What you have isn't even a meritocracy. Instead you have a game, a hierarchic game where everything goes. Where its constrictions consist of our 'morals'. Which differs, from generation to generation, from country to country.
Where a nuclear war is the last nail in your coffin, not only by its destructiveness and long lasting radiations, but by it interacting with global warming, fossil fuels, our oceans, infra structures ad infinitum.
" Ahead of NATO's 75th-anniversary summit in Washington DC in July, this has become so concerning that one of the major parties in the European parliament, the European People's Party, has called on Europe to build its own nuclear umbrella without the US. Of course, this is all coming to a head at a time when the West is facing the biggest threat to its security since World War II, making the discussions about NATO's nuclear shield more salient."