The world stands on the precipice of a nuclear Armageddon, the byproduct of a confluence of the demise of the foundational principles of arms control that had served as a check on the world’s two largest nuclear-armed nations, the United States and Russia, and the geopolitical consequences of a failing hegemon clashing with an emerging multipolar reality. Nuclear weapons, once codified as weapons of deterrence intended never to be used, have morphed into weapons that have become integrated in the warfighting plans of the nuclear-armed powers. Deterrence is no longer in vogue―warfighting and war winning are.
There will be no winner in a nuclear conflict.
Critical thinking about the dangers posed by nuclear weapons, the necessity of arms control, and the consequences of nuclear war has never been more urgently needed. Highway to Hell: The Armageddon Chronicles, 2015-2024 affords the reader a comprehensive insight into these critical issues as they were unfolding, free of the circumspection and narrative management of conventional histories.
Scott Ritter has been sounding the alarm about the dangerous path the world is headed down for some time now―his book Scorpion King: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump, serves as a stark warning about the inherent dangers posed by nuclear weapons and the policies that sustain them.
Another book, Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika: Arms Control and the End of the Soviet Union, brings to life the important potential of arms control agreements in bringing the threat posed by nuclear weapons to heel by detailing his own personal experiences from 1988-1990 as a weapons inspector in the successful implementation of the INF arms control treaty with the Soviet Union.
Highway to Hell offers some of Scott Ritter’s best writing and analysis on the danger of nuclear weapons and the need for arms control, culled from dozens of articles he wrote from 2015 to 2024 on the arms race, the death of arms control, the nuclear role of China, Iran, North Korea and Israel, and the U.S. nuclear posture shift from deterrence to employment. This is where we are today: on the cusp of a nuclear conflict with Russia.
Humanity is no longer protected from nuclear war by the series of arms control treaties between the US and Russia. This book awakens the reader to the existential danger nuclear weapons pose today, and seeks to motivate them to do something about it

Scott Ritter is a former Marine intelligence officer who served in the former Soviet Union, implementing arms control agreements, and on the staff of General Norman Schwartzkopf during the Gulf War, where he played a critical role in the hunt for Iraqi SCUD missiles. Mr. Ritter served as a Chief Inspector for the United Nations in Iraq, leading the search for Iraq’s proscribed weapons of mass destruction. He is author of 11 books, including Disarmament in the Time of Perestroika, Scorpion King, and Covering Ukraine