By Raffique Shah
September 29, 2025

When I look back at it, I was among a selected few thousands in the world who got around to playing a part in the Cold War. This latter name confuses generations that did not exist then or since. The Cold War was primarily a continuation of hostilities between the “Eastern Bloc” (Russia and many other Communist states on one side) and the United States of America, its NATO allies and others on the other side.

Bear in mind, when World War II ended in 1945, it left Japan smouldering amidst a huge web of toxic explosives and chemicals—an almost satanic backdrop with zombies aplenty.

Anybody who knew anything about modern warfare will recall the fear of mass destruction that the hundreds of millions of people who lived in those countries had to cope with.

From their targets in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the keen observer or student of the macabre that was atomic or nuclear warfare could trace the devastation by measuring concentric circles outward from the epicentre.

The first hundred miles or so outward from each of the two bombs was a kind of devastation the world had never before seen. Up to the first point, everything was turned into ashes.

The heat from the bomb’s explosion was so intense that it spared no living or dead object. Buildings crashed and while they did not disappear, they will never again be used.

Motorised traffic, Japanese soldiers marching towards what they thought were their last battles turned into walking zombies; they were marked for death in days. Beyond the vast areas that were in cinders, other towns and villages were reduced to nuclear wastelands.

I should add that the death toll from both Hiroshima and Nagasaki went over 200,000—and that does not include those who would have been affected indirectly by the radiation and succumbed to disease later on. If my picture of the nuclear-crazed world is horrific, that was not intentional. It was a realistic painting of what future wars held for mankind.

The Americans who were merely experimenting with their new-found nuclear toys were, much like Donald Trump is today, children playing with toys that could easily kill them and others.

What else is new? Or is anything new? Those who had the bomb, as nuclear weapons were famously called, were eager to continue experimenting with it. These powerful nations led by mad people who don’t give a damn about the timeless, deleterious results nuclear war can bring.

So, the threat of nuclear war, by one means or other, from the microscopic to Armageddon, is back in “fashion”, in a manner of speaking. Nuclear weapons that can range from car bombs to those capable of inner city destruction, and worse than that, are discussed almost as if children are doing projects in their classrooms.

There are few among them who today, and for a long time now, can reduce nuclear warheads to small or lethal weapons. I have had, not the benefit or the pleasure, but the distinct discomfort of sitting in a classroom run by military that discussed, in vivid detail, nuclear warfare.

Realistically, the 20 or 30 countries that possess nuclear knowledge do not necessarily own weapons of mass destruction. We all know the story of Saddam Hussein in Iraq. He was portrayed by the Americans as a madman who possessed WMDs in a country that had few controls when it comes to warfare. We are still awaiting evidence of these WMDs years after the Americans razed much of Iraq.

When I was in the lecture hall and training rooms and grounds at Sandhurst, learning everything we could about nuclear weapons, the world had yet to encounter any leader so mad or so stupid as to generate such disaster.

When you learn, the way I did 60 years ago, that war is hell and nuclear war is far worse than that, you are disturbed to see leaders who should show a level of maturity, responsibility and restraint do the exact opposite. I see leaders who know less than what I do about nuclear war, virtually calling for the damn thing.

Has these people’s sanity been tested? We don’t know.

What we do know is that they always talk out of turn, and they make the most threats about warfare—and the irony of it is they can’t even defend themselves in a hand fight; someone always has to come to their rescue. Things are so bad with them that they are also losing the battle with their internal demons (the battle of the mind).

We cannot and must not allow such people to mislead us into wars we do not need, and destruction we cannot afford. Keep them far from the centre of power and ensure the “toys” they possess are in no way lethal.