Rogue nuclear states? Don’t worry — it’s not the end of the world

Quite the opposite, admit red-faced political historians

by Kieren McCarthy

Political historians have today apologised for twenty years of inaccurate predictions regarding the end of the world.

Since 1982, every commentator worth his salt has steadfastly claimed that the end of the world would result from a nuclear war started by from a small, rogue country with new capabilities. Previous contenders have included Iran, Iraq, Israel, India, Pakistan, China, and just about anywhere else in Asia.

However, in a grovelling apology issued today by the Society of Political Pundits, the experts admitted they had been wrong all along. "It would appear as though we have been skewed in our thinking for two decades," it states. "A nuclear war, although still unlikely, will not be started by a 'rogue nation' but by one of the large industrialised countries of the West, most likely the US or Britain."

It explains: "While we have always believed the desire by a small country to upset the status quo and use it as an opportunity to garner greater power would be the start point of any Third World War, it now becomes clear that the catalyst to such a catastrophic engagement would be the large democracies of the world claiming to protect the world while really only attempting to cling onto their own power."

The statement continues: "The world is growing more industrialised and as smaller countries start to gain in confidence and take advantage of their lower manufacturing costs, the traditionally more powerful countries in the West have seem their influence slowly eroded.

"Such countries have been attempting to enforce their controls on these countries and this is now stirring up resentment within those countries themselves. However, while this is nothing new, we had up until now completely underestimated the willingness of the large countries to start unjustified wars to entrench their position.

"Our main flaw was to believe in the stabilising influence that democracy would have on any such authoritarian action. That it is our sole job in life to learn lessons from the past, we feel must apologise for our oversight in this respect.

"It only requires a group of like-minded individuals to install themselves in power and democracy loses its ability to control their more extreme intentions. We do not wish to draw parallels between Nazi Germany and George Bush and Tony Blair, so we won't."