Friends,
We do not have much time but I hope we can get organized to promote The U.N. Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons on January 22, 2026. In my opinion the obvious choice is to hold it at JHU. I am open to other ideas, but we must get it together ASAP so that we can promote such an event. Please share your thoughts. Kagiso, Max
Scientists Say Public Engagement
and Pressure Are Key to Reducing Nuclear Risks
Nuclear
experts are urging the public to demand concrete steps to reduce the risk of
devastation due to nuclear weapons.
December
29, 2025
Protesters
holds signs during a demonstration against nuclear weapons outside of the
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on August 9, 2017
in Livermore, California. Justin Sullivan / Getty Images
Faster, stealthier missiles, accelerated weapons development, and the threat of an
unrestrained nuclear arms race, set against the backdrop of a
withering arms control regime, point to a worsening
global nuclear threat as 2025 comes to a close. On top of that, just before meeting with China’s leader Xi
Jinping in October, President Donald Trump abruptly, and very imprecisely announced in a social media post, “Because
of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to
start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”
The suggestion that the United States might break with a more than
three decade-long moratorium on explosive tests sparked a global wave of
uncertainty, anxiety, and speculation about the impacts of a potential return to explosive
nuclear testing. This comes in the final months of a year when five of the
world’s nine nuclear armed countries have been engaged in active warfare. In
May, India and Pakistan attacked each other with
missiles, Russia has continuously bombed Ukraine, and the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran and other nations and territories.
Eighty years after the beginning of the atomic age, the
deteriorating nuclear threat landscape is reflected in
the symbolic Doomsday Clock, now set at 89 seconds to midnight, its closest-ever setting
to global catastrophe, with the last U.S.-Russia arms control treaty expected to expire in early February.
On July 16, the 80th anniversary of
the world’s first nuclear detonation, a gathering of 60
nuclear weapons experts and around 20 Nobel laureates assembled at the University of Chicago to come up with a
list of pragmatic, actionable steps which they are urging
world leaders to take to reduce the risk of nuclear war. That
two-page document, the Nobel Laureate Declaration, calls for a
recommitment to a moratorium on nuclear explosive testing, enhancement and
expansion of nuclear diplomacy, and for scientists, academics, communities of
faith, and civil society to create pressure on global leaders to take nuclear
risk reduction measures.
Five of the nuclear experts and one Nobel laureate who were
central to writing the declaration (now signed by 129 Nobel prize winners)
spoke to Truthout to discuss what the exercise achieved and
what they want to see happen next. Everyone interviewed for this story agreed
that nuclear threats have increased in recent months, underscoring the urgent
need to reduce risks and begin new conversations.
“That conversation has been picked up by a lot of people around
the world but it has not yet, in my opinion, changed the dial, but it is the
beginning,” said Brian Schmidt, a professor of astrophysics at Australian
National University and a Nobel laureate (2011 physics). “I see it as
that first step, and we are now looking at how we do the next steps and keep
bringing it up in conversations.”
Schmidt told Truthout that he has spoken to people
across the political spectrum from the far left to the far right and “no one
has said ‘I think nuclear war would be a good thing.’” Finding ways to reduce
nuclear risks, Schmidt said, is “actually something that can be used to bind us
together.”
The deteriorating nuclear threat
landscape is reflected in the symbolic Doomsday Clock, now set at 89 seconds to
midnight, its closest-ever setting to global catastrophe.
As nuclear nations increase spending and reliance on their arsenals with some people
even calling for more countries to acquire
nuclear weapons, Laura Grego, senior research director with the
Union of Concerned Scientists, was under no illusion that a two-page document
alone would change the world, but calls it a necessary step.
“I didn’t expect that everybody would put their pens down and say,
‘the laureates have spoken.’” Rather, she compared the declaration to a protest
or demonstration which, by itself, does not bring immediate change, but must be
part of a longer, sustained effort.
Even as Trump has made ambiguous and alarming statements about
testing nuclear weapons, he has called for a comprehensive missile defense
system called “Golden Dome” intended to “defend against all types of missiles
from any adversary,” something Grego describes as “fantastical.” Others find the idea ill-defined and flawed. Anticipated costs for the system
quickly surpassed $500 billion with some estimates in the trillions of dollars.
“This massive investment in strategic missile defense is really
unhelpful,” Grego told Truthout. “It’s not just wasted money,” she
said. In the long run it “probably makes the world less safe.” The Nobel
Declaration calls on China, Russia, and the United States to “acknowledge the
interrelationship between strategic offensive and defensive arms and forgo
massive investments in strategic missile defense.”
Breaking through to policy decision-making circles, Grego said,
can be difficult as they are often sequestered in the Pentagon and may not be
elected officials responsive to voters. Grego says members of Congress are
rarely questioned by their own constituents on nuclear issues and that lack of
public input is just fine with the powerful, highly organized corporate interests who stand to make a lot
of money building expensive weapon systems.
Grego urges people to call their representative’s office and to
let them know if their votes don’t correspond to your views. In particular, on
rarely challenged issues like nuclear weapons, small, incremental steps can
have a positive impact.
“While there’s a lot of decision making that’s held in the
Pentagon,” Grego said, “the purse strings are held by Congress and that’s still
a powerful lever that we need to use better.”
Reviving Public Concern Over Nuclear Weapons Is Key
According to a recent YouGov survey, 69 percent of Americans think
nuclear weapons make the world a more dangerous place. Nearly half (49 percent)
of respondents approve of reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the U.S.
arsenal.
Alexandra Bell, president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic
Scientists, and one of the chief organizers of the Nobel nuclear assembly,
told Truthout that whenever there’s been a major reduction in
nuclear threats, it followed years or decades of grassroots organizing and ongoing
commitment, accompanied by public pressure with people saying, “we refuse to
live in this world of increasing nuclear threats forever.” Major arms control
achievements like the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963 or the
agreement by the U.S. and Soviet Union to reduce nuclear stockpiles in the 1980s
didn’t just happen. They were the result of sustained movements and public
pressure.
“We’ve done this before. We figured out a way to reduce threats in
the past and we kind of forgot,” said Bell. “We became complacent that we had
dealt with this problem and we didn’t have to spend as much time and effort on
it.”
She recognized that people today have a long list of concerns —
the economy, health care, crime, the precarious state of democracy — but she
said, “[We]’ve got to make room for the nuclear threat as well because it’s
here whether or not you want to focus on it…and lack of attention is not going
to make the problem better. In fact, it probably will make it worse and if we
get the nuclear problem wrong, none of those other problems matter.”
She urged people to start talking about nuclear issues and ask
their elected leaders how they are addressing the threat.
This Is Everybody’s Problem
Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Project
at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, told Truthout “the
risk [of nuclear war] is very, very low but obviously the consequence is
impossible to imagine.” To that end, after the Nobel nuclear assembly, Lewis
produced a short video that offers a vivid, terrifying
snapshot of what a nuclear detonation would do to a city, in this case Chicago,
the same city targeted in the movie A House of Dynamite.
He said the nuclear threat seems distant and gigantic, but, he
added, “We know eventually our luck will run out.” He said, “We need to be
gripped by some sense of urgency that we have made this deal with nuclear
weapons to base our security on them and we know that deal is not going to work
forever.” Given the enormity of a global nuclear catastrophe, Lewis said, “The
fate of the world is everybody’s problem, and everybody has a role to play.”
When considering the possibility of reducing the nuclear risk,
Lewis said that Trump has demonstrated a visceral reaction to the destructiveness of
nuclear weapons which he believes is quite sincere. “It’s a shame because
[Trump] has real political power,” said Lewis. “He has the political power to
negotiate a verification protocol to the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)”
which, Lewis asserted, could make the Republican controlled Senate consent to
ratifying the treaty which Lewis believes could earn Trump a Nobel Peace Prize.
The United States is one of nine countries which have not
ratified the CTBT, preventing it from entering into force.
Will Leaders Exercise Courage and Imagination?
Thomas Countryman, chairman of the board of
the Arms
Control Association and a 35-year veteran State Department
diplomat, said the Nobel declaration would be significant if the public
responded by demanding their elected leaders take steps to reduce nuclear
danger. Those recommended steps could begin, he said, if there was a single
leader among the nine nuclear weapons states who had the courage and moral
conviction to prioritize nuclear risk reduction.
“I am somewhat encouraged that President Trump has said more than
once that he is fearful of the effects of nuclear war. I think he appreciates
how dangerous nuclear weapons are on a strong personal level,” Countryman said.
“The problem is that neither he nor any of his counterparts in other nuclear
weapon states have yet taken a meaningful step forward.” Although he has little
confidence that Washington or Moscow will make significant progress on nuclear
arms control in the next few years, Countryman says he has hope — “not
confidence, but hope”— that China is in a unique position to do so.
Countryman will be watching the anticipated Trump-Xi summit in China next April
closely. While he expects the meeting will focus on economic issues, it may be
possible to address some nuclear matters too. He sees the opportunity for Trump
and Xi to even take a very dramatic step of an announcement of a simultaneous
ratification of the CTBT. “That may be too ambitious for both bureaucracies,
but if both presidents have a little bit of courage and imagination, it could
be done.” And while it could be possible, he fears there are “too many
political and bureaucratic obstacles from any of the other nuclear armed states
from moving forward on something dramatic.”
He conceded that conveying practical nuclear risk steps like those
in the Nobel declaration is an uphill battle because, as he put it, in
Washington, Moscow, and Beijing, “those who favor more nuclear weapons are in
the ascendancy… all of them are feeling more confident and have the ear of their
respective leaders much more frequently than those who are advocating for
reduction of nuclear risk.”
Nations Must Play a Role in Building Awareness
Daniel
Holz is a physics professor at the University of Chicago and
chair of the science and security board of the Bulletin
of the Atomic Scientists. As one of the chief organizers of the Nobel Assembly,
he’s been closely following progress of the declaration which has
included calls by the Vatican to reduce and
eliminate all nuclear weapons, ongoing and future follow up meetings around the
world, and in October, a presentation and discussion at the
Permanent Mission of Norway to the United Nations. Included in the discussion
before the largely diplomatic audience was the call for all countries to
increase investments and research on the environmental, economic, and other
impacts of nuclear conflict by a newly formed UN Independent Scientific Panel on the Effects of Nuclear War,
the first of its kind since the 1980s. Of the nine nuclear armed nations, only China voted to support the study.
That UN study, like the Nobel declaration and depictions of
nuclear weapons in books, music, movies, and popular media, as well as concerns about nuclear
testing, nuclear proliferation, and the collapse of arms control, underscores the urgent
need for more public engagement.
An increasing public perception of nuclear
risk, Holz said, “leads to discussion, it leads to awareness, and it does lead to pressure on
leaders” which is necessary to effect change. “Once the public is aware and
engaged, as it should be, because they will be impacted if this goes wrong …
then policy makers start to pay attention.”
“Unfortunately, it’s getting easier and easier to make the case
that people should be aware.”
####
Donations can be sent
to Max Obuszewski, Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 431 Notre Dame Lane, Apt. 206,
Baltimore, MD 21212. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski2001 [at]
comcast.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Deb
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