A New Mode of Cancer Treatment

Does not seem particularly high right now, TBH.

It's not particularly high when there is an active war between Russia and an almost-NATO country, supported by NATO, with fighting happening right at NATO borders?

I would say it's perhaps never been higher since the Cuban missile crisis.

The beauty of nuclear weapons being possessed by both sides in a conflict is that it's in neither sides best interest to fire the first nuke.

The West being aligned with Ukraine would prevent Ukraine from getting nuked in an extended conflict.

That being said, there would have been no extended conflict for Ukraine without the West's assistance, they simply wouldn't exist without the international assistance, reducing the chance of Russia using a first strike against Ukraine to 0.

Based only on what you and I can know about the current situation, I'd say the Cuban missile crisis was approximately 900 million billion times worse.

> That being said, there would have been no extended conflict for Ukraine without the West's assistance, they simply wouldn't exist without the international assistance

Don't underestimate Russia but don't overestimate them either:

Russia lost against Afghanistan already back when they were a superpower and had Ukraine on their side.

They will lose this time too even if they are even dumber this time and choose to waste all their conventional forces there.

> Russia lost against Afghanistan already back when they were a superpower and had Ukraine on their side.

The mujahedeen fighting Russia in Afghanistan also had Western (US, particularly) support.

The Kievan Rus is the mythical birthplace of the Russian people. Afghanistan on the other hand… has some nice mountains, I guess?

Per Thirteen Days, for a long stretch of the crisis the US mainland’s nuclear bombers were armed and airborne, constantly, for a potential first strike on Cuba. When the U-2 was shot down Kennedy directly threatened that another attack would result in the destruction of the defense installations and made it known as rumor he was considering nuking the island in retaliation. Curtis LeMay and some of the other cabinet staffers were sincerely in favor of a first strike throughout the conflict.

So I think we’re still quite a ways off from that level of threat.