Are we ready for war? Welcome to The i Paper’s opinion series in which our writers tackle a grim question that, until recently, few had thought to consider.

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The prospect of nuclear war never really left us, not even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. And now that threat has returned, a grim ostinato in Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

It is difficult to imagine Britain fighting a nuclear war with any country other than Russia. It is difficult to imagine fighting a nuclear war at all. If it happens, future generations are likely to look back at the cataclysm as a sheer act of madness that brought destruction that far outweighs any possible gain.

And yet as long as Putin insists on using force to subjugate Ukraine and cow its neighbours, it is possibility. It is a possibility because human beings are fallible, our leaders sometimes especially so.

And because Britain, like Russia, the United States, France and others, maintains nuclear forces precisely to ensure that it is possible. Nuclear deterrence, after all, depends upon the possibility that everything might fail catastrophically. The government plans for a nuclear war, even if you or I may not plan on it happening at all.

These are literal plans, in the sense of war plans that tell commanders what weapons are to be used against which targets, as well as other sorts of guides for preparation and action.

Operational plans that keep at least one nuclear-armed submarine at sea at all times; budgetary plans to fund the maintenance and modernisation of the fleet of submarines, leased American missiles and nuclear warheads; plans to acquire new American aircraft capable of delivering nuclear bombs; bombs that must be designed and built. The UK Government

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