Sixty Seconds Before Midnight and a Looming War

WASHINGTON (08-10) – As world affairs continue to deteriorate with a looming war in the Middle East between Israel and Iran that will surely draw in the US, the possibility of a nuclear confrontation between both sides and or their allies combined with the war in Ukraine, have aligned to form the greatest existential threat for humankind than ever before.

Accordingly, a small group of anti-war activists including members of “Physicians for Social Responsibility” demonstrated at the White House on August 10, calling on people to “Unite to Ban the Bomb.” The group noted that nuclear weapons are a public health issue as there are presently 14,500 such weapons held by just nine nations, Ninety-five percent of which are in the possession of the US and Russia. Around 1,800 of that number are on “high alert” and capable of being launched on short notice.

They quoted the position of the, Back from The Brink Campaign that has called for taking all nuclear weapons off high alert and to “…remove the president’s sole authority to use the weapons and take steps to reduce the danger of nuclear war.”

A resolution introduced in January of 2023 by the House Foreign Affairs Armed Services Committee, H.Res.77, titled “Embracing the goals and provisions of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons” labels the weapons “an intolerable risk to human survival” and calls upon “…the President to embrace the goals and provisions of the treaty to make nuclear disarmament the centerpiece of US national security policy. It also calls on the United States to lead a global effort to move the world back from the nuclear brink and to prevent nuclear war.”

While the present total of nuclear weapons is smaller than it was during the Cold War, the US, China and Russia are now actively reengaged in modernizing and expanding their inventories. Realizing the actual destructive potential from the use of just one weapon, their full unrestricted use during a time of war, the group warned, would see the world destroyed many times over, a frightening prospect that is little appreciated.

An inflection point for world leaders to ban nuclear weapons occurred earlier this week with the 79th anniversary of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings during WWII that was the first nuclear age humanitarian disaster.

According to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who maintain the doomsday clock that indicates how close total annihilation is, the time is presently set at 90 seconds before midnight, the closest to midnight that it has ever been.

Their calculation for the time considers several factors including “the threat of nuclear escalation, climate change, AI risk, and the misuse of biological pathogens.”

With Russia’s placement of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus combined with Putin’s references to using Russia’s “Nuclear Doctrine” in its war in Ukraine, along with the new arms buildup in the US, China and Russia, things look quite bleak.

With the US set to spend $600 billion on the new nuclear xprogram, activists are encouraging those appalled by this nonending arms race to contact their elected representatives and encourage them to vote for the resolution to end the madness.

Report and photos by Phil Pasquini

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