Attack sequence from “The Day After” (1983). In the midst of Reagan escalating the Cold War, 100 million people — including the President himself — tuned in to watch what was, at the time, the most harrowing depiction of nuclear war on the ground in the United States.

Before he became President, Reagan visited NORAD where he was told the US had virtually no line of defense against a nuclear attack. His greatest fear was armageddon, and he came to earnestly believe that preventing nuclear war was a holy crusade.

With the ‘81 recession still fresh in the minds of the American public, Reagan in 1983 unveiled his Strategic Defense Initiative, or “Star Wars.” The SDI was to take the Cold War to space, transforming it into a not only global, but planetary conflict.

Lasers, particle beams, and EMPs would intercept a Soviet strike. The $50 billion project was so resource-intensive that it could only be fueled by nuclear power — an industry the public had become disillusioned with after incidents like Three Mile Island, and later Chernobyl.

Reagan was profoundly depressed after seeing the film. It is said that its influence led him to sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force (INF) treaty years later, but this is more likely due to the addition of a clause that allowed the SDI Reagan so loved to continue development

The project was, of course, a colossal failure. Reagan believed it could be done in ten years, however, what is now the Missile Defense Agency has all but given up. A successful test of a laser mounted on a Boeing 747 was performed in 2010.

Two weeks before "The Day After," NATO exercise Able Archer 83 put the Soviets on high alert. They had feared for some time that an attack would be carried out under the guise of a training exercise. It was the second closest humanity came to nuclear war, one of many near-misses.

After the film aired, ABC hosted a live debate. Carl Sagan, Henry Kissinger, Robert McNamara, Elie Weisel, and William F. Buckley Jr. discussed the nuclear issue. When asked whether a nuclear freeze would endanger society, Carl Sagan uttered this famous quote:

Most US presidents since 1945 have been sympathetic to the issue of nuclear disarmament. Obama stated in a speech in 2013 that the United States has a moral responsibility to lead that charge. He included a $1.2 trillion modernization of our nuclear arsenal in his final budget.

Robert McNamara, who had worked in national security for 20 years, stated in the debate "Nobody I have ever talked to knows how to stop a nuclear war once it has started." The nuclear triad is the crux of US hegemony and will be the world's undoing if it is not dismantled now.