Nuclear war is something that we are all scared of - there is no way not to be. After all, the survival of our planet is at the mercy of a few pushes of a button. Daniel Ellsberg believes this threat is very real, as he was a former nuclear war planner during the Cold War. Although no real war broke out during this time frame, there were thousands of missiles tested, showing that the major powers had many dangerous nuclear weapons at their disposal.
First, it is important to mention the environment. Nuclear weapons do not have zero impact on the Earth - in fact, they are more dangerous than you may think. Not only is wildlife killed, water polluted, and energy unharnessed, but the extent of a nuclear bomb is enough to reach the ozone layer, burning parts of it completely away in some cases.
Ellsberg explains how the threat of a nuclear war is very possible based alone on the things hidden by the United States government. In this book in particular, he discusses and analyzes the second round of declassified nuclear documents of the US government. It has been made known that, during the Cold War, President Eisenhower allowed people below him to launch missiles without his permission, in case of emergency.
This does seem like a reasonable way to handle things, but it is disconcerting that the President does not have sole authority - in some cases. Ellsberg believes that this may still be the case today, and the government is unauthorized and unwilling to tell this fact to the public.
Ellsberg spends most of the book explaining that the American and world population is uneducated in the field of nuclear warfare. If one of these wars did break out, what would people do? With civilians as the targets, there would be no way to stop what was happening. Right this moment, people do not know how the process to initiate a launching works, and do not have any power to stop that launch.
