![The mushroom cloud from the test detonation of the world’s first full-scale thermonuclear device.](https://www.worldpoliticsreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/us-nuclear-weapons-03122024.jpg?w=519&h=259&crop=1)
Nuclear brinksmanship has been on the rise in recent years, even as anti-nuclear sentiment has never been higher. That makes this moment in the U.S. a good one for reckoning and reassessment. Political science scholarship can guide journalistic efforts in refocusing the national conversation on the perils of a nuclear world.