nuclear threat
Missile crisis danger
Nuclear threat refers to the danger posed by nuclear weapons—their existence, potential use, or proliferation.
The phrase covers scenarios from deliberate attack to accidental launch to terrorist acquisition: The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the nuclear threat into every American living room.
A nuclear threat can also be an explicit warning that nuclear weapons might be deployed: The dictator issued a nuclear threat against neighboring states.
During the Cold War, "the nuclear threat" became shorthand for the existential danger of civilization-ending war.
- atomic bombFission-triggered mass destruction device
- ground zeroExplosion's central impact point
- hydrogen bombThermonuclear fusion weapon
- Cold WarProlonged East-West standoff
- brinkmanshipPushing conflicts to disaster's threshold
red phone · fallout shelter · bomb shelter · warhead · radiation shielding · rogue state · plutonium · first strike · dirty bomb · enriched uranium · blast · mutually assured destruction · radiation sickness · genetic mutations · missile silo · disarmament treaty · countdown · ticking clock
- global issuesclimate change, water scarcity, inequality, pandemics, poverty
- nuclear waratomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, ICBM, mushroom cloud, first strike
- International CrisesCuban Missile Crisis, Iran hostage crisis, hostage crisis, Suez Crisis, Bay of Pigs
- nuclear securitynon-proliferation, nonproliferation, weapons inspectors, uranium enrichment, plutonium
- Postwar EuropeBerlin Wall, Marshall Plan, Iron Curtain, iron curtain, NATO
- Ukraine WarUkraine, Kherson, Mariupol, Kyiv, Donetsk
nuclear threatnuclear security
Safeguarding fissile materials and weapons
nuclear safety · global peace · global stability · disarmament · peaceful coexistence
nuclear threatconventional warfare
Armed conflict using standard military forces
conventional weapons · guerrilla warfare · cyberwarfare · economic warfare
nuclear threatnuclear disarmament
Reducing atomic weapon stockpiles
denuclearization · nuclear nonproliferation · arms control · non-proliferation · nuclear-free zone
threat, nuclear, nucleate, nuclide, nucleated, nuclear war, nuclearize, nuclear weapon, nuclearization