Jack Tame: Never say never to nuclear threat

Never say never.

Have wiser words ever been spoken? Any way you look at it, the last few years have not been easy for anyone trying to predict the future. Whether sitting around a dinner table or behind a radio microphone it’s been a fool’s game to try and guess what might possibly come next.

I call B-S on any serious person who watched Donald Trump’s campaign launch back in 2015 and thought ‘That man will be President.’

Sure, as the months past, the rallies grew in size, and the TV networks dedicated themselves to Trump outrage, there were many more clues. And many – including me – should have been less surprised by the ultimate outcome.

But go back to day dot. The launch itself. Donald Trump coming down the escalator. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who watched that and thought to himself, ‘President Donald Trump? Ha. That’ll never happen.’

A decade or two ago, if you’d asked most so-called experts if Britain would leave the European Union, how would they have replied? Never.

If you’d most of us asked whether in 2020 a global pandemic would kill millions and totally disrupt the World order, even though we had the collective scientific expertise and public health controls to control what was for most a reasonably mild infection, how would we have responded? Never.

Hell,just a few years ago, what if you’d asked the average rugby fan if the All Blacks would lose to Argentina at home? You’ve got it... never.

The truth is that in all of these cases there were little clues, little noteworthy kernels, that a more careful analysis might have identified and given us pause for thought.

The economies, social fabric, and media cultures of the U.S and Britain had both undergone steady but significant changes. A World interconnected by cheap air travel combined with a growing anti-science, conspiratorial movement, and plain old human nature made a pandemic likely, if not inevitable. And let’s not get started on New Zealand Rugby.

I wonder, does the never-say-never principle work in reverse? Do seemingly unlikely good things happen, too? Could the World suddenly unite to stop the climate from warming? Maybe I’m just an Eeyore, but I struggle to think of examples.

All of this is to say I dunno about Russia and Vladimir Putin. I listened to his extraordinary speech this week and although I’m cynical as to whether we in New Zealand get a full and accurate picture of what is happening in Ukraine, clearly the man is determined to continue escalating the conflict.

But nuclear weapons? In this day and age? My gut says never.

Imagine the damage! The fallout! The mutually-assured destruction. The World would never be the same.

But then somewhere in me there is a nagging little thought. A little kernel of doubt.

Perhaps nuclear war is unlikely. But we should treat the risk of nuclear war as anything but.

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