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PostscriptThe novel, Brighter than the Sun, was written in the early 1980s during the 'hot' years of the Cold War when the doomsday lock stood dangerously close to the midnight hour. The story was developed in the light to what led up to this stage and to counter the kind of thinking behind it that fostered an ever-deepening division and isolation among the nations, and of society from its humanity. What began as a strategic rivalry that became known as the Cold War gradually came to a head in a crisis that nearly destroyed our civilization. The so-called 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis set off a shock wave around the world that quickly escalated into the full scale planing for nuclear war, probably on both sides, East and West. It was evidently the horrendous scope of the kind of scenarios that were being considered that led to the famous comment by President Kennedy, who is quoted to have said, after one of the strategic briefings, "and we call ourselves the human race?" Since that time frame the planning for nuclear war has never stopped. The Cuban Missile Crisis was actually nothing more than Russia's response to an existential threat by America. In 1962 America had 27,297 operational nuclear weapons in its arsenal.*(Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, NRDC Nuclear Notebook Nov/Dec 2002 - http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/nukenotes/nd02nukenote.html) Some of these were installed in missiles stationed in Turkey less than 200 miles from Russia's border. The staging of a number of Russian missiles in Cuba was a natural response to an unfolding existential threat, an attempt to even the playing field. Russia's nuclear arsenal was relatively small at the time, a mere 3,322 warheads. America's arsenal was more than eight times larger. Nevertheless, the resulting confrontation over Cuba brought the world to the brink of nuclear war until Russia finally pulled back. Over the years thereafter, Russia built up its nuclear forces. By 1978 a precarious parity was achieved by Russia, in terms of the numbers of deployed warheads. While Russia's buildup continued, many new factors entered the equation in this time frame, such as the hardening of the missiles, technological advantages, and an ever-greater accuracy of the new delivery systems that were being built, including long range cruise missiles. At the end of this decade, going into the 1980s, over fifty-two thousand nuclear warheads were actively deployed against humanity. They were owned by five nations across the world. The UK became a nuclear power in 1952, and France and China in 1964. This was the background when the writing of this novel was begun as a study of the human dimension of a development that could only described as sheer insanity. The study was designed to explore the consequences that would likely result if a single missile, of the thousands that had been built, would actually be used. For the purpose of exploration a medium sized ICBM was selected, with only a dozen MIRVed warheads, the kind that are now probably carried on submarines with a shorter range, of course. Over the next six years, till 1986, while the writing on the novel continued, another twelve thousand warheads would be added to the world's arsenals, for a total of over sixty-five thousand, against which there existed no physical defense as is still the case today. Ironically, the One weapon that was supposed to make the world more secure, the nuclear weapon, had in reality made the very concept of national security built on the basis of force, an obsolete concept. The security of any nation could no longer be assured. The very notion of defending a country had become a relic of history. It was no longer physically possible. The existence of entire nations from that point on depended solely on the good will and the 'wisdom' of others not to use these massively destructive weapons that had saturated the world, against which no reliable physical defense is possible. || - page index - || - chapter index - || - Exit - ||
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