There are over 15,000 nuclear weapons in existence today – down from over 70,000 in 1986. Though the threat of a nation using one of these catastrophic weapons has lowered, chances of an accident are still considerable. Eric Schlosser spent six years investigating the current US nuclear arsenal – and its command and control system – to get a deeper sense of how nuclear risks in the post-Cold War era are mitigated. What did we learn from the near disasters of the past? Have the risks of an accident been lessened or just forgotten?