Articles 
PEOPLE FOR NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT
HUMAN SURVIVAL PROJECT
100 SECONDS TO MIDNIGHT – ARE WE RUNNING OUT OF TIME?
At 100 seconds to metaphorical 'midnight' the Doomsday Clock is closer to the end of civilisation than it has ever been. Set at 100 seconds in 2020, the clock was kept there in 2021, and 2022.
https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/2020-doomsday-clock-statement/
It is to be reset tonight, Tuesday 24th US time, 2am Wednesday 25th Australian time.
https://thebulletin.org/2023/01/watch-the-2023-doomsday-clock-announcement-on-jan-24/
Whether the clock will be set even closer to midnight is kept a secret until the new position of the clock hands is unveiled.
Should the clock be set even closer to metaphorical 'midnight', the putative end of civilisation? The main problem with advancing the Doomsday Clock is that the clock-face will be literally running out of time. So, perhaps, are humans.
Since the clock was set at 100 seconds things have, if possible, grown even worse.
The outbreak of the Ukraine War could have been predicted to provide escalatory potential, even without specific threats being made. Common prudence would suggest that the escalation of the Ukraine war to one involving all or parts of NATO would be likely to initiate an escalatory spiral in which large scale conventional war in Europe became a conflict in which tactical nukes – likely the ones kept in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad – would be used, followed by an escalation to global thermonuclear war in which the use of over 1000 large nuclear weapons on cities would cause as many as a billion casualties, and be followed by a nuclear winter in which it has been predicted that most humans would perish from starvation. Australia would be targeted at least at Pine Gap and Northwest Cape, and Australian cities could possibly be targets.
During the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the Pentagon's DEFCON (Defence Condition) in which 'normal' is '5', was set to DEFCON-2. It has never reached DEFCON-1, which is the breakout of nuclear war. Reportedly (DEFCON is classified so we are not sure) it was also set to '2' last February/March. It then went down to 3, and finally is once more at 5, but with the caveat that it can anytime go back up to 2. The reason for letting it go back to 5 is that no actual changes in Russian weapons deployment have yet been seen. In addition there are some reports that suggest that as much of 80% of Russia's nuclear weapons may in fact be inoperable. However this is a slender reed on which to rest.
However there have been threats aplenty. In February, Putin threatened countries that 'interfered' with his 'special military operation' with 'consequences you have never before experienced in history'. Most recently, former president Medvedev has threatened that if Russia does not win the war with Ukraine (a victory that looks less and less likely), there will be nuclear war.
There are important and disturbing differences with previous nuclear crises. In 1962, and also in the Able Archer crisis of November 1983, it was taken for granted that nuclear war was not something any rational leader actually wanted. (though there was the 'righteous will be raptured to heaven' quote of Senator Strum Thurmond).
Now however, we hear almost weekly from Russia that its leaders and important supporters of those leaders (Vladimir Soloviev, Margharita Simonyan of Russian State TV amongst others) look forward seemingly with glee to the 'righteous' (who are exclusively Russian) being 'raptured to heaven' while the rest of us perish in firestorms or freeze and starve in the ensuing darkness. It's Senator Strom Thurmond in Russian served up at least weekly.
Whether or not the Doomsday clock advances the clock hands, will be decided by a nobel– heavy board with the able assistance of prominent retired global states-people. But whether or not the hands actually move to an unprecedentedly perilous setting, the peril in which we stand (or sit) has no parallel in history. Urgent action is needed to deliver us from the risk of nuclear war, and of course from climate change.
The adoption of policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons by in particular the US and Russia would do much to deliver civilisation from a possible apocalypse. Abolition 2000's nuclear risk reduction working group has a menu of commonsense nuclear risk reduction measures aimed at making the survival of civilisation and humans more likely.
https://www.abolition2000.org/en/working-groups/nuclear-risk-reduction/
In the meantime let us watch the setting (unfortunately at 2am Sydney time) of the Doomsday Clock-hands with rapt attention. After all its only the end of the world.
John Hallam
UN Nuclear Disarmament Campaigner
People for Nuclear Disarmament
Human Survival Project
Co-Convenor, Abolition 2000 Nuclear Risk Reduction Working Group
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