Is the world more dangerous now than during the cold war?
(The Guardian North Korea)

With the rise of Trump, and unstable relations between the US, Russia and China - plus a dash of nuclear bellicosity from North Korea - are we all going to die?During the cold war, there was a clear narrative: an ideological opposition between the US and the Soviet Union. Moments of great tension were understood as episodes within that narrative. The closest we came to nuclear confrontation was the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the two countries seemed on the edge of war. But the crisis itself was finished inside a fortnight, and there was a wider framework to fall back on. The 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty calmed the waters. Continue reading...