During the 1960s, Pentagon war planners concluded that a successful and winning U.S nuclear war would annihilate an estimated 600 million people, a million of which would be U.S. allies. However our war planners vastly underestimated the true tally of our successful global slaughter of humanity. They did not take in the realities of both nuclear-fueled fires and nuclear winter.

When these two realities were factored in our first-strike victory would in fact have ended civilization and life for all but approximately 1 percent of humanity. The late Daniel Ellsberg outlined these war plans in his 2017 must read book ”The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.”

And now we fast forward to 2025 and the realities of both entrenched U.S. militarism and the return of Donald Trump.

The truth is that the use of nuclear weapons is still an entrenched part of Pentagon war planning.The heart of “nuclear modernization” is the belief and pursuit of successful first-strike strategies. Add to this the ominous reality of Donald Trump; a man who believes that a nuclear war can be won.We need to face and accept the truth.

The nuclear clock is rapidly approaching midnight. Indeed global tensions between nuclear powers are escalating to unprecedented levels. The elimination of nuclear weapons needs to be the global priority. We have to abandon and rid ourselves of the insane and suicidal rationale that nuclear weapons keep us “safer.” We owe it to our children and all future generations to act with clarity, courage, and conviction regarding the growing threat of nuclear extinction.

Mankind has never faced a greater or more important mandate.

Jim Sawyer

Edmonds