"Clemenceau said war was too important to be left to the generals. But today, war is too important to be left to politicians," he says, a cigar smoking in his mouth. "They have neither the time, the training, nor the inclination for strategic thought."

This is the opinion of Brigadier General Jack D Ripper, the main antagonist of the 1964 black comedy Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. 

This year marked the 60th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's film, which is about a deranged US general who goes rogue and orders a nuclear attack on the Soviet UnionOfficially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). A powerful group of communist republics, the biggest being Russia, that existed from 1922 to 1991. , triggering a frantic effort by the government to prevent global catastrophe.¹

When Dr Strangelove was released, reviewers described it as a comically unrealistic farceAn absurd situation, or an absurd and comic play. and "impossible on a dozen counts". But some say its events speak eerily to our current condition: the reckless brinkmanshipFollowing a risky policy to the edge of safety and stopping just before something really bad happens. of the man with his finger on the button, and the thin veneer of control in a world where one miscalculation could annihilate us all instantly.

On Wednesday, Russian president Vladimir Putin told a group of senior officials at Russia's security council that he would change the country's nuclear doctrine to allow Russia to use nuclear weapons if attacked by any state using conventional weapons.

The escalation comes amid Ukraine's incursion into Russia's KurskA city in western Russia. In 2024, Ukrainian forces launched a surprise assault and took over parts of the region, as part of the Russia-Ukraine war which began in 2022. region, as Russia continues to advance in eastern Ukraine. There are fears that despite the audacious attacks, Ukraine may suffer serious losses in the coming months as they run critically low on ammunition, air defence resources and troops.

Putin also issued a thinly-veiled threat to the western powers that have been supporting Ukraine's military, stating that any nuclear power supporting another country's attack on Russia would be considered a participant in aggression.

It is based on the principle of nuclear deterrence, whereby nations are prevented from launching a serious or nuclear attack on another nation with a significant nuclear capacity for fear of its destructive retaliatory potential - in other words, mutually assured destruction.² The idea is to lock us in an indefinite nuclear stalemate.

For some, the announcement seems a dramatic escalation in Putin's nuclear browbeating. But others say his threats are starting to wear thin, as more of Moscow's "red lines" are crossed without serious repercussions.

Despite warnings from Putin, United States president Joe Biden announced this week that the US would provide Ukraine with further military aid totalling almost $8bn to "enhance Ukraine's long-range strike capabilities", though he continues to refuse to greenlight Ukraine's request to fire long-range missiles from the US into Russia.

Since the beginning of the war, the US has provided around $175bn to Ukraine in military and economic assistance. But the pledges have begun to stoke serious domestic opposition, with Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump calling Ukraine's leader Zelensky the "greatest salesman on Earth".

Some are concerned that continuing diplomatic and military escalations are our greatest existential risk. To avoid human extinction, they say, we should be willing to compromise with Putin. But others see his warnings as mere bluster, a strategic posturing to keep the West from challenging his expansionist ambitions in Ukraine and beyond.

Could Putin pull the trigger?

Yes: Putin is a deranged madman who wants nothing more than the total destruction of the western world. We must navigate relations extremely carefully and avoid serious provocation.

No: The West has been crossing Putin's lines for years. We have received threat after threat of nuclear destruction. It is time to ignore the bluster and stand by the people of Ukraine and issue them with all the support that they need to win this war.

Or... We should be fearing the prospect of Iran's nuclear capacity, not Russia. That is the real threat to human existence, and something we should lend all of our attention to.