A crater created by a 100-kiloton thermonuclear detonation at the Atomic Energy Commission's Nevada Test Site in July 1962. Corbis Historical/Getty Images

In the summer of 2022, I accompanied President Joe Biden to a summit in Saudi Arabia with leaders from across the Middle East. During a working session, someone asked Biden to name one issue that kept him up at night.

Without flinching, Biden said nuclear war.

I was surprised by the answer, because the threat-of-all-threats had seemed contained over the recent decades. But at the time, with Europe on the front end of a war launched by Russia, a nuclear-armed power, the erosion of nuclear arms control arrangements, together with the rise of artificial intelligence and a burgeoning nuclear arms race with China, it’s a surprise the iss

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