Just two years after the United States launched the world’s first and only use of atomic weapons in war against Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, the publication Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, founded by Manhattan Project physicists and scientists, initiated their annual setting of the symbolic “Doomsday Clock.”
Since 1947, the Bulletin’s scientists and other experts on threats to humanity have reset the minute hand on the Doomsday Clock 27 times. In late January, the Clock’s minute was moved from 89 seconds to midnight to 85 seconds to midnight—the closest this symbolic time piece has ever been to potential catastrophe in nearly 70 years.
Explaining their decision to move the clock forward, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board cited a failure of global leadership on threats to humanity and called for urgent action to limit nuclear weapons arsenals, create international guidelines on the use of artificial intelligence, address the runaway climate crisis and form multilateral agreements to address global biological threats. Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Jon B. Wolfsthal, director of global risk at the Federation of American Scientists and a member of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board, who formerly served as special assistant to President Barack Obama for National Security Affairs and was senior director at the National Security Council for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. Here he discusses some of the serious threats facing humanity that led to moving the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight.
JOHN WOLFSTHAL: There are three major threats that go into setting the clock every year: nuclear weapons threats, the threat of climate change and the threat of disruptive technology, including both artificial intelligence and misinformation, disinformation, but also disruptive technology like bioengineering and the possibility of manmade pandemics. The clock has moved around a lot over the decades. At one point, it was 17 minutes away from midnight, but this past week, we set the clock at 85 seconds to midnight, four seconds closer to Doomsday as a sign of how dangerous the world is. But also in our view, how poorly the world’s leaders, including in the United States and elsewhere are doing in terms of focusing on these threats and trying to take the action that we know is possible to protect humanity from these threats coming to pass.
SCOTT HARRIS: I wanted to look at the nuclear threat first. It’s auspicious that Feb. 4th, the last remaining nuclear arms treaty between the United States and Russia, something called New START will expire. As someone who is a nuclear arms expert, tell us about the significance of this date. Again, it’s the last nuclear arms treaty.
JOHN WOLFSTHAL: Well, I’m more than just a nuclear expert. I’m actually somebody who helped negotiate and gain government ratification for that treaty when I worked for President Obama and Vice President Biden. So I’m not completely unbiased here. But I think it’s fair to say just the facts. That for the last 53 years, the United States and the Soviet Union and after it, Russia had agreed, even when we pointed nuclear weapons at each other, even when we fought proxy wars, that it was a bad thing for us both to live in a world where either side could deploy as many nuclear weapons as we wanted. Arms racing is dangerous. An runaway nuclear arms competition is something that can lead to mistakes and accidents and crises. And so we agreed, whether it was under (Leonid) Brezhnev and (Lyndon B.) Johnson and (Richard) Nixon and (Yuri) Andropov or (Ronald) Reagan and(Mikhail) Gorbachev, that we should have these arms control agreements.
In 2010, President (Barack) Obama, President (Dmitry) Medvedev negotiated a limit that neither side could have more than 1,550 nuclear weapons strategic and that treaty expires. And that will mean for the first time in almost two generations, both sides can deploy however many nuclear weapons they want. And both sides will begin to suspect that they are falling behind and therefore that they need to deploy more. And of course the other side will see the country deploying more and say, “Well, if they’re deploying more, we need to deploy more.” This is the same logic that led the United States and Soviet Union to deploy N nuclear weapons between them in 1984. We now are down to about 7,000 nuclear weapons between the two of us. It’s still too many, but I worry that we are going to race back up before we realize that nobody is going to benefit from this competition.
SCOTT HARRIS: John, what’s the position of the Trump administration and what you know about Vladimir Putin in Russia in terms of future negotiations to get back New START on track? Is there a possibility that these countries and these two administrations can see their way back to something which I think to most people in the world makes just common sense — limit these destructive weapons that are capable of extinguishing all life on the planet?
JOHN WOLFSTHAL: Yeah. This is where things get really quite frankly surprising. Donald Trump, both before he was elected, I mean, I grew up in New York City, so I was used to Donald Trump talking about how he’s the best negotiator and he could negotiate a better nuclear deal than Reagan. He has talked a lot about the nuclear threat, both in his first term and in his second term saying he’d like to negotiate disarmament, even complete abolition of nuclear weapons. And so last year in September, Vladimir Putin said, “You know what? The New START Treaty’s expiring. Why don’t we both agree to extend the limits for a year politically? We don’t need to pass a treaty, but we’ll stay under the limit if you stay under the limit.” Donald Trump said, “Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. I’ll look into it. ” And then he hasn’t done anything.
And like so many things, he says, “Oh yeah, I can negotiate a better deal on Iran, on trade deals, on NAFTA, on nuclear agreements with Russia.” He talks a big game, but unfortunately he can’t get out of his own way and the administration doesn’t seem to have any sort of unified strategy for how to implement things the president says he wants. And so Putin gets all the political benefit of saying, “I’m willing to constrain my nuclear arsenal, but the United States won’t agree to it.” And if he builds up, he’ll say, “Well, I have to because the United States has basically walked away from the negotiating table.” So not only do we not get the limits, but we take the blame. And so from a strategic point of view and from a political point of view, it’s really a double negative for the United States.
For more information, visit the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists website at thebulletin.org.
Listen to Scott Harris’ in-depth interview with Jon B. Wolfsthal (15:54) and see more articles and opinion pieces in the related links section of this page. For periodic updates on the Trump authoritarian playbook, subscribe here to our Between The Lines Radio Newsmagazine Substack newsletter.
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