90 seconds to midnight

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Editorial Comments Tom Unterrainer

“There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto, 9 July 1955

That these closing words from the Russell-Einstein Manifesto resonate across the decades would bring no comfort to the their authors. What would they make of today’s world, a world where nuclear weapons have not been detonated but where the threat of such detonation looms? What would they make of the choices made by those with the power to bend, shift or determine world events? Would they detect any progress towards a “new Paradise” or would they, like the Atomic Scientists of 2023, detect further risk of “universal death”.

The Atomic Scientists have moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock ten seconds closer to midnight. By their reckoning, we are 90 seconds away from “universal death”. This annual measure of existential threat to life on planet earth has never been as close to midnight as it is now.

In 1953, following the October 1952 test by the United States of the first Hydrogen Bomb and in anticipation of similar moves by the USSR, the Atomic Scientists moved the hands to 2 minutes. It took until 2018 for the clock to reach the same point again, in circumstances where the “failure of world leaders to address the largest threats to humanity’s future [was] lamentable”. Since 2018 the clock has edged ever closer to midnight, as world leaders plot a course to disaster.

This year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward, largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine. The Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.

The war in Ukraine may enter a second horrifying year, with both sides convinced they can win. Ukraine’s sovereignty and broader European security arrangements that have largely held since the end of World War II are at stake.

If Ukraine is the main, but not the only, reason for the perilous circumstances faced by humanity at large then a number of questions are posed. For instance: How did this situation evolve? What is being done to resolve it? Do we really think that escalation will do anything other than increase nuclear risks further still?

Whilst the Doomsday Clock confines itself to measuring the dangers posed to humanity as a whole, it is important that we register the fact that for all-too-many people, midnight has already arrived. Registering and examining this fact may help us to understand how to ‘move the hands back’ on the Doomsday Clock.

Midnight arrives

Earthquake: The earthquakes that struck Türkiye and Syria on February 7, 2023 were caused by a well understood but unpredictable ‘natural phenomena’. At the time of writing, the death toll in Türkiye alone stands at over 40,000. Are all of these deaths and all of the destruction accounted for by an abrupt release of stored elastic strain along a geological fault-line? Were the 40,000 or more who had midnight - death and destruction - delivered upon them victims of a purely ‘natural phenomenon’? According to numerous reports, more than 345,000 buildings were destroyed in the quake in Türkiye (estimates for Syria are not available). People were killed in their beds, in their homes, as the buildings collapsed above, around and below them. 1 million people are now living in tents. Midnight arrived.

Anger has erupted at the Ankara government as accusations grow over multiple failures to reinforce and improve the safety of buildings following recommendations in the wake of a similar sized quake in 1999. Citizens have criticised the government for “evading accountability” and for failing to impose stricter and enhanced building standards. All of which suggests the question: if such increased standards had been imposed, if work had been done to reinforce existing buildings and otherwise improve the durability of such structures how many deaths could have been avoided? How much destruction could have been avoided? How many people would now be living out their existence in tent cities?

The enormous death toll in Türkiye is not simply the product of a ‘natural phenomena’: it also results from carelessness, corruption and a disregard for humanity. The powerful choose to be careless, corrupt and to show such disregard. It did not have to be this way. Different choices, different approaches, could have been made. Such choices and such approaches could have - if implemented in time and in earnest - have saved lives and prevented such widespread destruction.

As bad as things are in Türkiye, they could have been much worse. Take, for instance, the ongoing construction work at the Akkuyu nuclear power plant (see map below). According to Maria Arvanitis Sotiropoulou, writing on the ‘Beyond Nuclear International’ website:

The station is being built like all major projects in Turkey through non-transparent procedures with direct commissioning and guarantees from the government, just like the apartment buildings we saw crumble into rubble during the recent earthquake.

Construction at Akkuyu was cancelled in 2010 following multiple concerns over the project but work began again in April 2018. By January 2021, it was reported that sea water was “seeping through the concrete floor”. As Sotiropoulou comments:

[E]ven if the nuclear plant were structurally safe, such strong earthquakes can cause damage to piping, so a Fukushima-style disaster is to be expected.

The construction at Akkuyu is not complete. The nuclear reactors are not ‘live’. The disaster was confined to tens-of-thousands of deaths rather than millions. The level of destruction was enormous but not as widespread and as enduring as a nuclear disaster would be.

Currently, the only things standing in the way of such a widespread disaster and potentially many more deaths are time and chance: both can run out and humanity should not count on either. It would be rational and humane to halt the construction of this nuclear power plant, to reinforce the homes that have not already been destroyed and to rebuild those that have been destroyed to a high standard. Such a rational and humane approach requires rational and humane choices on the part of those in power. Can such choices be made before midnight arrives for us all?

Baghdad: Midnight arrived in Baghdad on 19 March 2003, as the ‘air war’ against Iraq commenced. The assault upon, invasion and occupation of Iraq is widely considered to have been ‘justified’ on the basis of a ‘lie’. It was a war of aggression and ‘illegal’ under international law. This did not stop the ‘defenders of the rules based world order’ from launching it [see page 6]. The ground invasion of Iraq began shortly after the missile strikes and bombing raids. More than half-a-million US and British troops and personnel (and a very small number of forces from other countries) were engaged in the invasion.

Prior to the invasion, millions took to the streets across the world to voice their opposition. Following the invasion an enormous mobilisation continued to insist that it should stop. The anti-war and peace movements were not completely ignored but the war went ahead in any case. The lie was too big to back out of.

The result? Accounts of the levels of destruction and the numbers of deaths vary widely. We do know that tens of thousands were killed, large swathes of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities were reduced to rubble, the oil wells burned, children starved - as they did before the invasion, thanks to sanctions - and unknown numbers were subject to ‘extraordinary rendition’ and torture.

Could all of this have been stopped? Millions did their best to stop it: in parliaments, on the streets, in conference rooms and in whatever venue was open. What did the powerful do to stop it? Some countries refused point-blank to join in and used diplomatic channels and procedures in an attempt to avert the worst. What has been done since to bring those responsible to account? Why have President Bush and former Prime Minister Blair not appeared before an international court?

Midnight did not arrive in Baghdad through a sudden release of geophysical energy. It arrived because of calculated and conscious choices of people with missiles, bombs, warplanes, tanks and warships at their command. Midnight arrived with Mr Bush and Mr Blair singing a tune with the words ‘weapons of mass destruction’ and ‘international rules based order’ prominent in the lyrics. No such weapons were ever found in Iraq and every such rule was broken by the US and UK.

No wonder Mr Putin feels so justified in delivering midnight to Ukrainian villages, towns and cities.

Ukraine: Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which commenced on 24 February 2022, certainly delivered midnight to all-too-many - civilians, soldiers, Ukrainian or otherwise. Yet the hands of the clock had been steadily approaching this point for a number of years. An OSCE mission, stationed in the country from 2014 until shortly before the invasion, recorded the tally of missile strikes, explosions and instances of armed conflict emanating from ‘both sides’.

Tensions steadily grew and voices for calm, reduced tensions and genuine, consistent efforts at diplomacy enjoyed some recognition. But this was not enough.

Ukraine has now experienced a year of open war. The most recent figures from the United Nations estimate that more than 21,000 civilians have been killed (8,000) or injured (12,000) over the past 12 months but acknowledges that this figure may well be higher. An estimated 8 million Ukrainian’s have fled the country and a further 8 million have been internally displaced.

This is already a disaster and a tragedy of enormous proportions. The decision to invade and launch this war the decision of President Putin and he stands responsible for what has happened. Yet apportioning blame will not bring this tragedy to an end. Nor is it likely to halt further such tragedies in Ukraine or elsewhere. The lesson of Iraq tells us this much.

Midnight has arrived in Ukraine but events there could spark ‘universal midnight’. This is why the Atomic Scientists emphasise the contribution of events in Ukraine to the advance of the Doomsday Clock.

Pull back the hands of the clock

In his ‘state of the nation’ speech (21/02/23) President Putin announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the New START Treaty. Under this treaty, both the US and Russia committed to reducing the numbers of ‘strategic missile launchers’. Although the verification commitments of this treaty had been suspended due to the pandemic and then Russia’s war in Ukraine, New START was the ‘last treaty standing’ between those two countries. It now joins the ABM Treaty, INF Treaty and Open Skies Treaty on the ‘bonfire of treaties’.

It can only be supposed that such a development, had it taken place before the 2023 Doomsday Clock announcement, would see us even closer to midnight.

This development, along with Putin’s repeated nuclear threats and reciprocal warnings from the United States, combine to make nuclear tensions and the risk of nuclear use - by accident or design - more sharply posed than they have ever been. Humanity is hurtling towards midnight.

What the examples of the earthquake, the invasion of Iraq and Ukraine suggest is that when midnight arrives it does so not as some unfathomable ‘natural’ or otherwise ungraspable phenomena: even if it starts this way. Midnight arrives by calculation, human decision making and destructive human ‘effort’. It can arrive despite warnings, despite mass opposition, despite previous experience and despite verbal commitments to ‘rules’, ‘international law’ or ‘democracy’.

If humanity is to avoid a ‘global midnight’ then alongside addressing and reversing our collective pursuit of climate catastrophe, rising sea levels, pollution, species extinction, pandemic threats, poverty, hunger, war and the rest then we must swiftly and determinedly reduce and eliminate the threat of nuclear use.

As has been argued many times before, there will be no such things as a ‘limited nuclear war’ or a ‘one off’ detonation. All the modelling shows that one nuclear detonation will rapidly result in escalation and the death of us all.

An immediate means of reducing nuclear tensions and the risk of nuclear use will be to secure peace in Ukraine as swiftly as possible. This means ceasefire, negotiations, diplomacy and the rest. It means dispensing with the idea of securing ‘military victory’ for one side or the other. It means de-escalation rather than a further escalation of the fighting. It means making efforts to pull back the hands of the Doomsday Clock.

If, as some claim, it is “impossible to negotiate with Putin” then we may as well lose all hope. If he is so irrational as to be beyond the ability to negotiate then it should be assumed that he will inevitably use nuclear weapons. We must all hope that this is not the case and there is only one way to find out.

To do otherwise would be akin to categorising events in Ukraine as part of a ‘natural process’, one that is unavoidable and one that should be left to ‘run its course.’ Any such attitude is as reckless, criminal and inhumane as the attitude of those who build flimsy buildings and nuclear power stations on tectonic fault lines. Such an attitude can only accelerate a global journey towards midnight.