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/300/ Bunga at the End of the World (Patreon)

Published:
2022-11-02 19:22:26
Imported:
2026-06
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On nuclear exterminism.

To commemorate our 300th episode, we discuss how the world is closer to a nuclear conflict than at any point since the Cold War. After decades of inconsequential 'permawar' (at least inside the Western bubble), the proxy war in Ukraine between NATO and Russia is suddenly very consequential indeed.

How does our situation differ from that of the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis? Why might it be more unpredictable? Does today's very different ideological configuration make war more or less likely?Before that, we reflect on five and half years of Bungacast, how the world has changed over the period, and pick out some of our favourite episode from the past half-decade.The main discussion begins at 23mins.Readings:

Who will stop Putin from going nuclear?, Philip Cunliffe, UnHerd

How to prevent World War III, Philip Cunliffe, UnHerd

Notes on Exterminism, the Last Stage of Civilisation, EP Thompson, New Left Review

The War in Ukraine Could Lead to Nuclear War, Anatol Lieven, Quincy Institute

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Comments

Richard R

Great episode. Glad to see you're not totally aloof from the pervasive sense of doom that seems to have enveloped the West--funny that it took the brink of nuclear war to get you there, but now I invite you to join the apocalypse party. Seriously, though, Alex is really right that it's necessary to break with this now-normative doomerism. What I'm wondering is, short of some kind of spiritual revolution, is there a way to embrace both the reality of the world's fragilities and also reject the anxious, desperate, scraping affect that seems to totally saturate the movements that place such universals front and center?

plechazunga

Maybe this is exactly the thought that inspired the episode but: nuclear war is one of the master signifiers of the end of history (and of the anglo-american regime of world governance). In an early 20th c. work by HG Wells called The World Set Free (which predates real atomic weapons by 20 years), the invention of nuclear weapons and their initial use is the event that precipitates the creation of a world government. Once war becomes an existential threat to the continuation of the species, it becomes impossible. All conflict from that point on is between the enlightened world-government and interior exile-islands that continue to cling irrationally to local sovereignty and/or values opposed to those of the cosmopolitan virtue-elite. And this is really how things have played out; the US and its allies have been continually at war for a long time now, but as all cosmopolitan dystopia heads will know, these are "interventions" to "safeguard human rights," etc. They're police actions as opposed to wars between antagonists. As the Anglo world system declines it seems unavoidable that the threat of nuclear war should return to the fore--especially to the extent that elite of that system continue to view their interests as identical with a scientifically-enlightened, rational vision of the destiny of humankind.

Tom McLaughlin

For that next book launch, may I selfishly suggest Chicago..