Others have pointed out that, unfortunately, the threat of nuclear war never really went away, we just got better at ignoring it except at times like this.
At all times there are submarines just floating around out there in various oceans waiting to nuke someone with a ballistic missile. They can operate underwater for 3 months without surfacing. Someone can get a call and press some buttons and just vaporize a town filled with people they have never met. I lie awake at night thinking about this a lot.
