratcheting up a bit — exacerbated by the fact that all we can do is watch powerlessly as the devastation in ukraine unfolds.

back in 1983, the sense of powerlessness was similar. when my father came back from his regular saturday jaunt to the corner store with the weekend paper under his arm, he was holding the tv guide in one hand. there was a chilling image of a mushroom-shaped cloud on the front advertising a doomsday movie called  the day after . i had the same nightmare for weeks afterwards: i was looking out my bedroom window to see a similar cloud on the horizon of our sleepy scarborough neighbourhood, my breath tight as if the oxygen was slowly being sucked out of the room.

when russia fired at a ukraine nuclear power plant earlier this week, starting fires and prompting the ukrainian foreign affairs minister to warn that an explosion would cause a nuclear disaster “ 10 times worse than chernobyl ,” it was the ’80s all over again — i was just some girl in another part of the world anxiously watching grown-ups behaving very badly, carelessly toying with the well-being of the world, while everyone looks on with their fingers crossed.

and i am not the only one who is worrying.  according to vice ,  nukemap , a site that allows you to measure fatalities and injuries if a nuclear bomb (you choose the type) falls on a location that you select, has been overwhelmed with visitors. even vice writer mathew gault has seen an uptick in nuclear war worry: a story he wrote on  how to survive a nuclear attack  is also seeing rose traffic.

maybe it’s the way other leaders are responding to putin with stiff  sanctions and no-nonsense economic restrictions . or maybe we are so done, so fatigued from the pummelling the pandemic has rained on us for the last two years, that we are extra sensitive to the fact that yes, things can actually get worse.