The Brink: How Close Are We to Nuclear War?

Are we on the brink of nuclear war?

By all reports, Iran is winning the war with the United States and Israel. Things are not going as planned for Trump and Netanyahu.

Both were confident that a devastating and lightening fast surprise attack on Iran would quickly bring about capitulation and regime change.

However, Iran now appears to be in the driver’s seat. It has prepared for this attack for years. It knew it could not win in a toe-to-toe battle with America. Instead, it calculated that it could bring about an economic collapse in the West if it could indefinitely close the Strait of Hormuz. This strait is only 39 km wide at its narrowest. It links the south end of the Persian Gulf to the Gulf of Oman – the area’s only link to open ocean.

On March 2^nd — less than two days after the assassination of Iran’s leader, Ayatollah Khamenei — the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ (IRGC) closed the Strait to all traffic. Oil prices have shot up 50% with most experts predicting north of $200 a barrel if Iran can keep the Strait closed for another week.

Britannica reports that, “More than 20 percent of global oil and liquefied natural gas exports passes through the strait, which serves as the primary route for petroleum exported from Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.”

Even more significantly, the blockade is causing a fertilizer crisis by critically disrupting the supply chain for key components — 44% of global seaborne sulfur and 43% of the world’s urea — just as the Northern Hemisphere’s planting season gets underway.

The imminent worldwide shortage of fertilizer will dramatically reduce food production to the point that some regions of the world will suffer famine. World food prices will skyrocket.

The blockade is also causing disruptions to the availability of LNG, pharmaceuticals, and a wide variety of consumer goods, either directly blocking their delivery or through curtailing access to component parts.

The global situation has become precarious, particularly for nations in east Asia. The impact on Japan and China is already judged as critical, with lack of availability now even more significant than escalating prices. They are simply running out of needed supplies and will have to close significant sections of their economy very soon. India and Europe are also facing high economic impacts, while Saudi Arabia and the UAE are critically losing billions in export revenues.

Shortages and disruptions will be even more significant for many smaller countries. For example, South Korea’s semiconductor production (30% of the global total) relies on many components normally sourced from the Middle East. Shortages are already reported as acute in Pakistan and Bangladesh.

Economists are now predicting a worldwide deep recession if not a depression. Central bankers will almost certainly be forced to raise interest rates, while stock markets and investment firms will decline or could even crash.

The conflict has become what has been termed ‘asymmetric warfare’. Iran has long expected this type of confrontation and has planned for it. They have a massive stockpile of relatively cheap and very effective low-tech drones (as low as $20,000 each), as well as medium-range missiles. The U.S. and Israel, on the other hand, are using very expensive missiles ($4 million each), and are in danger of running out of weapons. Apparently, the U.S. is now discussing using lasers.

The question is what will Trump and Netanyahu do when they come to the realization that the massive bombing, even the carpet bombing of Iran — a nation larger than the total area of Western Europe — will not open up the Strait of Hormuz nor lead to regime change.

Trump is already saying that the U.S. may leave the conflict. American opposition to this war is building as human costs and financial implications become evident. Trump’s pleas for help from other NATO members have been ignored. And it is telling that on March 17^th U.S. counterterrorism official Joe Kent resigned as director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center citing his opposition to the Iran war.

Israel remains committed to destroying Iran and proxies such as Hezbollah, and is achieving some success. However, the country and their forces will be isolated and vulnerable if the U.S. withdraws.

The ultimate worry is the nuclear danger.

Although Israel has never admitted to having a nuclear weapons stockpile, it has been estimated that they currently have 80-90 weapons. What is most frightening is their ‘deterrence framework’ — the Sampson Option – which refers to the idea that Israel could launch overwhelming nuclear retaliation if the state was facing ultimate destruction.

What happens once Netanyahu finally realizes that he has started a war he cannot win?  Would he use some of Israel’s stockpile of nuclear weapons?

Iran would then surely retaliate by destroying Israel’s nuclear reactors and weapons, causing almost as much radioactive fallout as the nuclear bombs dropped on Iran.

Let us all hope that someone in Washington is finally able to talk sense to Donald Trump and persuade him to use his influence with Israel and call off this madness before a nuclear Armageddon is realized.

 

Daily atmospheric CO₂ [Courtesy of CO2.Earth]

Latest daily total (March 18, 2026): 429.33ppm

One year ago (March 17, 2025): 427.23ppm