Ukraine's top general just warned that a 'limited' nuclear war can't be ruled out — here's what Warren Buffett says about the 'greatest danger' facing the US and the world

“There is a direct threat of the use, under certain circumstances, of tactical nuclear weapons by the Russian armed forces,” General Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, writes in an article published by state news agency Ukrinform.

“It is also impossible to completely rule out the possibility of the direct involvement of the world’s leading countries in a ‘limited’ nuclear conflict, in which the prospect of World War III is already directly visible.”

That’s a scary picture. The possibility of nuclear war makes all other problems seem trivial in comparison.

Legendary investor Warren Buffett once called it “the ultimate problem of mankind.”

‘Only real cloud on the horizon’

Warren Buffett is not a doom-and-gloom type of investor. He’s not shy about expressing his seemingly endless optimism over the U.S. economy.

But if there’s one threat that keeps the investing legend up at night, it’s most certainly the threat of nuclear war.

“It is the ultimate problem of mankind,” Buffett said at his company Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting back in 2006. “And it will happen someday.”

He explained how weapons have evolved through human civilization.

“We've always had people who wish evil on others. Thousands of years ago, if you were psychotic or a religious fanatic or a malcontent, and you wished evil on your neighbor, you picked up a rock and threw it at them, and that was about the damage you could do,” he said.

“We went on to bows and arrows and cannons. But since 1945, the potential for inflicting enormous harm on incredible numbers of people has increased at a geometric pace.”

Buffett expressed similar concerns in 2017.

“I've been concerned since 1945 when the first atomic bomb was used,” he said during a CNBC interview.

“We have developed over these 72 years, since August of 1945, the ability around the world to almost destroy civilization. It's the only real cloud on the horizon.”

What to own in times of crisis

Given this geopolitical crisis and other uncertainties looming in the distance — like an extremely hawkish Fed — it might be tempting to hide out in cash. After all, the stock market has been pummeled in 2022.

Buffett doesn’t exactly believe in stashing your savings under the mattress.

“The one thing you can be quite sure of is if we went into some very major war, the value of money would go down — that's happened in virtually every war that I'm aware of,” he told CNBC in 2014, the last time Russia invaded Ukraine.

“The last thing you'd want to do is hold money during a war.”

Of course, consumers have already learned first-hand the risk of holding money over the past year. With rampant inflation, the purchasing power of your cash savings can deteriorate rapidly.

What should investors own then?

Buffett has always believed in owning productive assets. And his suggestion for times of crisis is no different.

“You might want to own a farm, you might want to own an apartment house, you might want to own securities.”