'Nuclear miscalculation' looms as major threat toward Europe: report

This week, the United Kingdom's National Risk Register published its assessment of major threats facing Great Britain along with the rest of Europe, and among the gravest are "nuclear miscalculation" and the rise of artificial intelligence.

NRR's findings in its National Security Risk Assessment, introduced on Thursday by Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden, "details a total of 89 risks that meet the threshold of potentially having a 'substantial impact on the UK's safety, security and/or critical systems at a national level,'" Politico's Andrew McDonald reported.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's February 2022 invasion of Ukraine, which experts say has devolved into a war of attrition, encompasses many of the dangers hovering over the continent, according to NRR's findings.

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NRR found that the "reasonable worst case scenario assumes that war, political upheaval or a more benign cause would significantly disrupt global oil supply, resulting in much higher global prices."

McDonald also pointed out that "the document flags a 'significant' chance — meaning a probability of between 5 and 25 percent that it will actually happen — of a “'nuclear miscalculation not involving the UK.'"

NRR noted that under such a scenario, "impacts in the affected region would be catastrophic, particularly in terms of casualties and fatalities."

Dowden, who McDonald added is "currently filling in for his boss Rishi Sunak, who is off to Disneyland California as Brits contemplate their own doom," told his citizens that "the first duty of government is to keep people safe."

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McDonald's full report continues at this link.