As the war in Ukraine enters its third week, the threat of a nuclear conflict has hung over much of what has unfolded. NATO countries have refused to send troops into Ukraine and, despite the Ukrainian government’s pleas, declined to enforce a No Fly Zone over the country. The reason, they say, is that to do so risks escalating the situation to a direct conflict between nuclear powers and the possibility of nuclear war.
In this installment of the FiveThirtyEight Politics podcast, Galen Druke speaks with James Acton, the co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, about how leaders and experts quantify the risks of such a catastrophe.
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