I MADE a bet in January this year that I’d clean my horrible stairs if humanity didn’t nuke itself by New Year’s 2025, and throughout the year, I remained pretty confident I’d never have to deliver. But it looks like I’m breaking out Henry Hoover.
 
How did it all go so wrong for my never-cleaning plan? In a year of catastrophic violence on the borders of Russia and across the Middle East, how have we escaped the terminus that is the mushroom cloud? There are four main reasons.
 
Firstly, the relative restraint of Iran, Russia and China. We can quibble about Russia, which has been the most aggressive of the three. For sure, Iran, though, has had casus belli to hit Israel fatally but has opted instead for demonstration strikes.

China, for its part, has not been drawn into a much-anticipated fight on the Taiwan Straits or in the South China Sea. These are perhaps the most serious flashpoints in the world — because if China did mobilise, the US wouldn’t be able to do much except slink away or threaten to use nukes.
 
Second: no stupid accidents. Battlefield mistakes happen with alarming frequency, and we’re due one any day. Memorably, due to a silly mix-up, Russia nearly blew up 30 RAF personnel in 2022. They would have done so had the airman’s missile not miraculously jammed in its bay. If such a fatality occurs, we will be lethally engaged with Russia.
 
Third: Donald Trump won the election. Many of Trump’s colleagues are hawks, but he has an instinct for moderation in foreign policy. It’s hard to know how important Trump himself has been to our survival these past few weeks, but his presence may have been crucial.

For instance, on December 11, Ukraine fired six US Atacms against an airbase outside the Russian city of Taganrog. Russian authorities immediately signalled that they were preparing to respond with several Oreshnik missiles — Moscow’s lightning-speed new missile system that can carry a nuclear payload.