A new fear has swept into public consciousness: nuclear annihilation. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has stoked U.S. fears of a nuclear attack, like no other event since the Cold War ended.
Foreign policy scholars and public opinion curators said that in poll after poll this year, a majority of Americans have said they believe Russian President Vladimir Putin may unleash nuclear weapons on Ukraine.
Putin himself has threatened to use nuclear weapons.
Experts in history and in nuclear studies said the level of anxiety in America right now has not been seen since the Cuban missile crisis. And that time, the fear was short-lived. Meanwhile, the current fear has gone on for months and is expected to continue.
Nuclear unease surged with Russia’s invasion at the end of February. It spiked further when Putin put his nuclear forces on high alert days later. Tensions eased over the summer, as the Ukraine invasion faded from the headlines and Americans grew to accept the lingering war as a new normal.
But fears of attack spiked again in October amid suggestions that Putin might resort to using nuclear weapons to stem mounting losses. A new poll released this week showed that 58 percent of respondents fear the U.S. is headed for nuclear war.
The Ukraine invasion, with its attendant saber-rattling, marks a rare flare-up of nuclear fears in the post-Cold War era.
There was a brief fear of nuclear conflict in 2017 amid escalating tensions with North Korea, brought on by rhetoric between then-President Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un. There was also a period of nuclear fears in the early 2000s, when there was a broader national panic over potential terror attacks after 9/11.
Some scholars say the threat of nuclear conflict looms larger now than at any time since the close of World War II.
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