The fear of a nuclear war peaked in 1962 and 1983-84, and has declined in the past 30 years until recently. Now with a belligerent Russia led by Putin, do you think there’s actually more danger of an exchange than there was in the early to mid 1980s?
Probably less. It seems unlikely that Putin will attempt to overrun Europe or launch an attack against the US, and less likely we’ll start such a conflict either. I’d say with Putin he’s not driven by ideology and he doesn’t have a motive to start a nuclear war. Lacking a motive for Putin, we don’t have one either.
It is probably about the same or maybe a little less today in my view. The Russians are many things but they aren’t dumb. They know full well how a nuclear exchange would end just like we do and the U.S. has better counter-strike capabilities these days than they did at the height of the Cold War.
The U.S. or Russia are never going to launch a first strike as a carefully planned offensive measure. The big risk is a series of smaller issues that escalate and get misinterpreted as a first strike from the other side that require immediate and full retailaition from the other side. That almost happened at least twice already. The first one was during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the second one in 1983 was ever more serious and only averted by a mid-level Colonel who refused to carry out his launch commands from faulty systems (see Stanislav Petrov, the man that saved the world). Such a thing could happen today too but those near catastrophes have tightened up the procedures so that it is a little more unlikely.
Still, things aren’t fundamentally different today than they were during the Cold War. We still have both U.S. mainland based nuclear missles that can hit any target in the world within the hour and nuclear subs in a constant state of readiness hidden under the oceans all over the world. Their only purpose is to be able to launch within a few minutes notice of an inbound strike. The President still has a military officer that follows him around 24 hours a day with the nuclear launch plans of the day in the ‘nuclear football’.
The threat of full-scale nuclear war never went away, it just became less of a daily concern after the Soviet Union collapsed and now it is heating up again but only terrorist groups would use them as an offensive weapon.
MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) Doctrine is still very much in effect and it is the only known deterrent prevent other countries from using nuclear weapons casually against their enemies. The doctrine can be summarized by stating that if any country uses even one high yield nuclear weapon against their enemy, their own entire country has to be destroyed completely and immediately. It has been remarkably effective so far at preventing such an exchange. You need a suicidal leader to violate that doctrine and even seemingly insane leaders like Putin aren’t quite that insane.
Much, much less, I would say. There’s no longer the kind of geopolitical rivalry that held sway during the Cold War, with much of the world divided into two hostile camps. The world is really far more multipolar. Russia is much more isolated than the USSR was, being virtually surrounded by former Soviet Republics and satellites that are hostile or at least deeply suspicious. It’s hard to see any scenario in which Russia could envisage a real strategic victory in a nuclear exchange. Likewise, I can’t see the US or other allies launching a first strike short of a full-out Russian invasion of NATO territories.
If Putin decides to say, invade the Baltic states though the game can definitely change over night. There are still a lot of ethnic Russians in the former Soviet states and I can see their welfare being used as an excuse for Putin to invade those countries. I think America is so war weary that we wouldn’t support fighting Russia to protect them as well.
I think it’s clearly less. Back during the Cold War (especially when it was at its height around 1984) there was a clearly defined rivalry between the Soviet Union and the United States. So we regarded any move taken by the Soviet Union as a de facto move against us (and vice versa). In a situation like that, we would not stand aside as something like the Russian advance into Ukraine occurred.
Nowadays, we might not be happy with the Russian advance in Ukraine, but we’re willing to concede it might not involve us. (And the same thing happened in 2008 when Russia attacked Georgia.) We accept that there are some things Russia does which are not our problem.
This is not to say Russia could do anything it wants. Russia could certainly go too far and do something which challenge American interests. But I think Putin realizes this and will take care not to do this.
The Baltic states are members of NATO, and any action against them would trigger pretty much automatic defense and retaliation. Given that Putin has been pretty circumspect in eastern Ukraine and at least attempted to conceal that Russia is intervening, I can’t imagine him being so foolhardy to touch the Baltics unless he goes totally batshit insane. Even if the US might be war-weary, the rest of the alliance isn’t likely to stand aside. Something like that could trigger a nuclear exchange, but I just can’t see Russia making such a move.
Reagan was in office then, and far more likely to decide to nuke the world for Jesus than Obama; so, the chances of a nuclear war are far less now than then. Reagan seemed to be at least halfway convinced at one point by Jerry Falwell that Russia and China were Gog and Magog, and that any day now the End Times would begin.
Also, Putin is far less likely to think that Obama is going to start a nuclear war than the Russians of the time were to think that Reagan was going to start one. I recall reading an article after the end of the Cold War with a Russian official talking about how the simple election of Ronald Reagan was terrifying enough to the Soviets that the Politburo seriously discussed the merits of launching a first strike before Reagan launched one at them. To a country not as rabidly Christian and pro-Apocalypse as America, Reagan was extremely frightening.
Yea, a lot of what drove the risk of nuclear war in the Cold War was that both sides saw the other as fanatics, and so there was always a fear that the other guy might be crazy enough to let the bombs fly, and damn the consequences. And of course if you can’t trust the other guy to respond to fear of retaliation, there’s the temptation to go ahead and make the first move.
That isn’t true today. There’s no love lost between Obama and Putin, but they both pretty clearly see each other as rational actors.
Also during much of the Cold war the two sides conventional militaries were more closely matched. So one could imagine one side risking a conventional war, directly or by proxy, and that escalated into a nuclear exchange.
Again, that isn’t true today. Even without the US, NATO’s conventional military outspends Russia by a factor of more than two. With the US its larger by a factor of more than ten. Putin knows a conventional war would be an immediate Russian loss, so there’s far less risk of him risking one.
About the same. The nukes are still there, they are still targeted at each other. Conventionally the Russians hold the advantage, they are nearer to the areas of potential combat and the huge cold war NATO forces are gone.
A lot depends on information which currently is not available to me. For example… “Is Mr. Putin a Dumbass…?”
The results can change to a surprising degree based on that one answer alone. 
Less. The current conflict in Ukraine is a classic “proxy war” of the kind which popped up from time to time during the Cold War. But nobody, not even the biggest war hawks on either side, want an all-out conflict. So it aint gonna happen; perfect 0% chance of a nuclear exchange.
Also, the West doesn’t even seem to be trying very hard in this proxy war, so it seems to be a given that things will work out to Russia’s benefit. Current talk from the Ukrainian president seems to suggest some sort of limited autonomy for the rebel provinces, which I think most people will read as a partial “win” for Russia. Certainly, Putin will be able to claim it as a victory for his team.
I think slightly more.
Problems don’t come about when you are on high alert, but rather when your guard is down.
The Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics don’t want limited autonomy, they want either complete independence or union with Russia. I don’t think the ‘autonomy’ deal is going to fly.