Introducing the Strangelove Files

Humanity has never been as close to total annihilation as it is at this moment. When, on 1 June, Ukrainian drones attacked Tu-22, Tu-95 and Tu-160 aircraft stationed within Russia, this constituted the first successful attack on the strategic nuclear arsenal of a nuclear superpower in history. This attack was only possible due to provisions in the START I / New START bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia. Due to the treaty obligations, strategic bombers that can be armed with nuclear weapons have to be parked out in the open so that the other side can monitor them via satellites. With other words: Ukraine used a nuclear arms reduction treaty to attack the country with the most nuclear weapons on the planet.

Aside from being something only an utter madman would even consider, it is not unreasonable to think that this could have started a nuclear exchange that would have reduced urban areas in Europe, Russia and the US to glowing, radioactive wastelands within a couple of hours. Such a scenario is likely to bring an end to human civilisation on the the planet, if not permanently, then for the foreseeable future. At this point, it entirely depends on your mental disposition and fortitude whether dying in the initial blasts or surviving and having to deal with what comes next is preferable. It is however without question that we haven’t been this close to the brink since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and since Stanislav Petrov stopped a retaliatory nuclear strike when Soviet satellites mistook reflected sunlight on high-altitude clouds for a US missile launch in 1983.

Satire Made Manifest

Whether nuclear armageddon has, in 2025, once again been averted by remarkably cool heads, or will come later — if and when Russia decides to retaliate against Ukraine or whoever helped them plan their strike — I do not know. What I do know is how shocked I was at how the press decided to report on imminent thermonuclear war. Most of my colleagues in the corporate news media either downplayed this very real possibility or where so giddy at Ukraine’s success that they didn’t even consider it.

All of this left my scratching my head in a mixture of wonder and horror. As it turns out, Dr. Strangelove isn’t a satire or a comedy at all — it’s basically a documentary on what happens when you give power-obsessed egomaniacs H-bombs to play around with. The remake stars Vladimir Zelensky as General Ripper, Donald Trump as Buck Turgidson and Vladimir Putin as Dr Strangelove.

What to Do About This

I feel very strongly that this is the most important topic one could write about right now. And if the others aren’t doing it properly, I feel like I’ve got to do it myself. This is why I am starting a new series of articles I am calling The Strangelove Files. Here, I will try to stay abreast of the developing threats to our collective survival manifested by the general rise in nuclear tensions around the world.

In doing so, it is important to me to distance myself from the fearmongering the corporate news media tends to engage in when actually covering this topic. I do not get paid for generating clicks, so I don’t need to scare my readers to drum up more engagement. With these articles, I want to analyse the situation in a factual and sober way, to further our understanding of what is at stake.

While I don’t feel like it is time to panic, I do believe that all of us need to stop rooting for political teams when it comes to this. I want people to understand that when it comes to the threat of thermonuclear war, there is only one side: Team Humanity. It’s pretty damn stupid to cheer for Ukraine to win a war if that win includes the country being turned into a dead radioactive wasteland, don’t you think? That’s no win at all. For nobody.

Maybe I can, somehow, in a small way, contribute to foster some understanding somewhere. At least that’s the idea with what I am trying to do here with this article series. If you agree with these sentiments, feel free to share my writings as widely as possible. Let’s try to create a small chorus of sane voices in all of this horrible madness!