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'How The End Begins': The Threat Of World War III

NPR

Published March 2, 2011 at 1:00 PM EST

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Replicas of North Korea's Scud-B missle, on display at the Korean War Memorial in Seoul. Ron Rosenbaum argues that the rise of would-be nuclear powers like North Korea may bring the world closer to another nuclear conflict.

During the Cold War, many people around the world lived in daily fear of a nuclear holocaust. But just two decades since the fall of the Berlin Wall, most Americans are more likely to fear an act of terrorism than nuclear annihilation.

But Ron Rosenbaum, author of How The End Begins: The Road To A Nuclear World War III, says we forget about the global nuclear threat at our peril. After 1991, Rosenbaum tells NPR's Neal Conan, "we took what's called a holiday from history ... I wrote the book as a warning, as a wake-up call that we need to address these questions that we've left behind with the Cold War."