Back to the future with Mr T's N-word

So, finally, we're properly back in the 1980s - minus the Walkman. When boys with nuclear toys sitting on nuclear stockpiles in the US and Soviet Union, trading acronyms like M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction), S.A.L.T. (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks), and S.T.A.R.T. (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaties), semi-normalised the notion of living under the potential to obliterate and be obliterated. The acronyms have grown more popular, and nuclear deterrence as an all-round-the-year Halloween trick-or-treat tactic has been understood by countries, India included, beyond the Cold War mob bosses.

But the nuclear scare receded, post-9/11, it becoming more of a subplot with concerns that the 'bomb' would land up in the grubby hands of 'non-state actors' (smartspeak for Islamic terrorists). It gave a flawed impression that progress is automatically linear and doesn't need to be 'worked at'. Then, to correct that notion, thus spake Zarathustra this week: 'Because of other countries testing programmes, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons on an equal basis... immediately.' As with things Trump, it's unclear whether he meant American resumption of nuclear-explosive testing, or flight-testing of nuclear-capable missiles. If the former, the US would join a country that Trump must secretly admire and emulate for its 'strong leadership' and 'citizen loyalty programme' - North Korea, which last tested a n-weapon in 2017.

Making the world a safer place seems to have run its course. For the likes of those who have found value in 'war economics' and its unquantifiable supply-demand, its geopolitics tripwired to geoeconomics. That Kathryn Bigelow's new movie, House of Dynamite, deals with a nuclear attack on the US has also brought back 80s n- frisson into living rooms. In a way, it's not just apt but typical that the only country that has used the nuclear bomb on living things - twice - is raring to start beta-testing its 5,225 warheads, the second most after Russia's 5,580, and China's 600-odd.