Since the time man could think it has been thinking about its impending end. Since we don’t know for sure why we exist and by whom we have been made to exist we do not have definitive answer for why should not we simply cease to exist. Every generation thinks it is the last generation, that it is in his generation that Armageddon will take place, messiahs will come, etc. etc. But until the 20th century all these expectations and speculations were only destined to be false. Come 20th century, the speculation of the impending end of the world may certainly just turn out to be true.
Human now possess weapons of mass destruction. In pervious centuries doom, if were to happen, could only happen by means divine or non-human. But come 20th century, humans are no longer dependent upon the celestials for their destruction, they are well capable of doing it themselves. But the question is are humans so stupid to cause their own destruction? Certainly not, humans ain’t that stupid. But humans ain’t in control of the weapons of mass destruction either. It is only few leaders of these humans who are in control of the weapons. So regardless of what the collective humans may want or intent, fate of the humanity will be decided by the few in power.
A leader has to shoulder the responsibility of its territory and also of its own image and legacy, especially a non-democratic leader. A democratic leader is constrained by people’s opinion, a non-democratic leader is not. These responsibilities can put tough choices before the leader. Whether he should act proactively to tackle a rising threat or simply wait till the time when the threat matures to a level that the best he can do is only surrender. Similar perhaps is a choice is faced by the current leader of Russia Vladimir Putin. And he has chose to take the proactive approach. He has chose to invade Ukraine.
Now seven months have passed and the war is not ending. Russian soldiers taking defeat and losing captured areas. Public humiliation is waiting. In such times why would not Putin go nuclear? Well, at least in these modern times he don’t want to be the leader who is seen as irresponsible, tyrant and evil. So he has to chose between his world image, legacy and humiliation of a defeat. He happens to come up with a plan to justify the the use of nukes by making the captured area declared as part of Russia through a referendum. If his plan succeeds and Ukraine doesn’t cease to take back those areas through fight, nukes could be used and mushrooms could bloom. That my dear friends will be the beginning of the end.
Once the use of nukes, even if tactical, becomes norm of the war the door to doom will eventually open. People are hoping the war would end, good times will come back again. But existence has a different plan. From history it is evident that wars and revolutions no one can stop. We from our scriptures know that even the God incarnate could not stop the great Indian war (Mahabharat), what to talk about the puny humans engulfed by hate, revenge, etc. So no matter how many of the leaders may shout this is not an era of war, war will certainly take place. In fact it is wars that bring about the beginning and end of an eras.
Given uncertain future people can either be optimistic or pessimistic about it. But if we take into account the current course of events and actions the degree of uncertainty reduces and future becomes a bit clearer. And then we are able to turn more pessimistic or optimistic depending upon what we find from the analysis. Turning blind to all the things going on now would be the most unwise and foolish thing to do. Certainly the present era may not be the era of wars, but it is the era of preparing for the upcoming war.
The world is never empty of problems. Good and peaceful times make way of gradual build up of tensions. Once the tensions build up high enough then breaks out conflicts and escalations putting an end to the peaceful times. This has been happening again and again since the dawn of civilisation. This simply is how existence works. We are not immune to it. So even if existence will not cease to exist and there would not be a total annihilation of humanity soon, certainly there would be partial annihilation. Time are going to be tough and hard. The people that will better prepare will be the people that will better survive.
Couple of years ago as Covid was wrecking havoc, I was simply taking it as an opportunity to stay in home and get a break from the hectic work schedule. I knew soon this will be over and normalcy would come back. So I didn’t want to waste the vacation period we have got somehow. But somehow I grew suspicious of things when I recalled the chain of events in the last century. Pandemic -> Economy Crisis -> War. So I thought the current century may repeat the same events. And unfortunately that’s what’s happening. In fact we are now getting the mixed events of economic downfall and war going on at once. And now yesterday Nuke threat has come into picture as well. It is only a matter of time when people move on to next phase from barbing to acting. Those who will chose to remain under the delusion that nothing is happening, everything will be good again are probably not giving serious thoughts to all that’s happening. But if you do, then you can see that it is perhaps the beginning of the end.