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doomsday clock
Mad King Donald Leads a MAD World
Mutually Assured Destruction may have kept the world free of nuclear war for the last eight decades, but it hasn’t kept the world free of Donald Trump.
May 28, 2026
If nothing else, Donald Trump pushes the nation’s—the world’s—thought process beyond anything that feels normal and comfortable. Consider the “MADness” of the last eight decades: You know, how “mutually assured destruction” has kept humanity from nuking itself into oblivion because... uh, mass murder could have consequences.
Thus, the planet’s nine nuclear powers have refrained (so far) from unleashing a nuclear assault on an enemy for fear of getting nuked back. Hey, what a solid foundation for building peace! Of course, the nuclear nine have spent billions of dollars over the years expanding and developing the nuclear arsenals they will allegedly never use. But they’ve also made it clear that no other nation on the planet is “authorized” to possess nukes.
This has been the foundation for the pseudo-peace—the avoidance of nuclear omnicide—that has existed throughout my lifetime, and also Donald Trump’s lifetime. (Little known fact: He’s two months older than me). Thus humanity, or at least its global leaders, haven’t had to take on the difficult task of envisioning “peace” beyond militarism. Nor has the media. Military-industrialism maintains its assumed dominance over Planet Earth: We’ll always have war, no matter how many people suffer horrifically from it, no matter how many devote their lives to ending it.
But then along comes Donald Trump, bringing something unique to his position as most powerful person on the planet: his own personal madness. I am not referring to “mutually assured destruction,” but the other kind of mad: He’s losing it mentally. Here’s how members of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War put it, in a statement entered into the US Congressional Record a month ago:
It is our professional opinion, based on previous and ongoing assessments, that Donald Trump’s mental state since our 2024 statement has deteriorated even further. In keeping with our professional ethics, and for those of us who are physicians, with the Declaration of Geneva—the successor to the Hippocratic Oath that binds us to the humanitarian principles of medicine since the Nuremberg trials—we are compelled to warn of a President of the United States who is increasingly a danger to the public.
Among his symptoms: rambling digressions and frequent confusion when he speaks; grandiose and delusional beliefs, including assertions of infallibility and unlimited authority (for instance, his release of AI-created pictures and videos, such as a video depicting himself as a combat pilot dropping feces on No Kings protesters); and his reckless threats of violence (such as his social media post to Iran last month: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back”).
The physicians conclude:
It is our professional opinion that the behaviors of Donald Trump, tragically, are neither momentary lapses nor political theater. It is our professional opinion that they reflect a rapidly worsening, reality-untethered, increasingly dangerous decline. If we were called upon under the 25th Amendment to judge the President’s present ability to discharge the duties of his office, we would have to conclude that he lacks the capacity to do so.
For the reasons cited above, emphasizing that he presents a clear and present danger to our country and to the world, it is our expert opinion that Donald J. Trump is mentally unfit to be the President of the United States, and that steps to remove him from office must be undertaken with the greatest urgency, with vital responsibilities on the shoulders of those in positions of leadership
Psychotherapist John Gartner put it a bit more directly in a recent interview:
Trump’s going full Hitler... demonizing minorities, putting them in concentration camps, seizing control over elections, destroying free speech, using the government to go after his enemies, purging government of people who aren’t lackeys... He’s doing it at a manic pace, on all fronts, so we can’t even focus our outrage.
But Trump, in his unfitness for office, in his grandiosity and self-worship—though he may be a lost soul—is not wrong about the amount of power he has. This is what stuns me beyond comprehension: that the world we have created is open to him. It’s now his for the taking. Mutually Assured Destruction may have kept the world free of nuclear war for the last eight decades, but it hasn’t kept the world free of Donald Trump.
Has the world evolved to its own endpoint? I don’t know. But we have definitely evolved to a state of complex, unanticipated danger. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists—whose Doomsday Clock is now set at 89 seconds to midnight—recently published a piece urging that the US pass a law taking the decision to use nukes away from the president alone, requiring the agreement of at least two people before it can be acted on.
How amazing that such a law doesn’t already exist. Even more amazing is that calls for nuclear disarmament are hardly in the news these days. If humanity wants to continue evolving, we have to envision a world beyond nuclear war... beyond all wars.
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Tax Day Realities: Nuclear Weapons and Our Dangerous, Misguided Priorities
An average American family of four will spend $1,606 dollars on nuclear weapons programs this year, and as a nation we are spending $261,092 every minute on weapons that cannot and must not ever be used without threatening all of humanity.
Apr 15, 2026
Each spring our nation funds our national budget on tax day, April 15. Just as the season itself is a time of renewal, this is a time to reflect on our priorities and who we are as a nation. Each of us can identify funding priorities in our collective daily experience and must ask ourselves if these are being addressed. From childcare and education to healthcare, national defense, and even nuclear weapons, we must set our priorities. With finite dollars and a myriad of national and international needs, we must be informed as to how these funds are being allocated.
Promises of affordability, reduced cost of living, and avoidance of costly wars have not coincided with reality.
Our planet continues to warm with progressive climate change, the last decade being the hottest decade in recorded history, causing increasing scarcity of natural resources further promoting conflict around the planet. Coupled with the potential for future global pandemics, this is a time when global cooperation and collaboration is more important than ever.
Unfortunately, we are pursuing policies of increased isolationism, feigning international cooperation with disdain for the international rule of law. We are pursuing wars, interventions and conflicts of choice, while walking away from international treaties, such as New START and the previous Iran nuclear deal, while bullying nations, thus empowering other nations to follow suit as international law and norms are shunned. We have seen 5 of the 9 nuclear-armed nations at war this past year with China increasing rhetorical threats against Taiwan. The twin interconnected existential threats of climate change and nuclear war seem ever closer. Recognizing this threat, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved their symbolic Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight this past January, the closest it has been in its 79 year existence. This is a grim reminder of our increased reliance on luck to prevent a nuclear catastrophe, either by intent, miscalculation, or disruptive technology.
These expenditures rob our communities of precious resources that could be redirected to the actual needs of our citizens providing true security in meeting basic human needs and providing opportunity.
The very existence of nuclear weapons threatens all of us, and everything we hold near and dear, every moment of every day. These are weapons that can never be used. With a perverse logic, as if in a trance to the end, we have chosen as a nation to increase our nuclear weapons program expenditures year over year, further proving the fallacy of deterrence as each of our adversaries do likewise so as not to be outdone.
According to the US Nuclear Weapons Community Cost Project, now in its 37th year, this Fiscal Year 2026 finds the US spending over $137 billion dollars on all nuclear weapons programs. That equates to an average of $401.51 for every man, woman, and child based on an average income of $44,673. These costs affect every community across our nation, from New York City, our richest city, spending over $3.95 Billion; to Flint Michigan, our poorest city, spending over $15.565 million; to the Navajo Nation spending over $28.491 Million. An average American family of four will spend $1,606 dollars on nuclear weapons programs this year, and as a nation we are spending $261,092 every minute on weapons that cannot and must not ever be used without threatening all of humanity.
Where does this fit into your priorities as you think about your family and the future you envision? These expenditures rob our communities of precious resources that could be redirected to the actual needs of our citizens providing true security in meeting basic human needs and providing opportunity.
This is a situation that does not have to be, but one that will not change without public support and outcry. There is a growing national grassroots campaign called Back From the Brink bringing communities together to prevent nuclear war. The movement calls for the US to take a leadership role as follows:
- Actively pursuing a verifiable agreement among nuclear-armed states to eliminate their nuclear arsenals;
- Renouncing the option of using nuclear weapons first;
- Ending the sole, unchecked authority of any US president to launch a nuclear attack;
- Taking US nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert; and
- Cancelling the plan to replace the entire US nuclear arsenal with enhanced weapons.
With over 504 national organizations, 78 municipalities and counties, eight state legislative bodies, 592 municipal and state official, and 68 members of Congress endorsing, support is growing. Each of us can endorse the campaign, join a local hub, and call on our elected officials to add their name to the growing list of local and federal officials who endorse and support this effort.
We all have a role to play in pursuing a future for our children and future generations. That role is unique to us and not necessarily a large role or a small role, it is our role. If our luck holds out, when our children’s children ask, what did you do when the planet was threatened, how will you respond? Working together we can make nuclear weapons a threat of the past.
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Will a New Nuclear Arms Race Make Us More Secure?
Now that the last nuclear arms control treaty regulating US and Russian nuclear weapons has expired, it is possible that these two superpowers could double their arsenals in one to two years, even as China, North Korea, and France also increase their arsenals.
Apr 01, 2026
It is widely thought that the February 5 expiration of New START, the last arms control agreement capping US and Russian nuclear weapons, could usher in a dangerous and highly destabilizing new nuclear arms race. Since the Cold War peak of over 70,000 nuclear weapons in 1986, arms control treaties have reduced the number to approximately 12,200 today—still equivalent, however, to 145,000 Hiroshimas. Many of these decommissioned weapons remain in storage where they can be readily redeployed, making it possible to double Russian and US arsenals in one to two years.
If a new nuclear arms race begins between the US and Russia, the US could “upload” 800 bombs and cruise missiles stored at military bases back onto B-2 and B-52 bombers in a matter of weeks. The number of warheads on submarines could be increased by 400 to 500 by placing additional warheads on each missile and reusing the launch tubes that were closed under New START. Finally, by placing additional warheads on half of its intercontinental ballistic missiles and reloading silos on standby, it could double its ICBM warheads from 400 to 800. Similarly, hundreds of decommissioned Russian warheads could be uploaded onto its bombers, ICBMs, and submarines.
Moreover, both the US and Russia are modernizing their nuclear weapons and new, terrifying systems are being developed. Although their arsenals are much smaller, the other seven nuclear weapon states are also modernizing, and China is rapidly expanding its arsenal. France has also just announced it will increase the size of its arsenal. Several nonnuclear states are considering acquiring nuclear weapons, which would further proliferation and greatly complicate the global situation.
The development of nuclear weapons in space and dual-use technology add to the unpredictability, and the loss of verification and information exchange provided by arms control agreements contribute to greater uncertainty, misunderstanding, and worst-case thinking.
A nuclear war would be utterly catastrophic.
So, will a new nuclear arms race make us more secure?
Given the current very tense and fragile geopolitical environment and questions about the stability of the leaders involved, it is entirely possible that a conventional conflict could escalate into nuclear war. Indeed, the Russians have threatened to use nuclear weapons in the context of their war in Ukraine and they have also lowered their “nuclear doctrine” threshold for using nuclear weapons.
The book Nuclear War: A Scenario and the film A House of Dynamite both offer chilling but realistic scenarios whereby incoming ICBMs would be responded to by massive second-strike retaliation. In just over an hour, life as we know it would be shattered worldwide.
The other grave concern is accidental nuclear war; Published accounts offer multiple examples. Warnings of a nuclear attack have been triggered by a faulty 46-cent computer chip; the mistaken insertion of a training tape into a computer; moon-rise; nuclear submarine collisions; the launch of a weather rocket; and many others. There are also cyber threats that barely existed during the Cold War. Equally worrying is the slippery slope of AI, which could lead to its integration into US, Russian, and Chinese nuclear weapon systems, stimulated by competition, mutual insecurity, and the extremely short decision-making time frame. As Gareth Evans, co-chair of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament, warns in his latest article: “The fact that we have survived for eight decades without a nuclear weapons catastrophe... is just sheer, dumb luck.”
A nuclear war would be utterly catastrophic. Scientific evidence has shown that a nuclear war would cause a “nuclear winter” where smoke and soot from hundreds of burning cities would loft into the upper atmosphere, blocking sunlight, darkening the sky, chilling the Earth, creating massive crop failures and extreme famine for every country in the world for up to 10 years after an all-out nuclear war. Millions of deaths from the explosions and radiation would be followed by billions of deaths from starvation. It would also significantly deplete the ozone layer, threatening animal and plant life. Recently, it has been shown that even a “limited” war between India and Pakistan could cause a nuclear winter that could kill over 2 billion people.
As Jonathan Schell writes in The Fate of the Earth: “The machinery of destruction is complete, poised on a hair trigger, waiting for the ‘button’ to be ‘pushed’ by some misguided or deranged human being or for some faulty computer ship to send out the instructions to fire. That so much should be balanced on so fine a point—that the fruit of four and a half billion years can be undone in a careless moment—is a fact against which belief rebels.”
Indeed, in January, the Doomsday Clock set annually by The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was moved to its closest point to midnight in its history—85 seconds. The Bulletin’s president and CEO, Alexandra Bell, concludes: “The Doomsday Clock’s message cannot be clearer. Catastrophic risks are on the rise, cooperation is on the decline, and we are running out of time. Change is both necessary and possible, but the global community must demand swift action from their leaders.”
Unfortunately, little remains of the broad-based anti-nuclear activism that was prevalent during the Cold War. Nevertheless, there is considerable public concern. A YouGov poll from May 2025 conducted in the US and five European countries shows that 41-55% of respondents think another world war is likely within the next 5 to 10 years and 68-76% believe that, if one occurs, it would involve nuclear weapons. Furthermore, 25-44% believe that it would result in the deaths of most of the world’s population.
If those who are worried about nuclear war were to become involved in a vigorous public debate to educate and activate those who aren’t aware of the magnitude of the threat (including those in power), to urge leaders to re-engage in significant, new arms control negotiations and agreements, they could surely make a difference, as they did during the Cold War, for this most existential of all threats.
As Schell notes: “Every person is the right person to act. Every minute is the right moment to begin.”
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Scared of Nuclear War? Don't Panic, Organize!
We have to keep talking about, writing about, and organizing against nuclear weapons to prevent the Doomsday Clock from reaching midnight.
Feb 20, 2026
“I’m not scared, you’re scared!” is the repeated line in a children’s story we recently read to the kids at the Unitarian Universalist version of Sunday school I attend with my children. In that story, a scared bear and a brave rabbit, who (naturally!) are best friends, go on a hike together. Rabbit has to cajole and encourage Bear through every imaginable obstacle, but in the end (of course!) it’s Rabbit who gets stuck at the crucial moment and has to call on Bear for help. Bear (no surprise) sets aside his fears to rescue his friend and (tada!) finds new depths of bravery and adventurousness in the process.
After we read the story, the kids worked together to build paths from blocks and Legos through the imagined obstacles in the story—a bridge over a rushing river, a path through a dark forest, a staircase up a steep mountain. It was one of our most engaging classes in recent memory, while the kids kept saying, “I’m not scared, you’re scared!” and laughing while they played. As we stacked blocks and fit Legos together, we adults were supposed to help the kids identify things they were afraid of and how they could confront those fears. For me, it was just one thing too many. I blanked on that part of the assignment.
Yes, I’m Scared
In fact, I was a little relieved to have done so. Of course, I have fears myself, but I’m not afraid of spiders or heights or small spaces like so many people. I am afraid of nuclear war—not something I would want to confess to a bunch of kids sitting on carpet squares.
What should I have said? “Okay, kids, I know some of you are afraid of monsters or werewolves or the Wither Storm in Minecraft, but I’ll tell you something truly terrifying: the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists just moved its Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to ‘nuclear midnight,’ four seconds closer than ever before.” I would have gotten blank stares and quick subject changes and yet, once I had started, I would undoubtedly have kept on sharing the telltale heart of my own bogeyman. “When I was a kid in the 1980s,” I would have said, “we were at three minutes to metaphorical midnight and my dad, who was an activist, wouldn’t even let me go to the movies. Now, they have pushed it even closer—closer than ever before. With nine countries armed with nuclear weapons, we’ve tick-tocked ourselves to 85 seconds to midnight. Yep, 85 seconds, by the way, is probably less time than it takes you to spell your full name or tie your shoes.”
Trump’s famous wrecking ball that blasted the East Wing and the Kennedy Center is now aimed at the nuclear treaty architecture built up over the decades.
Of course, I kept those long-winded, fact-filled fears to myself at that Sunday school. But I’ll tell you all that, in truth, it’s far worse than even what I thought that day. The Bulletin‘s scientists who made the announcement about those 85 seconds to midnight were contending with more than nuclear dangers (which have, by the way, never been more imminent). Those scientists were also responding to the speeding up of catastrophic climate change and the threats posed by artificial intelligence (AI). In the words of Daniel Holz on the Bulletin‘s Science and Security Board, “The dangerous trends in nuclear risk, climate change, disruptive technologies like AI, and biosecurity are accompanied by another frightening development: the rise of nationalistic autocracies in countries around the world. Our greatest challenges require international trust and cooperation, and a world splintering into ‘us versus them’ will leave all of humanity more vulnerable.”
Yes, all of humanity is vulnerable indeed—like my young friends building Lego bridges across felt rivers for a Bear and a Rabbit birthed in late night comedian Seth Meyers’s imagination.
The End of Arms Control as We Knew It
And as if all of that weren’t terrifying enough, Thursday, February 5 marked the end of arms control as we’ve known it. The last treaty controlling nuclear weapons between my country and Russia expired without a replacement on that day, leaving us all vulnerable to the whims of Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. There are reports of a handshake deal between the two countries to extend the principles of the treaty, but haphazard and informal agreements are simply not “arms control” (at least as we once knew it).
The Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, known as New START, was signed by US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in 2010 and set out a schedule for verifiable and commensurate nuclear arsenal reductions. It was renewed under Republican and Democratic administrations, but it is very “on brand” for strongmen Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin to deride international treaties of any sort.
Unfortunately, the sort of muscular bombast they’re known for isn’t what’s kept the world reasonably safe from nuclear war for the last eight decades, since the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Rather, it was a tight web of treaties—the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, START I and II, New START, the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, and the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty—that kept the whole world safe (or as safe as we could be with ever more nuclear-armed powers proliferating across the planet). That alphabet soup of promises, schedules, and commensurate acts of disarmament, as fragile and incremental as it was, resulted in the dismantlement of 80% of the US and Russian arsenals over the decades.
Now, we are all being dragged in the other direction.
Trump’s famous wrecking ball that blasted the East Wing and the Kennedy Center is now aimed at the nuclear treaty architecture built up over the decades. In its place, he proposes to construct a Golden Dome missile defense system to protect the United States from incoming nuclear weapons. And that fool’s errand could not only lead us toward nuclear war, but have a price tag in the trillions of dollars.
I Don’t Feel Fine
With his administration’s gold-plated, AI-enhanced sense of aggression, President Trump is now taking aim at NATO, an alliance the United States helped to build after World War II. His administration is abrogating agreements, leveling tariffs, and threatening to annex Greenland. Europe is getting the message that the United States is no longer a reliable ally, stoking concerns that yet more countries will move to create nuclear arsenals. Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin’s Russia is investing more money in nuclear weapons and the Russian strongman has actually threatened to use such weapons, while already at war in a part of Europe.
Of course, Russia and the United States are anything but the only nuclear states these days. China, France, the United Kingdom, Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea round out the rogue’s gallery of—to come up with a word of my own—Obliterables.
In 2024 alone, those nine nuclear-armed states spent more than $100 billion on such weaponry, an 11% increase over the year before, according to the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). For example, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists‘ Nuclear Notebook finds that China is rapidly and aggressively increasing its nuclear arsenal. Beijing, it points out, has “significantly expanded its ongoing nuclear modernization program by fielding more types and greater numbers of nuclear weapons than ever before.”
Throughout Asia and Europe, the leaders of all too many countries are openly discussing regional pacts and the need to develop their own nuclear weapons programs. They are reviving the moribund logic of proliferators—that only more nuclear weapons can protect us against nuclear weapons. And that is exactly the wrong conclusion to draw in this already endangered world of ours.
Another Treaty to the Rescue?
Instead of all this unilateralism and nuclear proliferation, nuclear and nuclear-adjacent nations should be signing on to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. It’s clear and smart, and its goals are achievable. In essence, it prohibits countries from developing, testing, producing, stockpiling, transferring, or threatening to use (no less actually using) nuclear weapons. And if that seems remarkably comprehensive, it actually goes further, prohibiting nations from allowing nuclear weapons to be stationed on their territory. It also prohibits assisting, encouraging, or forcing any other country to engage in any of these activities.
Thursday, January 22 marked five years since that treaty entered into force as international law and was adopted by a significant majority of the countries on this planet. On that day, I joined a handful of people gathered at the General Dynamics complex in New London, Connecticut (where I live). We celebrated the 74 nations that have ratified the treaty and the 25 more that have signed it and are in the process of ratifying it. My country, the United States, of course, stands outside of the global consensus on nuclear disarmament.
Panic and Fear, Fear and Panic
That same week after the Doomsday Clock moved four seconds closer to midnight, I wrote an essay for my local paper in New London. In less than 800 words, I tried to describe the massive nexus of decisions and dangers that went along with that four-second nudge closer to a metaphorical midnight for us all.
I shared my essay with my 11-year-old daughter Madeline while we sat in the bleachers at a local pool, watching her older brother swim with his swim team. She’s a wise little sixth grader who regularly pays attention when I least expect it. “Look what I did, Madeline,” I said, and showed her a screenshot of my article on my phone. The title was “Closing in on Nuclear Midnight; There’s Still Time to Disarm.” And then I explained to her that it was focused on how the Doomsday Clock had just moved closer to midnight.
“Oh,” she said, “I had a full-blown anxiety attack last week because Joanna told me that the flu shot wasn’t going to work.” Joanna is a seventh-grade friend of hers whose words carry a lot of weight.
I can all too easily spin out into an anxiety attack if I don’t continue to anchor myself to that little speech I made to Madeline, reminding myself of the real work people are doing to make this world a more bearable place.
I struggled to make the connection between that and what I had just shown her. Madeline added flatly, “A whole day of actual anxiety because of that news.”
“You’re going to be fine,” I said, far too quickly. “You’re healthy and, even if you get the flu, you’ll survive just fine.”
Then I slowed down. Of course, she was anxious. There was plenty to be anxious about in this Trumpian world of ours. Masked men in the streets, pulling some people out of cars through broken windows and shooting others in broad daylight. Tear gas, blockades, and crying kids on the nightly news (which we still watch sometimes).
But her fear of a flu shot and the flu she might still get was the right-sized fear for a sixth grader. Flagrant fascism, paramilitary violence, naked racism: those are massive fears for the preteen mind, as large as her mother’s fixation on nuclear war.
I need to tread carefully here, I thought, since panic and fear are contagious and erode rationality. Panic and fear cause isolation and paranoia. And while no one should panic about nuclear weapons, I thought, there’s certainly plenty to be afraid of. So, I pulled her a little closer to me, while remembering a professor at Rutgers who estimated that even a regional nuclear war would have a staggering global impact.
As a group of authors wrote in Nature Food in 2022, “In a nuclear war, bombs targeted on cities and industrial areas would start firestorms, injecting large amounts of soot into the upper atmosphere, which would spread globally and rapidly cool the planet.”
Such an upside-down atomic version of climate change would have a widespread impact on agriculture globally, leading to massive famines. They estimated that more than 2 billion people might die from a “limited” nuclear war between long-time nuclear rivals India and Pakistan.
What Can You Do in 85 Seconds?
Brutal, right? I chose to keep that information to myself in the bleachers at that swimming pool. The flu shot, not global famine, I thought to myself. Stay right-sized in this conversation with her.
But my little girl moves fast and she makes connections—and she’s fascinated by time. She’s worn a watch forever and always wants to know how long something will take. (“When?” is her favorite question.) So, it was no surprise to me that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists clock fascinated her.
“85 seconds is not a long time, Mom. I mean, look,” and she made a quick little circle with her hand. “That’s like 85 seconds, so what does it mean that we’re 85 seconds to midnight?”
“Well,” I began, my voice suddenly breaking as I imagined the hellscapes of Hiroshima, those grim graphs in the Nature Food paper, and my daughter’s future.
“No, Mom,” she said. (She didn’t want my big emotions.) “Just tell me what happens when we get to midnight.”
“Well,” I began again, “if we hit midnight on their clock, that is the end of the world as we know it.”
“But that isn’t going to happen, right, Mom?” She replied with her usual firm confidence that I always admire and am invariably curious about, wondering where it comes from.
“It hasn’t happened yet, love,” was the best I could muster. “And the reason it hasn’t happened is that so many people all over the world all the time are resisting, pushing back, passing legislation, holding up signs, making documentaries, urging divestment from nuclear-related corporations, being creative and brave, calling for disarmament in every language we human beings speak.”
I’m stirred by my own rhetoric! “Nice!” I think to myself, but I can see her attention has slipped away.
I had, however, said the thing she needed to hear—that people are working to keep nuclear midnight from happening. She sees me working to do so, too. She sees me suiting up for another frigid session of sign holding at General Dynamics, the fourth largest weapons maker in this country with a huge complex in our neighborhood in Connecticut. She sees me coming home from a long organizing meeting. She knows I have some of the answers to the questions that her tidy brain can’t quite yet put into words. She thinks I’ve got things under control, so she snuggles closer to me and goes back to worrying about her friend’s flu shot warning, or where she left her library card and what she’s going to wear to school tomorrow that will be warm, cute, and not too matchy.
Of course, I don’t have it under control. I can all too easily spin out into an anxiety attack if I don’t continue to anchor myself to that little speech I made to Madeline, reminding myself of the real work people are doing to make this world a more bearable place.
The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is engaged in the steady work of adding nations to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, while continuing to build a global consensus for disarmament. Ira Helfand and the Back from the Brink network are working on public education, movement building, and the excruciating but important task of trying to get congressional legislation passed to prevent nuclear war. Leona Morgan and many other Indigenous activists are working to protect the environment, halt uranium mining, and win compensation for “downwinders” from what were once nuclear testing sites. Makoma Lekalakala and other international activists are mobilizing to oppose nuclear proliferation, resist the mining of uranium, and deal with other affronts to our world and health. Don’t Bank on the Bomb is leading the effort of individuals, organizations, and financial groups to divest from nuclear industries. And all of that work is indeed yielding dividends!
So, I refuse to let myself be scared. And so should you.
We have to keep talking about, writing about, and organizing against nuclear weapons—not at the expense of all the other work that so desperately needs to be done right now in this dread-inducing world of ours, but to preserve at least those 85 seconds for our children and grandchildren.
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Will We Choose Endless War or a UN-Centered Global Peace System?
Within five years, peace on Earth—"mission impossible"—could become not just desirable, but widely supported, then possible. Millions of lives and trillions of dollars saved.
Feb 15, 2026
Insecurity is spreading. The world is experiencing unprecedented armed conflict. Sixty-one state-based armed conflicts have been recorded across 36 countries. Eleven of these escalated into full-scale wars. Instead of “never again,” genocide is ongoing—again and again—without a response to prevent more.
Unfortunately, those leading have little understanding of the problem as they are part of the problem. A solution will have to come from elsewhere.
Rather than encourage peace or progress, US Secretary of War, Pete Hegseth, recently advised his generals that the Pentagon will be guided by the 4th century Roman dictum, "Sis vis pacem, para bellum"—"If you want peace, prepare for war." Despite mutual vulnerability in an interconnected world, Hegseth stressed that“the only mission of the newly restored Department of War is this: warfighting… We have to be prepared for war, not for defense. We're training warriors, not defenders. We fight wars to win, not to defend.”
Military spending is skyrocketing—tripling for some NATO allies—like Canada, Poland, Latvia, and Lithuania.
So, what might be done? Is there a way to encourage cooperative, win-win approaches for people and the planet? Possibly.
The US Department of War already has a trillion-dollar budget and it’s projected to be 50% larger—$1.5 trillion—by 2027. Such a surge is only required when a government plans to fight multiple wars abroad and stifle dissent at home. Stephen Miller, (President Donald Trump’s deputy chief of staff), already claims that “we are back to a world that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power.”
Overall, the cost of preparing for more war is almost $3 trillion annually. Worse, if current trends persist, the United Nations warns that “global military spending could reach $4.7 to $6.6 trillion by 2035.”
Yet even that huge cost is dwarfed by the damage caused, with the Global Peace Index reporting, “the economic impact of violence on the global economy in 2024 was $19.97 trillion in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms.” As they note: “This figure is equivalent to 11.6% of the world’s economic activity (gross world product), or $2,446 per person. Military and internal security expenditure accounts for over 74% of the figure, with the impact of military spending alone accounting for $9 trillion in PPP terms the past year.”
Of course, most governments understand that no amount of military spending can guarantee a reliable defense or provide security in the nuclear era. Wars have seldom been winnable over the past 80 years, even for the most powerful. President Trump was correct to note the US has not won a major war since 1947. But that stops neither the current wars nor the extravagant investment to get ready for more.
Clearly, higher military spending leaves less for social security, climate action, healthcare, education, and poverty reduction. Precarious conditions spread, giving rise to extremes that generate further insecurity, with new risks of race, class, and civil conflict. Trust in government erodes when funds are available for weapons but not for human needs. Militarism follows, deepening a culture of violence, poverty, and extremes.
As President and General Dwight D. Eisenhower said: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies... a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed... Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
With ever-higher costs, there are ever-higher risks. All the great powers are modernizing and expanding their nuclear arsenals. They still rely on nuclear deterrence, with a threat of total destruction held in check by rational leaders who are supposed to maintain a system of mutually-assured destruction (MAD) in a "balance of terror." Oh, oh! Even a limited use of nuclear weapons is understood to risk "nuclear winter," with starvation for those who remain. Just last month, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the hands of their Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest the world has ever been to catastrophe.
"Caveat emptor"—countries, like people, eventually get what they plan, invest in, and prepare for. Many are already suffering from the violence and militarism they fund, support, and share with others (e.g. foreigners that someone, somewhere labelled as progressives, terrorists, protesters, or activists).
Among the recent targets were Yemen, Nigeria, Syria, Iran, Venezuela, Somalia, Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Portland. Does anyone really think this violence is for peace and security?
Who knows who is next? Will it be Cuba, Columbia, Canada, China, Iceland, Mexico, New York, Maine, or Iran again?
People heard of the deeper, "complex" problem when President Dwight Eisenhower warned:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
With globalization and generous funding, this complex expanded worldwide into finance, banking, and insurance sectors; big oil and gas; telecommunications; logistics; media; surveillance; big data; robotics; and AI.
Eisenhower’s warning wasn’t enough to stem the appeal of profits, power, and control. The unwarranted influence is now everywhere, diminishing political autonomy to the point where government leaders believe they can’t say, “No.” And, this complex depends on violent conflict to "keep the old game alive."
In short, endless war continues in a dysfunctional, war-prone system. And, this system is the primary impediment to progress on a shared climate emergency and sustainable development.
"Endless war" is the risk in following the dubious Roman claim from the 4th century: "If you want peace, prepare for war." Notably, the Roman Empire didn’t survive with its massive military spending and constant civil wars. Instead, let’s remember, "Peace is possible, if we prepare for it."
For now, it is crucial to redirect the current trajectory away from more war and a climate crisis—a lose-lose outcome for all.
So, what might be done? Is there a way to encourage cooperative, win-win approaches for people and the planet? Possibly.
UN-Prepared
Over 80 years ago—in the aftermath of two World Wars—the universal challenge was how to confine the institution of war, preferably before it kills more, possibly everyone.
The United Nations was founded in response, primarily as a state-centric, international peace system. "Saving succeeding generations from the scourge of war" is at the forefront of the UN Charter. To its credit, the UN works daily on all the shared global challenges—sustainable development, human rights, climate change, international law, encouraging multilateral cooperation for peace, nuclear disarmament, culture and education, food and water, even more.
Yet the UN remains a work in progress—underfunded, unprepared, and poorly equipped—constrained by its 193 member states, and hamstrung by the Security Council’s veto power. As it stands, the UN cannot prevent violent conflict, enforce international law, or protect people and the planet effectively. These limits reflect the interests and political priorities of the UN’s member states. Global military spending ($3 trillion) is approximately 780 times higher than the UN’s regular budget ($3.45 billion), which is considerably less than the budget of the New York City Police Department.
Yet these priorities and limits are not fixed in stone. The UN still has the advantage of an exceptional charter, universal membership, 80 years of experience, with established programs, operations, and offices worldwide. Notably, people have not experienced another world war in 80 years. It is also widely acknowledged that UN peace operations—in deadly, remote conflicts—have saved millions of lives and billions of dollars.
In short, the UN foundation is sufficiently solid to expand upon. And, this isn’t a radical or original idea either.
Shortly after President Eisenhower’s warning, President John F. Kennedy’s State Department outlined several of the key steps required in "Freedom From War, The United States Program For General and Complete Disarmament in a Peaceful World." As officials noted:
There is an inseparable relationship between the scaling down of national armaments on the one hand and the building up of international peace-keeping machinery and institutions on the other. Nations are unlikely to shed their means of self-protection in the absence of alternative ways to safeguard their legitimate interests. This can only be achieved through the progressive strengthening of international institutions under the United Nations and by creating a United Nations Peace Force to enforce the peace as the disarmament process proceeds.
The Alternative
A new Guide to a UN-Centred Global Peace System outlines 20 steps to strengthen the UN’s capacity to prevent war, uphold human rights, enforce international law, protect the environment, and promote disarmament. Included is a UN Charter review conference (to agree on an option to the P-5 veto), a financial transaction tax, another decade focused on a global culture of peace, a UN Parliamentary Assembly, defense transformation, development of a UN Emergency Peace Service (a more sophisticated option than a UN Peace Force), economic conversion, and a boost for the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Thankfully, work on most of these steps is already underway, supported by committed individuals and organizations. And, those who struggle to make the UN more effective understand that our scattered, siloed, and specialized approaches seldom combine to make a big difference.
What’s been missing is a compelling vision—"Peace on Earth is possible”—along with a coherent plan outlining a sequence of viable policy options. A shared vision should help to encourage the unity of effort and purpose required to mobilize diverse social movements and governments. And, once these steps for a more effective UN are implemented and combined, the result would be a UN-centered global peace system.
Paradigm shifts happen when prevailing systems are deemed inadequate or failing and when another option is widely viewed as better.
This guide is primarily a call to aim higher, pull together, and prepare now for that moment when new possibilities emerge. Cooperation is crucial to building the bridge between diverse sectors of civil society. With modest coordination and support, an inter-sectoral movement becomes possible.
Of course, this idea will be promptly dismissed as naive, wishful thinking, as "mission-impossible" for now. But as the political pendulum swings toward worse, the corrective swing back is likely to open the space and generate support for substantive shifts, even a safer system.
Just consider what’s distinctly different in 2026? Numerous governments are deeply worried and desperate to both avoid and constrain the new predatory hegemon. They know of safety in numbers and most realize that the one promising alternative is in an established multilateral counterweight, a more effective UN.
Within five years, peace on Earth—"mission impossible"—could become not just desirable, but widely supported, then possible. Millions of lives and trillions of dollars saved.
Paradigm shifts happen when prevailing systems are deemed inadequate or failing and when another option is widely viewed as better.
With the peace system proposed, there would be no further need for offensive weapon systems. National armed forces would shrink. Threats and tensions would fade. And, this new global system might cost $15-20 billion, freeing up trillions to help with climate adaptation and sustainable development. Imagine: We prepare for war no more!
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We Need to Break Free From the Cage of Nationalism
The possibility of nuclear war plus the continuing reality of climate change ought to push all of us beyond the borders of our minds. These matters will only be solved collectively: trans-nationally. And we must solve them.
Feb 14, 2026
“While there is broad support across the political spectrum for removing criminal aliens...”
Screech! My connection to the words I’m reading grinds to a sudden halt, an inner alarm goes off, I look away from my computer screen and briefly clutch my soul. Oh God...
The words are from a Forbes article highly critical of Stephen Miller, President Donald Trump’s deporter-in-chief. I was mostly in sync with it as I read. Indeed, the above sentence continues, pointing out that “the vast majority of individuals in the country without legal status have not committed serious crimes.”
Yeah, absolutely. So what’s my problem here? It amounts to this: A false, unchallenged assumption quietly emerged, manifested in the word “aliens.” Do we support the rights of aliens or do we just want them (and their children) dragged out of the United States, especially if they’re non-white? Apparently, this is the context of the major debate of the moment. Who belongs here? What remains unquestioned in the article is the significance of an imaginary line, known as the border, without which there would be no such thing as aliens. The line separates “us” from the rest of the world and severely trivializes the scope of the debate.
My call in this moment is for humanity, especially those who define themselves as Americans, to stand up not just to Trump and Miller and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but to the false reality of nationalism itself.
But a planet divided into nations is just the way things are, right? This is certainly not questioned politically. But my scream in this moment is for the media, mainstream or otherwise, to look beyond the assumed certainty of nationalism, however discomforting that may seem, and acknowledge that the human race has no “aliens.”
The larger reality here—understood by anyone with a brain—is that this is one planet. One planet! We are a collective whole. All of us are connected. I do not write these words with naïveté. Knowing this is simply the starting point, as we continue to evolve. I’m not downplaying the need we all feel for security, just eliminating the word “national” from the phrase.
As Karabi Acharya writes: “In fact, over half of all national borders were created in the 20th century. The creation of borders is for the most part a sad history marked by conflict, colonialism, and war. Borders create unnecessary and harmful barriers not just between people and resources but also ideas.”
Yeah, war—in the nuclear age. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists recently moved its metaphorical Doomsday Clock to 85 seconds to midnight, as close to the zero hour as it’s ever been. The possibility of nuclear war plus the continuing reality of climate change ought to push all of us beyond the borders of our minds. These matters will only be solved collectively: trans-nationally. And we must solve them.
Acharya goes on:
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there is a moral imperative to be open to new ideas from around the world and to question the origins of old ideas we take for granted. Global learning provides an important inflection point to question the morality of how and who decides what knowledge others see and share.
Not only have borders been historical constructs of wealth and power; they unfairly reflect whose ideas have mattered, what languages have been preferred. As places throughout history have been colonized, people were told that their own traditions don't matter and what’s important, what is to be prioritized, are the norms and concepts of the colonizers. Part of the process of setting up borders includes erasing not only people but other knowledge traditions.
I understand that national governments need borders to continue to exist, at least as they understand themselves. The world’s governments—in particular, the American government—need the help of we the people. My call in this moment is for humanity, especially those who define themselves as Americans, to stand up not just to Trump and Miller and Immigration and Customs Enforcement, but to the false reality of nationalism itself. How do we open the borders of this planet? How do we start acknowledging, and healing, the consequences of two-plus millennia of colonial land theft? How do we start valuing—and learning from—those who are different from us?
What if we began opening our borders? What if we began governing nonviolently... with respect and awe for our world and its occupants? Perhaps we’d start freeing ourselves from the suicidal hell we’re caught in today. We’d definitely start pushing the hands of the Doomsday Clock backwards.
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When Racism Becomes Spectacle: Distraction in an Age of Climate Crisis
In the end, the question is not whether a single post is offensive—it is whether we allow cycles of warranted outrage to consume the very attention required for collective survival.
Feb 07, 2026
The recent posted image by President Donald Trump depicting the Obamas as primates is unsurprising. This image represents what is believed, what is undoubtedly said behind closed doors. What remains unreal to me is that a sitting president flagrantly posted this. If the Republican Party does not denounce this, they are proclaiming what they truly value. Perhaps that's just as well: The racism has truly not been covert for some time. For so many, this is just another day at the office—another way racist ideology within the Republican Party asserts itself. In posting this, one must question whether the president is unhinged and strategic at the same time. I believe that, surely, he is laughing about just how much he is able to get away with, as befits his temperament and historically documented pattern of behavior.
Already, the White House defends the indefensible: White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has publicly defended the president’s sharing of the video by framing it as a meme inspired by The Lion King—saying critics should stop what she calls “fake outrage” and focus on more important issues. The White House has repeatedly expressed that the imagery was taken from an internet meme meant to depict the president as “King of the Jungle” and Democrats as animal characters, not intended as racist content.
This disgusting portrayal is distraction while simultaneously challenging the masses to disbelieve what they see with their own eyes. Fascist politics often relies on propaganda and media spectacle to distract the public, undermine shared reality, and redirect attention away from policy consequences toward emotionally charged narratives (Stanley, 2018). This pushes any thinking person to ask, about what are the masses being distracted?
Advancements to curtail Immigration and Customs Enforcement seems the most apt and logical answer. Indeed, politicians must remain steadfast and resolved in their efforts to contain ICE. However, as an education environmental researcher, I am convicted to take a step back to examine the broader landscape and the long-term trends.
If distraction is the strategy, then sustained attention is resistance.
The planetary boundaries framework reminds us that Earth’s stability is shaped by interconnected systems—climate, biodiversity, water, land, and chemical cycles—whose disruption increases the risk of large-scale ecological destabilization. Seen in this light, the severe and lingering cold snaps recently experienced in the US Northeast do not contradict global warming but rather illustrate the volatility of a climate system pushed beyond its historical range of variability. As scientists note, destabilizing the climate system can intensify extremes across seasons, producing not only heatwaves but also disrupted jet streams, polar air incursions, and unusual persistence of cold events. Situating a regional cold spell within this broader planetary context reframes it from an isolated anomaly to a symptom of systemic strain: local weather variability unfolding against a backdrop of transgressed ecological limits. In other words, the discomfort and disruption of a harsh winter can be read as a lived reminder that Earth’s regulatory systems are under pressure, and that climatic instability—whether expressed as heat, cold, drought, or flood—is part of the same planetary story.
Despite overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and accelerating, the current White House under President Trump has repeatedly signaled opposition to aggressive climate mitigation, undercutting efforts to address the crisis while publicly downplaying its urgency. At the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025, Trump referred to climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world,” dismissing expert predictions and climate science in broad terms even as global averages continue to rise and impacts intensify. Domestically, his administration has pursued policies that limit federal engagement in climate leadership—such as rescinding foundational greenhouse gas regulations by challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific endangerment finding and refusing to send senior officials to the COP30 climate summit—and rolling back environmental protections while promoting expanded fossil fuel extraction.
These actions illustrate a pattern of rhetoric and policymaking that accepts the existence of environmental change but rejects concerted governmental action to confront the climate crisis at the scale scientists say is necessary.
Unchecked climate change is already reshaping Earth’s systems in ways that pose severe risks to human and ecological well-being, often in counterintuitive ways. In the northeastern United States, unseasonably severe cold spells have contributed to fatalities and widespread disruption, reflecting how a destabilized climate system can produce more extreme and erratic weather patterns even as the planet warms overall. Scientific assessments show that critical components of the climate system—such as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), a major ocean current system that redistributes heat around the globe—are showing signs of disruption associated with warming and freshwater influx from melting ice, with potential large-scale impacts on regional climates, precipitation patterns, and food security if thresholds are crossed. Researchers warn that such a weakening of ocean currents could intensify weather extremes and disrupt agricultural systems and ecosystems worldwide, compounding other alarming indicators like mass species loss and coral reef die-off under thermal stress.
Reflecting the convergence of climate change, geopolitical tension, and emerging technological risks, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the symbolic Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than at any point in its history, signaling growing vulnerability to existential threats driven by human actions and inaction. As of the latest update, the clock stood at a historically high proximity to midnight—indicating an elevated sense of global peril tied in part to the accelerating impacts of climate change alongside nuclear and disruptive technologies—underscoring that societies worldwide have not yet mounted an adequate policy or governance response to the mounting evidence of planetary destabilization.
Far from being speculative or alarmist rhetoric, these warnings are grounded in measurable scientific trends that reveal cascading risks to ecosystems and societies, even as elites prepare for worst-case futures: Reports describe wealthy investors and defense planners expanding private bunkers and survival retreats in anticipation of climatic and geopolitical disruption, while the broader public’s attention is often diverted to the latest political scandal rather than sustained policy engagement with structural risks.
There is circumstantial evidence that the current White House is using distraction as a communication strategy, one consistent with well-studied political diversion tactics, but there is no direct proof that this is an intentionally orchestrated White House policy without formal investigation. Analysts and critics of Project 2025—the extensive conservative policy blueprint authored by the Heritage Foundation and many associates of this administration—have raised alarms about proposals that would restructure media oversight, diminish independent journalism, and alter technology and communications policies in ways that could reduce scrutiny of executive power, a move some see as creating fertile terrain for distraction over accountability.
Political commentators have documented how sensational statements and provocative posts often dominate headlines at the expense of in-depth coverage of systemic risks like climate change or immigration enforcement priorities, consistent with agenda-setting research showing how political actors can shift public attention.
Additionally, scholars studying messaging patterns around scandals suggest that shifts in provocative communications often occur simultaneously with increased media focus on crisis narratives, although establishing intentional coordination by an administration would require formal oversight or committee inquiry, not journalistic inference alone. In short, critics interpret these developments as strategic distraction tactics, but distinguishing intent from effect is a matter for official investigation and evidence beyond public reporting.
In the end, the question is not whether a single post is offensive—it is whether we allow cycles of warranted outrage to consume the very attention required for collective survival. Racism must be named and opposed wherever it appears, especially when amplified by the highest office, but we must also recognize when spectacle functions to fracture public focus. The climate crisis does not pause for political theater, nor do ecological thresholds wait for electoral cycles. If distraction is the strategy, then sustained attention is resistance. The work before us is to hold moral clarity and planetary reality together, refusing to let either be eclipsed by the churn of the news cycle, and insisting that democratic accountability includes safeguarding the conditions for life itself.
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'Era of Unconstrained Nuclear Competition' Looms With US-Russia New START Treaty Expiring
“The United States and Russia already have enough deployed nuclear weapons to kill tens of millions of people in an hour and devastate the world," said one expert, warning a lapse will "only make the world less safe."
Feb 03, 2026
If New START expires on Thursday, it will be the first time in decades that the United States and Russia don't have a nuclear arms control treaty, and experts have been sounding the alarm about the arms race that likely lies ahead.
“The expiration of New START would be massively destabilizing and potentially very costly both in terms of economics and security," said Jennifer Knox, a research and policy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists' (UCS) Global Security Program, in a Tuesday statement.
"The United States and Russia already have enough deployed nuclear weapons to kill tens of millions of people in an hour and devastate the world," Knox pointed out. "Letting New START lapse would erase decades of hard-won progress and only make the world less safe."
New START was signed in April 2010, under the Obama administration, and entered into force the following February. A decade later, just days into the Biden administration, it was renewed for five years. In 2022, Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine—an ongoing conflict—and the next year, Russian President Vladimir Putin suspended his country's participation in the treaty, though he has not withdrawn.
"The global security environment facing the United States is very different from when New START was first negotiated, but it remains true that bounding an open-ended, costly arms race will still require some form of agreement between Washington and Moscow," said Ankit Panda, the Stanton senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's Nuclear Policy Program, in a statement.
"The public and lawmakers alike must recognize that we are on the cusp of a fundamentally new nuclear age—one that is more unpredictable, complex, and dangerous than anything we've witnessed post-Cold War," warned Panda, one of the experts participating in a Wednesday briefing about the treaty. "A big risk is that without any quantitative limits or hands-on verification, we'll end up with compounding worst-case-scenario thinking in both capitals, as during the Cold War."
While Putin has halted US inspections of Russian nuclear facilities, he has still proposed extending the treaty for a year. Tara Drozdenko, director of the UCS Global Security Program, said that "abiding by New START for another year would be a win-win-win for the United States, Russia, and the rest of the world... The Trump administration should take swift action to publicly acknowledge that the United States will continue to abide by New START in the interim."
However, US President Donald Trump—who fancies himself as a deal-maker—hasn't expressed an interest in fighting for the pact, telling the New York Times last month that "if it expires, it expires," and "I'd rather do a new agreement that's much better."
Trump has called for China—which has the most nuclear weapons after Russia and the United States, and is building up its arsenal—to be part of a new deal, but Beijing hasn't signaled it will do so. Putin has proposed participation from France and the United Kingdom. The other nuclear-armed nations are India, Israel, North Korea, and Pakistan.
Noting Trump's comments to the Times and aspiration for the Chinese government to join, Jennifer Kavanagh, director of military analysis at the think tank Defense Priorities, declared that "this is wishful thinking–if the administration thinks getting a new 'better' treaty after this one lapses will be easy, they are mistaken."
"New START's end brings few benefits and lots of risks to the United States, especially as Washington tries to stabilize relations with rivals like Russia and China," she said, suggesting that Trump "would be better off hanging on to the agreement he has a little longer before trying to get a better one."
Dmitry Medvedev, a Putin ally who signed the treaty while serving as president and is now deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, said in a Monday interview with Reuters, TASS, and the WarGonzo project that "our proposal remains on the table, the treaty has not yet expired, and if the Americans want to extend it, that can be done."
"For almost 60 years, we haven't had a situation where strategic nuclear potentials weren't limited in some way. Now such a situation is possible," he noted. "I spent almost my entire life, starting from 1972, under the umbrella of the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty."
"In some ways, even with all the costs, it is still an element of trust," Medvedev said. "When such a treaty exists, there is trust. When it doesn't, that trust is exhausted. The fact that we are now in this situation is clear evidence of a crisis in international relations. This is absolutely obvious."
Considering New START's potential expiration this week, the Russian leader said that "I don't want to say that this immediately means a catastrophe and a nuclear war, but it should still alert everyone. The clock that is ticking will, in this case, undoubtedly accelerate again."
According to Reuters, he was referencing the Doomsday Clock. Last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Science and Security Board set the symbolic clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to global catastrophe, citing various developments, including a failure to extend the treaty, Russian weapons tests, and China's growing arsenal.
"In 2025, it was almost impossible to identify a nuclear issue that got better," Jon B. Wolfsthal, a board member and director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), said last week. "More states are relying more intently on nuclear weapons, multiple states are openly talking about using nuclear weapons for not only deterrence but for coercion. Hundreds of billions are being spent to modernize and expand nuclear arsenals all over the world, and more and more non-nuclear states are considering whether they should acquire their own nuclear weapons or are hedging their nuclear bets."
"Instead of stoking the fires of the nuclear arms competition, nuclear states are reducing their own security and putting the entire planet at risk. Leaders of all states must relearn the lessons of the Cold War—no one wins a nuclear arms race, and the only way to reduce nuclear dangers is through binding agreement to limit the size and shape of their nuclear arsenals," he argued. "Nuclear states and their partners need to invest now in proven crisis communication and risk reduction tools, recommit to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, refrain from nuclear threats, and pursue a more predictable and stable global security system."
Regarding New START specifically, FAS Nuclear Information Project associate director Matt Korda stressed this week that "we are about to enter an era of unconstrained nuclear competition without any guardrails. Not only will there no longer be anything stopping the nuclear superpowers from nearly doubling their deployed nuclear arsenals, but they would now be doing so in an environment of mutual distrust, opacity, and worst-case thinking."
"While New START was a bilateral agreement between Russia and the United States, its expiration will have far-reaching consequences for the world," he said. "There are no benefits from a costly arms buildup that brings us right back to where we started, but there would be real advantages in pursuing transparency and predictability in an otherwise unpredictable world."
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'85 Seconds to Midnight': Doomsday Clock Ticks Down as Trump Drags World Toward New Low
"Catastrophic risks are on the rise, cooperation is on the decline, and we are running out of time."
Jan 28, 2026
A "failure of leadership" by the world's most powerful governments and leaders, particularly President Donald Trump, has pushed the annually updated Doomsday Clock closer to midnight than ever, said the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the organization that monitors global existential threats including nuclear bombs, on Tuesday.
The clock was set to 85 seconds to midnight—or global destruction—four seconds closer than one year ago.
The Bulletin has updated the clock each year since 1947, when scientists set it at seven minutes to midnight, emphasizing that the world had little time to get the proliferation of nuclear weapons under control following the United States' bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
The scientists who announced the latest ticking of the clock on Tuesday stressed that a number of other threats appear closer then ever to dooming humanity and called for urgent action to limit nuclear arsenals as well as creating "international guidelines" for the use of artificial intelligence, solving the climate crisis, and forming "multilateral agreements to address global biological threats."
“The Doomsday Clock’s message cannot be clearer. Catastrophic risks are on the rise, cooperation is on the decline, and we are running out of time," said Alexandra Bell, president and CEO of the Bulletin. "Change is both necessary and possible, but the global community must demand swift action from their leaders.”
The organization, whose Doomsday Clock is monitored by its Science and Security Board (SASB) and Board of Sponsors, which includes eight Nobel laureates, said that countries including the US, China, and Russia did not heed the Bulletin's warning last year when it moved the clock's hands to 89 seconds to midnight.
Instead, major powers in the past year have become "increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic."
"Hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation critical to reducing the risks of nuclear war, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, the potential threat of artificial intelligence, and other apocalyptic dangers," said the group. "Far too many leaders have grown complacent and indifferent, in many cases adopting rhetoric and policies that accelerate rather than mitigate these existential risks. Because of this failure of leadership, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today sets the Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to catastrophe."
International failures from 2025 include:
- Russia's testing of nuclear-capable weapons as it continued its war on Ukraine;
- The US and Israel's attacks on Iranian nuclear sites;
- China's increase of its nuclear warhead stockpile;
- Fueled by the continued extraction of fossil fuels, the global average temperature was the third-highest on record and the climate crisis caused disasters including deadly flooding and heatwaves;
- The treaty between the US and Russia on Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, also known as the New START Treaty, inched closer to its expiration date on February 4, 2026;
- The Trump administration dismantled public health infrastructure and climate regulations, making the US and the world more vulnerable to pandemics and the climate emergency; and
- Artificial intelligence grew more sophisticated as the Trump administration refused to rein in the technology.
Daniel Holz, chair of the SASB, said that the "dangerous trends" outlined by the Bulletin "are accompanied by another frightening development: the rise of nationalistic autocracies in countries around the world."
"Our greatest challenges require international trust and cooperation, and a world splintering into ‘us versus them’ will leave all of humanity more vulnerable," said Holz.
The Bulletin emphasized that with political will, the world's leaders are entirely capable of pulling humanity "back from the brink."
The US and Russia could resume dialogue about limiting their nuclear arsenals, and all nuclear-armed states could observe the existing moratorium on nuclear testing.
Through multilateral agreements and national regulations, the international community could also cooperate to "reduce the prospect that AI be used to create biological threats."
And in the US, Congress could take action to repudiate Trump's "war on renewable energy, instead providing incentives and investments that will enable rapid reduction in fossil fuel use."
Maria Ressa, co-founder and CEO of Rappler and a 2021 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said that world leaders must also come to an agreement that the climate crisis, nuclear proliferation, and unregulated AI are grave threats, as the majority of the global community has.
“Without facts, there is no truth. Without truth, there is no trust. And without these, the radical collaboration this moment demands is impossible," said Ressa. "We cannot solve problems we cannot agree exist. We cannot cooperate across borders when we cannot even share the same facts. Nuclear threats, climate collapse, AI risks: none can be addressed without first rebuilding our shared reality. The clock is ticking."
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The Doomsday Clock and Nuclear Reality: Our World in Peril
A breakdown of international nuclear norms, fueled by “us versus them” thinking and the newly termed “Donroe Doctrine” challenges our legitimacy around the world.
Jan 28, 2026
Today, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board presented the 2026 Doomsday Clock. At 85 seconds to midnight, this is the closest it has been since the original clock was presented 79 years ago by the Bulletin’s founders, scientists who were involved with the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb. The prophetic clock symbolizes the proximity of humanity to nuclear apocalypse at the strike of midnight. It is yet again a stark reminder of how close we are to nuclear Armageddon and the end of life as we know it. It is at great peril that we continue to ignore this pronouncement. The current board is composed of globally recognized leaders in science, academia and threat assessment who are charged with determining the potential of man-made existential threats.
In recent years, the movement forward of the minute hand has taken into account the nuclear risk accelerators of climate change, disruptive technologies, emerging threats and a breakdown of international cooperation.
This announcement comes as civil society and the majority of the world‘s population last week celebrated the fifth anniversary of the entry into force of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which formally made nuclear weapons illegal to have, test, develop, stockpile, transfer and/or threaten to use. In defiance of international law and norms, the nuclear nine nations continue their arms race to develop and modernize their nuclear weapons under the gross fallacy of nuclear deterrence. In reality deterrence remains the greatest driver of the current arms race and threat to our survival. This year’s setting of the Doomsday Clock follows a year where global order has been shaken and conflict multipliers occur, seemingly on a daily basis, increasing nuclear proliferation and potential for use either by intent, miscalculation, accident, or cyber attack. In this past year, 5 of the 9 nuclear nations, Russia, the U.S., Israel, India and Pakistan, were at war, the last two with each other and China has made increasingly bellicose threats to occupy Taiwan.
Additionally, the push to resume nuclear power and the entire nuclear fuel cycle, setting aside environmental safeguards, is presented under the charade of nuclear power – totally ignoring the intimate connection between nuclear power and weapons development increases the availability of nuclear material and thus the risk of nuclear proliferation, increased contamination of our communities, and, of course, a nuclear war.
Finally, the last remaining nuclear arms treaty, New START, is set to expire February 5 with no follow on treaty in the works.
This breakdown of international nuclear norms, fueled by “us versus them” thinking and the newly termed “Donroe doctrine” challenges our legitimacy around the world.
These flashpoints coupled with the interconnected existential threat of climate change that moves forward with the failure to create any significant climate agreements this past year. This has worsened due to the U.S. withdrawal from 66 international organizations and treaties further isolating us around the world.
Currently global nuclear arsenals have approximately 12,321 weapons or roughly 267,000 times the firepower of the bomb dropped over Hiroshima. Therefore, when, and not if, nuclear deterrence fails, as it certainly will as long as these weapons exist, everyone and everything we care about will be destroyed. As Presidents Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev stated in 1985, subsequently reaffirmed by Presidents Biden and Putin in 2021, “Nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” We cannot outspend or outgun our way out of this. Our only hope for survival for our generation and future generations is the complete and verified elimination of these weapons.
Fortunately there is hope. The non-nuclear nations of the world have refused to be bullied any longer. The International Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, signed by 99 nations, and ratified by 74 nations, is now international law. Here in the United States we have a growing grassroots movement, Back from the Brink, at all levels of our society, from civil society including faith-based organizations to cities, counties, states and bicameral resolutions in the U.S. House (H.Res.317) and Senate (S.Res.323) with 55 sponsors.
We can and must demand action now. Absent this we risk the reality expressed by Oppenheimer when he said, “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” We must push back against the nuclear industrial complex and their captured elected officials. We must denounce the lie of deterrence whenever and wherever it is uttered. We must choose the path of hope, the hope and commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons. We will then be free to turn our global attention and our resources to fighting our other interconnected existential threat of climate change. The choice is ours.
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