“A very large nuclear war would be a calamity of indescribable proportions and absolutely unpredictable consequences, with the uncertainties toward the worse… All-out nuclear war would mean the destruction of contemporary civilization, throw man back centuries, cause the deaths of hundreds of millions or billions of people, and, with a certain degree of probability, would cause man to be destroyed as a biological species…”

— Andrei Sakharov (Foreign Affairs, Summer 1983)