Threads – a terrifying film made by the BBC in 1984 depicting the impact of nuclear war on a town in northern England – was recently made available for streaming. It’s a brutal and grim journey through the aftermath of nuclear war that anyone who watched the unique can have a tough time re-watching. However, 40 years later, the film might be seen more as an unpleasant artifact from a more dangerous time.
We now eat many forms of apocalyptic entertainment in movies and video games, exploring all types of social breakdown: ecological catastrophe, artificial pandemics, alien invasions, cyberattacks and dangerous artificial intelligence. But “Threads” is especially chilling in its attempt to realistically portray what may need happened had Cold War tensions escalated. I remember watching it as a youngster in class at college and once was enough for me.
However, in the winter of 2024, it’s difficult to avoid regular warnings concerning the escalation of tensions world wide. There are widespread fears that a disastrous series of diplomatic breakdowns and strategic miscalculations could result in a 2024 version of the events depicted in the 1984 film.
Since the tip of the Cold War, much of the international conflict has been fought below the edge of open war, in the spheres of cyberwar, espionage and subversion. Or in other attempts at economic and political tactics designed to influence and manipulate. However, there may be clearly something very disturbing concerning the situation for the reason that invasion of Ukraine and the escalation of events in the Middle East after October 7.
What makes the present situation so worrying is the sense that “great powers” or nuclear-armed states may very well be drawn into conflicts that might quickly escalate beyond any diplomatic or political control. We hope that leaders on all sides are determined to deter or contain conflict. But wars are shaped by accidents, miscalculations, and errors in strategic judgment.
Would Vladimir Putin send his troops to Ukraine if he could see how Ukrainians and the international community would react? Now he has began making regular threats against Russia’s nuclear arsenal.
There is due to this fact a way of concern concerning the current possibility of events spiraling uncontrolled – of events escalating from brutal and horrific local or regional conflicts into full-blown global conflict. There will definitely be (hopefully) ongoing diplomatic efforts focused on ensuring that events in Ukraine and the Middle East don’t escalate to the purpose where the world is drawn right into a broader war using weapons of mass destruction.
Rational and irrational actors
However, one concern is that the situation in the 2020s is clearly difficult due to geopolitical tensions in the course of the Cold War. Influential “realists” of diplomacy – including: scientists John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt – argued that certainly one of the the reason why the United States shouldn’t invade Iraq is precisely this Saddam Hussein was a “rational actor” whose behavior will be stopped and controlled. Iraq may very well be controlled through what they considered “vigilant surveillance” and containment.
However, the fear in 2024 is that the world isn’t inhabited by rational actors, because it was in the course of the Cold War, with its doctrine of mutually assured destruction.
Putin is seen as a pacesetter increasingly detached from reality – surrounded by advisers who’re too afraid to give him advice he may not want to hear. Strategically, it’s the fear that escalation and de-escalation may occur. He could attempt a nuclear attack to stop events from escalating any further – a terrifying wake-up call that may put an end to all attempts to challenge him.
EPA-EFE/Ramil Sitdikon/Sputnik/Kremlin Basin
Some query whether Iran will be led by people who find themselves also Iran detached from reality and maybe they really expect an apocalyptic clash with Israel and the West. This image of irrational leaders could also be more a mirrored image of our panic and paranoia than a reliable assessment of the leadership in these countries. And after all, some argue that there are a good variety of irrational actors in the liberal world.
A connected world
So can we live in a time of dangerous irrational actors where deterrence will fail to prevent a potentially apocalyptic escalation of world events? Security analysts and decision-makers often refer to the so-called “deterrence by entanglement”. There are several types of deterrence, but certainly one of the geopolitical differences between the present war and the Cold War is the extent of interconnectedness between states, where there will be diplomatic, economic and political tensions.
How many Chinese students study at British universities? How many properties in London are owned by Russian residents? Societies are entangled to such an extent that launching a nuclear attack on London wouldn’t only destroy investments, but could also kill your individual residents. Then there’s the query of geography and nuclear attacks: would you risk it? ecological effect of nuclear attacks in a way that might threaten your territory, ecology and residents – for generations?
Leaders make mistakes and situations escalate in dangerous and unpredictable ways. But certainly one of the teachings of diplomacy – going back to the works of Sun Tzu and Machiavelli – is that deception is a crucial a part of state policy and military operations. And the “realization” of the art of presidency often requires cultivating a picture of irrationality as a type of rational state policy and deterrence. Some have argued that Donald Trump’s actions and statements on international affairs create a way of uncertainty that acts as a one-man deterrence strategy.
However, as time goes on, it will probably be terrifying to watch and experience this performance. Let us not forget that the history of diplomacy is a history of tragic accidents, most of which might have been avoided.