You may not have heard this from your friends but a couple months ago a Russian politician all but threatened to reduce the US to a wasteland of radioactive ash over the conflict in the Ukraine. Russia has stepped up their efforts to modernize their nuclear weapons and testing new missile delivery systems. Nuclear weapons have prevented a large scale war between the global powers like WW2. Without the nuclear deterrent the world would be very different today. However, the nuclear deterrent is on it's way to becoming obsolete due to advances in anti-missile capabilities. As these defense systems advance the threat of someone launching a nuclear missile is reduced. All the current nuclear powers have a potent defense against anyone invading their country. The best examples would be India,Pakistan, and Israel. The chances of the US, China, and Russia invading one another is extremely remote. Removing or reducing the nuclear deterrent would introduce wide scale instability and make the possibility of large scale warfare much greater. The skirmishes happening across the world today are nothing compared to the US, Russia, or China unleashing their true non-nuclear power. The US military has been fighting their battles with one hand tied behind their back with an embedded JAG officer advising them on whether or not to pull the trigger. As natural resources continue to dwindle in the future the possibility all out war will grow. Not in our lifetime but not to far in the future either.