Uncertainty Is Us

Many people reading this and following
the 'doom and gloom' newspaper headlines
which foretell of failed negotations prompting
the end of the world will remember the plot
of the black comedy, filmed in 1964 by Stanley Kubrick,
'Dr Strangelove (or how I learned to love the bomb)',
in which, by a series high level miscommunications
military planes that could not be contacted in flight
were carrying bombs that the isolated pilots rejoiced
in preparing to drop. The film ends with one of the pilots
in a fit of glee pushing himself towards insanity,
with their finger on the button to release the bombs.... 

That film was made over sixty years ago,
before several international agreements
of 'no first strike', that also set limits
on further increases in re-armaments
upheld the cold war detente
that kept the world far enough
from to the edge of fearing
world-wide disintegration.

With diplomacy now being
world leader shouting at world leader
each going through their national media,
uncertainty across the world is now the norm.