»Preussisk blå - Fear is the mind killer«
»The nuclear submarines resting hundreds of meters deep in the dark, cold oceans, far beyond anyone's sight, so deep that they almost settle in our subconscious like a lurking, terrifying danger.«
Ever since I was nine years old and read a survival handbook, I have feared that I might one day see a massive mushroom cloud rise over the horizon. The handbook stated: "Nuclear war may break out during a time of increased military and political tensions." Since then, I have constantly asked myself – are we living in such a time now? On February 24, 2022, it felt as though the answer to that question finally became "yes."
As a form of psychological prepping, I ordered three packs of potassium iodide to protect the thyroid from the cancer that often follows major radioactive releases. Perhaps it wasn’t entirely rational, but they served as a kind of "talisman" – an object to ward off the invisible, lethal radiation.
I have followed the war closely through Reddit and Telegram. Despite my Russian heritage, I am, of course, rooting for Ukraine – following the conflict all the way down into the trenches where drones drop grenades on soldiers. My interest in geopolitics and game theory has led me into the absurd world of nuclear doctrines: the explicit rules of the game that nations set for when and how they might consider triggering doomsday.
Through "Mutually Assured Destruction," the world's nuclear powers hope to guarantee that doomsday never arrives. The primary guarantors are the nuclear submarines resting hundreds of meters deep in the dark, cold oceans, far beyond the sight of anyone. They lie so deep that they almost settle in our subconscious like a lurking, horrific danger.
Something clicked within me in the autumn of 2022 when I saw a picture of sleeping sperm whales – enormous, silent beasts sleeping in pods, positioned vertically with their tails downward, like embodied annihilation in the depths. Their form is eerily similar to that of a nuclear submarine, a kind of biological, inevitable logic that nonetheless feels poetically apt.
My fear of the bomb is shared by those Western leaders who have slowed critical military support to Ukraine to manage the risks of escalation. Using the threat of nuclear war, Russia stifles Western support for Ukraine, allowing them to throw away the lives of hundreds of thousands of poor Russian men to spread the grip of their fascist kleptocracy across Europe. To ensure that "Bredäng" never becomes another "Bucha," we must overcome this fear if we wish to live in freedom and peace over the coming five years.
As Frank Herbert so aptly described it in Dune:
“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.”
