As leaders trade threats and wars grind on from Ukraine to the Middle East, the idea of a “safe place” feels painfully fragile. Analysts point to historically neutral nations like Switzerland or Ireland and to swaths of the U.S. East Coast and Midwest that might sit outside the first wave of nuclear targets. Yet those same experts quietly admit that any such map is built on guesses about enemy intentions, weapon ranges and political decisions made in panic.

The grim truth is that the missile fields of the American heartland, the dense cities on both coasts, and the web of military bases and power grids in between are all part of a single, vulnerable system. Geography may buy some people time, but not certainty. In a world bristling with thousands of warheads, “safest” becomes a relative term, and the only real escape route is preventing the war from ever beginning.