Americans’ nuclear fears surge to highest levels since Cold War
by Daniel de Visé - 10/14/22 6:00 AM ET
At a moment when the global COVID-19 pandemic is finally loosening its grip on the public consciousness as an object of existential dread, a new fear has swept in to supplant it: nuclear annihilation.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February has stoked U.S. nuclear fears like no other event since the close of the Cold War, according to foreign policy scholars and public opinion curators. In poll after poll this year, a majority of Americans have said they believe Russian President Vladimir Putin may unleash nuclear weapons on Ukraine, as Putin himself has threatened.
“The level of anxiety is something that I haven’t seen since the Cuban missile crisis,” said Peter Kuznick, a history professor and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, referring to the tense 1962 standoff between the United States and Soviet Union. “And that was short-lived. This has gone on for months now.”
Nuclear unease surged with the Feb. 24 invasion, then 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. Fears rose again this month amid suggestions that Putin might resort to using nuclear weapons to stem mounting losses.
Several polls in February and March found Americans increasingly concerned about imminent nuclear peril. In a new Reuters-Ipsos poll, released Monday, 58 percent of respondents said they fear the United States is headed toward nuclear war.
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https://thehill.com/policy/defense/3687396-americans-nuclear-fears-surge-to-highest-levels-since-cold-war/
