Bulwark Takes Tom Nichols: America Lost Its Nuclear Anxiety. That Was a Mistake.
Nov 8, 2025
Tom Nichols, a national security expert and writer for The Atlantic, discusses the fading nuclear anxiety in American culture. He highlights the complacency surrounding nuclear threats, which may be more dangerous than we realize. Nichols reflects on students' shocked reactions to classic Cold War films, the realism in the new thriller A House of Dynamite, and how technical glitches in past false alerts revealed vulnerabilities in national security. He emphasizes the importance of public engagement in nuclear policy and warns of the risks posed by modern multi-actor threats.
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Nuclear Risk Is Now Multiplied
- Nuclear danger is now a multiplayer problem with nine nuclear-armed states rather than a two-player Cold War duel.
- Tom Nichols warns this multiplies instability and makes accidents or limited uses more likely.
Teaching With Nuclear Panic Films
- Tom Nichols showed students 1980s nuclear panic films to convey the era's pervasive fear.
- He says the films stunned young viewers who couldn't imagine mass, immediate destruction.
Hiroshima Images Can Mislead
- Atomic blasts in 1945 understate modern nuclear devastation because yield and urban construction differ.
- Nichols argues modern exchanges would cause far worse cascading collapse than Hiroshima/Nagasaki imagery implies.
