Alas, Babylon Warfare

Here's the reality: a nuclear war would cause millions upon millions of deaths on both sides. Here's another reality: that's just part of the game for the chess-masters at the top. As long as those millions of deaths are in pursuit of some "greater" victory, that's just how you pick up the win, right?

In other words, global politics is like playing chicken with ballistic missiles. Some might argue that this is exactly the point—that the constant threat of nuclear weapons makes it unlikely that they will ever be used—but Alas, Babylon argues the complete opposite.

Nuclear conflict, it seems, consists of a lot of empty threats and macho posturing, so it's a big deal when someone shuts up for once. That usually means they're planning something nasty.

A war? In this day and age? Not likely—war is so last year. Silly as it sounds, that's the belief held by many before the terror of The Day. Maybe it's because they haven't thought deeply enough about the issue to understand it. Maybe it's because they've repressed the idea because it's too tough to handle. Either way, this thought process leads to foolish complacency in the face of danger.

The nuclear war that nearly ends mankind is singlehandedly caused by an American pilot with a Napoleon complex. If Peewee hadn't become a pilot—no war. If Peewee had been sick that day—no war. If Peewee had tripped and fallen into the ocean while boarding his plane—no war. To be honest, however, if it wasn't him, it'd probably be someone else.

More than anything, this passage makes us think about how detached the leaders of this conflict are from the consequences of their actions. If they were to actually sit down and think about the human cost of all this destruction, they might think twice. Unfortunately for our species, however, that option seems to have never crossed their minds.

Randy is frequently reminded of his experiences in the Korean War in the aftermath of The Day. While he obviously witnessed some pretty horrendous stuff in the conflict, he doesn't seem traumatized by the experience. Quite to the contrary—it proves to be an asset. Because he's experienced tremendous human suffering before, he's better prepared to deal with it.

This would be funny if it wasn't so depressing. Nuclear war, assumedly, is different from every other type of war in that it's over in an instant. You can hardly tell that it's started before it's over. As Alas, Babylon depicts, the true struggle comes in the aftermath.

Here, Admiral Hazzard is saying is that the mere existence of nuclear weapons changed the game entirely—more than anyone realized at the time—and effectively made a disaster like this an inevitability. Or at least we think that's what he's saying. This statement could be read a few different ways, so we'd love to know what you think.

With this doozy of a closer, Alas, Babylon argues that nuclear war has no winner. One side might have a government at the end of it, and the other side might not, but both will have experienced death and destruction beyond compare. Can you really call tens of millions dead a victory?