Ever since the atomic bombings of Japanese cities in August 1945, the world has been living on borrowed time.
The two small atomic bombs dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed between 110,000 and 210,000 people and wounded many others, almost all of them civilians. In subsequent years, hundreds of thousands more people around the world lost their lives thanks to the radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing, while substantial numbers also died from the mining of uranium for the building of nuclear weapons.
Despite the enormity of the nuclear danger, governments could not resist the temptation to build nuclear weapons to safeguard their national security. Consequently, they plunged into a nuclear arms race and, on occasion, threatened one another with nuclear war.
By contrast, much of the public found the prospect of nuclear war unappealing. They rallied behind organizations like the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy. And in the fall of 1958, the governments of the United States, the former Soviet Union and Britain agreed to halt nuclear weapons testing as they negotiated a test ban treaty.
In recent decades, the dwindling of the popular movement and the heightening of international conflict have led to a revival of the nuclear arms race. The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has been set at 89 seconds to midnight, the most dangerous level in its 79-year history.
The catastrophe of nuclear war can be averted. To accomplish this, however, a revival of public pressure for nuclear disarmament is essential. The movement could focus on its campaign for the signing and ratification of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. This treaty was adopted in 2017 by most of the world’s nations and went into force in 2021. Thus far, it has been signed by 94 nations and ratified by 73 of them. None of the nuclear powers has signed it. But with widespread popular pressure and enhanced international security, they could ultimately be brought on board.
Dr. Lawrence Wittner is the author of ‘Confronting the Bomb.’
