Do Russians Love Their Children Too? They Don't Have Any Children! How Can They Love What They Don't Have?

This is a lovely little anecdote from Reason's Ron Bailey, from the days of Yeltsin's Russia:

Cirincione pointed to the near miss that occurred in 1995 when Norway launched a weather satellite and Russian military officials mistook it as a submarine launched ballistic missile aimed at producing an electro-magnetic pulse to disable a Russian military response. Russian nuclear defense officials opened the Russian "football" in front of President Boris Yeltsin, urging him to order an immediate strike against the West. Fortunately, Yeltsin held off, arguing that it must be a mistake. _Reason

Back in the days of overt nuclear standoff, pop singer "Sting" sought to reassure anxious westerners by reminding them that no doubt Russians love their children too. They wouldn't start a nuclear war just for the heck of it.

But now that Russians are not having children, and the ethnic Russian population is shrinking by nearly half with each generation, what is the Russian's attitude on nuclear war? They have 2,000 live nuclear warheads aimed at the west, on a hair-trigger.

What would it take to set it off? Somebody saying something mean about Vladimir Putin? You never know. Read Ron Bailey's final installment from the Global Catastrophic Risks Conference at Oxford.