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DOES ANYONE THINK ABOUT ARMAGEDDON ANY MORE? IS IT TIME TO START WORRYING?
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
After the Cold War, Americans forgot about them. Now, with the Iran war, nuclear weapons have come back into the spotlight because Tehran was on the verge of developing the bomb before the Twelve-Day War of June 2025—if it did not have one already.
The issues go far beyond Iran, however. America needs a clear explanation of where the world stands, in large part because catastrophe may not be far from us.
Fast proliferation of nuclear weapons is likely. And if America doesn’t want to protect its partners, just about everybody will develop nuclear arsenals to defend themselves.
Both China and Russia have tactical nukes and have made threats to launch them preemptively.
China in 2021 began a wave of threats to use nuclear weapons against neighbors, particularly Japan and Australia. Vladimir Putin followed suit: He issued his own nuke threats before invading Ukraine and got President Biden to largely stand down before the attack.
China is in the midst of the fastest nuclear buildup since the early days of the Cold War. As Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall said in testimony, “I don’t think I’ve seen anything more disturbing in my career than the Chinese ongoing expansion of their nuclear force.”
And it now appears that Xi Jinping is planning on using AI to replace human decision-making in the launch of these weapons.
Will A.I. trigger the next, and LAST, world war? Will a machine, on its own, end the world as we know it?
AND HAS THE COUNTDOWN ALREADY BEGUN?
GORDON G. CHANG (BEDMINSTER, NEW JERSEY) lived and worked in Shanghai and Hong Kong for almost two decades. He is a columnist at Newsweek, a regular contributor to The Hill, and writes for NEWSMAX. His writings have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, National Review, The American Conservative, Commentary, Barron’s, and The Daily Beast. He is the author of the bestselling Plan Red: China's Project to Destroy America, China Is Going to War, The Great U.S.-China Tech War, Losing South Korea, Nuclear Showdown: North Korea Takes On the World, and The Coming Collapse of China.
The author lives & works in the New York City metro area.
gordonchang.com
Foreword The End
- Fast proliferation of nuclear weapons is likely. And if America doesn’t want to protect its partners, just about everybody will develop nuclear arsenals to defend themselves.
Chapter 1 Creating Catastrophe
- A short history of nuclear weapons since July 16, 1945, the first detonation of a nuclear device in the Trinity test.
Chapter 2 China
- China’s fast buildup of nuclear weapons.
Chapter 3 North Korea and Iran
- How they developed their nuclear weapon programs and what’s at stake at this moment.
Chapter 4 Russia and Nuclear Threats
- How Putin with threats of devastation got America and the West to back down in Ukraine and how China will follow Putin’s playbook in East Asia.
Chapter 5 Should America Proliferate?
- China proliferated and now its friends have the bomb. Should America do the same thing?
Epilogue A.I. Launching Nukes
- AI can trigger the world’s last war.
Acknowledgments
About the Author