# Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a nontechnical academic journal which covers global security and public policy issues related to the dangers posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction, climate change, and emerging technologies and diseases. It has been published continuously since 1945, when it was founded by former Manhattan Project physicists after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki as the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of Chicago. Since 1947, it's Science and Security Board has maintained the Doomsday Clock, a symbolic clock face that represents a countdown to possible global catastrophe.

## Quotes

* Amid a media crackdown in Russia, demonstrators are taking to the streets to protest the country’s war on Ukraine. Encrypted tweets and surreptitiously shot videos posted to Reddit and Telegram show Russian police out in force to silence dissent, even approaching passersby and demanding to check their phones. In Moscow, a woman was reportedly arrested on her 80th birthday. One Telegram clip captures a pensioner in Kaliningrad shouting at an officer: “I am a survivor of the Leningrad Blockade! My father died at the front [in World War II]!” The officer replies “And now you are supporting the Ukrainian fascists?” only to be drowned out by a crowd, crying “They are not fascists, they are our friends!” Anticipating that popular unrest could continue to grow as economic sanctions deepen, the Russian government is clamping down on free speech, independent media, and online opportunities for unsupervised, big-group information exchange. Media establishments inside Russia have been shut down for refusing to report only government-approved, highly deceptive versions of events in Ukraine. Western outlets such as the BBC have left the country. Anyone who passes on information that contradicts official sources now faces up to 15 years in jail; the new law prompted the Chinese-owned platform TikTok to suspend operations. Kremlin authorities have blocked access to Facebook and Twitter. Russians are scrambling to learn more about what is happening and what they can do. Should they obey their country’s laws, or defy them in acts of conscientious objection? Should families remain in their homeland or try to flee? Their decisions will be a test of the power of propaganda in a social media age, and of the ability of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime to shape values and beliefs strong enough to withstand crisis. Many theorists claim that hard times can lead to citizen protest, and sometimes even to political change. But the Kremlin is banking on its ability to control the message and, instead, fuel a sense of outraged unity.
** Cynthia Hooper, in "Russia’s information war: painful truths vs. comfortable lies" in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (9 March 2022)
* Russians might not believe official media, but might also choose — perhaps subconsciously — not to acknowledge the extent to which they allow themselves to be deceived. (It bears mentioning that social media analysts of the 2016 US presidential election noted a similar phenomenon: Citizens can, and often do, choose to believe comfortable falsehoods, instead of admitting to truths that disrupt their desired way of seeing the world.) Looking at Russian television news after the takeover of Crimea in 2014, journalist Maria Lipman concluded that the more extreme and far-fetched the claims of various programs became, the more their audiences grew. “Russian viewers tuned into shows,” she and two colleagues argued in a 2018 essay, “in search of not truth, but emotional gratification.” Viewers wanted to believe wildly distorted media stories that affirmed “national pride and a sense of vindication.”
** Cynthia Hooper, in "Russia’s information war: painful truths vs. comfortable lies" by Cynthia Hooper, in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (9 March 2022)
* A long study published in October 2021 argued that the Russian government, through an unprecedented and extraordinary biological weapons disinformation campaign aimed primarily at the United States and secondarily at the government of Georgia, displayed an open disdain and disregard for the Biological Weapon Convention, an international treaty with 183 member states. In March 2022, the lies regarding biological laboratories in Ukraine are deliberate and knowing. The Russian government knows with absolute certainty that none of the charges leveled at any of the facilities in Ukraine, or at the United States, are true — in the same way it knew with absolute certainty that the similar charges that it leveled for many years at Georgia’s Lugar Laboratory were not true. False allegations undermine the authority and legitimacy of international treaties such as the Biological Weapons Convention, whose purpose is to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, in this case, biological weapons. Similarly, the Russian government has shown its equal disdain and disregard for the Chemical Weapons Convention, an international treaty with 193 member states.
** Milton Leitenberg, in "Russian nuclear and biological disinformation undermines treaties on weapons of mass destruction" (10 March 2022)

### Quotes of the Science and Security Board
#### It is 30 Seconds Closer to Midnight (2017)

    Announcement of the closest move of the Doomsday Clock towards midnight, since 1953, in "It is 30 seconds closer to midnight" (25 January 2017) by Lynn Eden, Rod Ewing, Sivan Kartha, Herbert Lin, Suzet McKinney, Steven Miller, Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, Ramamurti Rajaraman, Robert Rosner, Jennifer Sims, Susan Solomon, Richard C. J. Somerville, Sharon Squassoni, and David Titley
* Over the course of 2016, the global security landscape darkened as the international community failed to come effectively to grips with humanity's most pressing existential threats, nuclear weapons and climate change. The United States and Russia — which together possess more than 90 percent of the world's nuclear weapons — remained at odds in a variety of theaters, from Syria to Ukraine to the borders of NATO; both countries continued wide-ranging modernizations of their nuclear forces, and serious arms control negotiations were nowhere to be seen. North Korea conducted its fourth and fifth underground nuclear tests and gave every indication it would continue to develop nuclear weapons delivery capabilities. Threats of nuclear warfare hung in the background as Pakistan and India faced each other warily across the Line of Control in Kashmir after militants attacked two Indian army bases. The climate change outlook was somewhat less dismal — but only somewhat.
* The board's decision to move the clock less than a full minute — something it has never before done — reflects a simple reality: As this statement is issued, Donald Trump has been the US president only a matter of days. Many of his cabinet nominations are not yet confirmed by the Senate or installed in government, and he has had little time to take official action. Just the same, words matter, and President Trump has had plenty to say over the last year. Both his statements and his actions as president-elect have broken with historical precedent in unsettling ways. He has made ill-considered comments about expanding the US nuclear arsenal. He has shown a troubling propensity to discount or outright reject expert advice related to international security, including the conclusions of intelligence experts. And his nominees to head the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have disputed the basics of climate science. In short, even though he has just now taken office, the president’s intemperate statements, lack of openness to expert advice, and questionable cabinet nominations have already made a bad international security situation worse.
* Climate change should not be a partisan political issue. The well-established physics of Earth’s carbon cycle is neither liberal nor conservative in character. The planet will continue to warm to dangerous levels so long as carbon dioxide continues to be pumped into the atmosphere — regardless of who is chosen to lead the United States or any other country. International leaders need to refocus their attention on achieving the additional carbon emission reductions that are needed to capitalize on the promise of the Paris Accord.
* In December, US intelligence agencies concluded that Russia had intervened in the 2016 US presidential campaign to help Donald Trump in ways that highlight the vulnerability of critical information systems in cyberspace. Information monocultures, fake news, and the hacking and release of politically sensitive emails may have had an illegitimate impact on the US presidential election, threatening the fabric of democracy, which relies on an informed electorate to decide the direction of public policy — including policy relating to existential threats such as nuclear weapons and climate change. If not controlled, these types of electoral attacks could be launched against democracies around the world, undermining belief in representative government and thereby endangering humanity as a whole.
* Wise men and women have said that public policy is never made in the absence of politics. But in this unusual political year, we offer a corollary: Good policy takes account of politics but is never made in the absence of expertise. Facts are indeed stubborn things, and they must be taken into account if the future of humanity is to be preserved, long term.
* For the last two years, the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock stayed set at three minutes before the hour, the closest it had been to midnight since the early 1980s. In its two most recent annual announcements on the Clock, the Science and Security Board warned: "The probability of global catastrophe is very high, and the actions needed to reduce the risks of disaster must be taken very soon." In 2017, we find the danger to be even greater, the need for action more urgent. It is two and a half minutes to midnight, the Clock is ticking, global danger looms. Wise public officials should act immediately, guiding humanity away from the brink. If they do not, wise citizens must step forward and lead the way.

#### It is now two minutes to midnight (2018)

    2018 Doomsday Clock Statement of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, edited by John Mecklin (25 January 2018) · PDF
* In 2017, world leaders failed to respond effectively to the looming threats of nuclear war and climate change, making the world security situation more dangerous than it was a year ago — and as dangerous as it has been since World War II. The greatest risks last year arose in the nuclear realm. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program made remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks to North Korea itself, other countries in the region, and the United States. Hyperbolic rhetoric and provocative actions by both sides have increased the possibility of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation. … To call the world nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger — and its immediacy.
* On the climate change front, the danger may seem less immediate, but avoiding catastrophic temperature increases in the long run requires urgent attention now. Global carbon dioxide emissions have not yet shown the beginnings of the sustained decline towards zero that must occur if ever-greater warming is to be avoided.
* Beyond the nuclear and climate domains, technological change is disrupting democracies around the world as states seek and exploit opportunities to use information technologies as weapons, among them internet-based deception campaigns aimed at undermining elections and popular confidence in institutions essential to free thought and global security.
* In 2017, the United States backed away from its long-standing leadership role in the world, reducing its commitment to seek common ground and undermining the overall effort toward solving pressing global governance challenges. Neither allies nor adversaries have been able to reliably predict US actions — or understand when US pronouncements are real, and when they are mere rhetoric. International diplomacy has been reduced to name-calling, giving it a surreal sense of unreality that makes the world security situation ever more threatening.
* Because of the extraordinary danger of the current moment, the Science and Security Board today moves the minute hand of the Doomsday Clock 30 seconds closer to catastrophe. It is now two minutes to midnight — the closest the Clock has ever been to Doomsday, and as close as it was in 1953, at the height of the Cold War. The Science and Security Board hopes this resetting of the Clock will be interpreted exactly as it is meant—as an urgent warning of global danger. The time for world leaders to address looming nuclear danger and the continuing march of climate change is long past. The time for the citizens of the world to demand such action is now:
          #rewindtheDoomsdayClock.

##### The untenable nuclear threat.

* The risk that nuclear weapons may be used — intentionally or because of miscalculation — grew last year around the globe. North Korea has long defied UN Security Council resolutions to cease its nuclear and ballistic missile tests, but the acceleration of its tests in 2017 reflects new resolve to acquire sophisticated nuclear weapons. North Korea has or soon will have capabilities to match its verbal threats — specifically, a thermonuclear warhead and a ballistic missile that can carry it to the US mainland.
* Nuclear risks have been compounded by US-Russia relations that now feature more conflict than cooperation. Coordination on nuclear risk reduction is all but dead, and no solution to disputes over the INF Treaty — a landmark agreement to rid Europe of medium-range nuclear missiles — is readily apparent. Both sides allege violations, but Russia’s deployment of a new ground-launched cruise missile, if not addressed, could trigger a collapse of the treaty. Such a collapse would make what should have been a relatively easy five-year extension of the New START arms control pact much harder to achieve and could terminate an arms control process that dates back to the early 1970s. For the first time in many years, in fact, no US-Russian nuclear arms control negotiations are under way.

##### An insufficient response to climate change.

* Last year, the US government pursued unwise and ineffectual policies on climate change, following through on a promise to derail past US climate policies. The Trump administration, which includes avowed climate denialists in top positions at the Environmental Protection Agency, the Interior Department, and other key agencies, has announced its plan to withdraw from the Paris Agreement. In its rush to dismantle rational climate and energy policy, the administration has ignored scientific fact and well-founded economic analyses. These US government climate decisions transpired against a backdrop of worsening climate change and high-impact weather-related disasters. This year past, the Caribbean region and other parts of North America suffered a season of historic damage from exceedingly powerful hurricanes. Extreme heat waves occurred in Australia, South America, Asia, Europe, and California, with mounting evidence that heat-related illness and death are correspondingly increasing. The Arctic ice cap achieved its smallest-ever winter maximum in 2017, the third year in a row that this record has been broken. The United States has witnessed devastating wildfires, likely exacerbated by extreme drought and subsequent heavy rains that spurred underbrush growth. When the data are assessed, 2017 is almost certain to continue the trend of exceptional global warmth: All the warmest years in the instrumental record, which extends back to the 1800s, have — excepting one year in the late 1990s — occurred in the 21st century.
* Despite the sophisticated disinformation campaign run by climate denialists, the unfolding consequences of an altered climate are a harrowing testament to an undeniable reality: The science linking climate change to human activity — mainly the burning of fossil fuels that produce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases — is sound. The world continues to warm as costly impacts mount, and there is evidence that overall rates of sea level rise are accelerating—regardless of protestations to the contrary. Especially against these trends, it is heartening that the US government’s defection from the Paris Agreement did not prompt its unravelling or diminish its support within the United States at large. The “We Are Still In” movement signals a strong commitment within the United States — by some 1,700 businesses, 250 cities, 200 communities of faith, and nine states, representing more than 40 percent of the US population — to its international climate commitments and to the validity of scientific facts. This reaffirmation is reassuring, and other countries have maintained their steadfast support for climate action, reconfirmed their commitments to global climate cooperation, and clearly acknowledged that more needs to be done.
* French President Emmanuel Macron’s sober message to global leaders assembled at December’s global climate summit in Paris was a reality check after the heady climate negotiations his country hosted two years earlier: “We’re losing the battle. We’re not moving quickly enough. We all need to act.” And indeed, after plateauing for a few years, greenhouse gas emissions resumed their stubborn rise in 2017. As we have noted before, the true measure of the Paris Agreement is whether nations actually fulfill their pledges to cut emissions, strengthen those pledges, and see to it that global greenhouse gas emissions start declining in short order and head toward zero. As we drift yet farther from this goal, the urgency of shifting course becomes greater, and the existential threat posed by climate change looms larger.

##### Emerging technologies and global risk.

* The Science and Security Board is deeply concerned about the loss of public trust in political institutions, in the media, in science, and in facts themselves — a loss that the abuse of information technology has fostered. Attempts to intervene in elections through sophisticated hacking operations and the spread of disinformation have threatened democracy, which relies on an informed electorate to reach reasonable decisions on public policy — including policy relating to nuclear weapons, climate change, and other global threats. Meanwhile, corporate leaders in the information domain, including established media outlets and internet companies such as Facebook and Google, have been slow to adopt protocols to prevent misuse of their services and protect citizens from manipulation. The international community should establish new measures that discourage and penalize all cross-border subversions of democracy.
* Last year, the Science and Security Board warned that “Technological innovation is occurring at a speed that challenges society’s ability to keep pace. While limited at the current time, potentially existential threats posed by a host of emerging technologies need to be monitored, and to the extent possible anticipated, as the 21st century unfolds.” If anything, the velocity of technological change has only increased in the past year, and so our warning holds for 2018. But beyond monitoring advances in emerging technology, the board believes that world leaders also need to seek better collective methods of managing those advances, so the positive aspects of new technologies are encouraged and malign uses discovered and countered. The sophisticated hacking of the “Internet of Things,” including computer systems that control major financial and power infrastructure and have access to more than 20 billion personal devices; the development of autonomous weaponry that makes “kill” decisions without human supervision; and the possible misuse of advances in synthetic biology, including the revolutionary Crispr gene-editing tool, already pose potential global security risks. Those risks could expand without strong public institutions and new management regimes. The increasing pace of technological change requires faster development of those tools.

##### How to turn back the Clock.

* In 1953, former Manhattan Project scientist and Bulletin editor Eugene Rabinowitch set the hands of the Doomsday Clock at two minutes to midnight, writing, “The achievement of a thermonuclear explosion by the Soviet Union, following on the heels of the development of ‘thermonuclear devices’ in America, means that the time, dreaded by scientists since 1945, when each major nation will hold the power of destroying, at will, the urban civilization of any other nation, is close at hand.” The Science and Security Board now again moves the hands of the Clock to two minutes before midnight. But the current, extremely dangerous state of world affairs need not be permanent. The means for managing dangerous technology and reducing global-scale risk exist; indeed, many of them are well-known and within society’s reach, if leaders pay reasonable attention to preserving the long-term prospects of humanity, and if citizens demand that they do so. This is a dangerous time, but the danger is of our own making. Humankind has invented the implements of apocalypse; so can it invent the methods of controlling and eventually eliminating them.
* The US and North Korean governments should open multiple channels of communication. At a minimum, military-to-military communications can help reduce the likelihood of inadvertent war on the Korean Peninsula. Keeping diplomatic channels open for talks without preconditions is another common-sense way to reduce tensions. As leading security expert Siegfried Hecker of Stanford University recently wrote: “Such talks should not be seen as a reward or concession to Pyongyang, nor construed as signaling acceptance of a nuclear-armed North Korea. They could, however, deliver the message that while Washington fully intends to defend itself and its allies from any attack with a devastating retaliatory response, it does not otherwise intend to attack North Korea or pursue regime change."
* The world community should pursue, as a short-term goal, the cessation of North Korea’s nuclear weapon and ballistic missile tests. North Korea is the only country to violate the norm against nuclear testing in 20 years. Over time, the United States should seek North Korea’s signature on the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty—and then, along with China, at long last also ratify the treaty.
* The Trump administration should abide by the terms of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action for Iran’s nuclear program unless credible evidence emerges that Iran is not complying with the agreement or Iran agrees to an alternative approach that meets US national security needs.
* The United States and Russia should discuss and adopt measures to prevent peacetime military incidents along the borders of NATO. Provocative military exercises and maneuvers hold the potential for crisis escalation. Both militaries must exercise restraint and professionalism, adhering to all norms developed to avoid conflict and accidental encounters.
* US and Russian leaders should return to the negotiating table to resolve differences over the INF treaty; to seek further reductions in nuclear arms; to discuss a lowering of the alert status of the nuclear arsenals of both countries; to limit nuclear modernization programs that threaten to create a new nuclear arms race; and to ensure that new tactical or low-yield nuclear weapons are not built and that existing tactical weapons are never used on the battlefield.
* US citizens should demand, in all legal ways, climate action from their government. Climate change is a real and serious threat to humanity. Citizens should insist that their governments acknowledge it and act accordingly.
* Governments around the world should redouble their efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions so they go well beyond the initial, inadequate pledges under the Paris Agreement. The temperature goal under that agreement — to keep warming well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels — is consistent with consensus views on climate science, is eminently achievable, and is economically viable, provided that poorer countries are given the support they need to make the post-carbon transition. But the time window for achieving this goal is rapidly closing.
* The international community should establish new protocols to discourage and penalize the misuse of information technology to undermine public trust in political institutions, in the media, in science, and in the existence of objective reality itself. Strong and accountable institutions are necessary to prevent deception campaigns that are a real threat to effective democracies, reducing their ability to enact policies to address nuclear weapons, climate change, and other global dangers.
* The countries of the world should collaborate on creating institutions specifically assigned to explore and address potentially malign or catastrophic misuses of new technologies, particularly as regards autonomous weaponry that makes “kill” decisions without human supervision and advances in synthetic biology that could, if misused, pose a global threat.
* The failure of world leaders to address the largest threats to humanity’s future is lamentable — but that failure can be reversed. It is two minutes to midnight, but the Doomsday Clock has ticked away from midnight in the past, and during the next year, the world can again move it further from apocalypse. The warning the Science and Security Board now sends is clear, the danger obvious and imminent. The opportunity to reduce the danger is equally clear. The world has seen the threat posed by the misuse of information technology and witnessed the vulnerability of democracies to disinformation. But there is a flip side to the abuse of social media. Leaders react when citizens insist they do so, and citizens around the world can use the power of the internet to improve the long-term prospects of their children and grandchildren. They can insist on facts, and discount nonsense. They can demand action to reduce the existential threat of nuclear war and unchecked climate change. They can seize the opportunity to make a safer and saner world. They can #rewindtheDoomsdayClock.

#### A time of unprecedented danger: It is 90 seconds to midnight (2023)

    A time of unprecedented danger: It is 90 seconds to midnight (24 January 2023)1
* 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. Also, Russia’s war on Ukraine has raised profound questions about how states interact, eroding norms of international conduct that underpin successful responses to a variety of global risks. And worst of all, Russia’s thinly veiled threats to use nuclear weapons remind the world that escalation of the conflict—by accident, intention, or miscalculation—is a terrible risk. The possibility that the conflict could spin out of anyone’s control remains high.
* Russia’s recent actions contravene decades of commitments by Moscow. In 1994, Russia joined the United States and United Kingdom in Budapest, Hungary, to solemnly declare that it would "respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine" and "refrain from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of Ukraine..." These assurances were made explicitly on the understanding that Ukraine would relinquish nuclear weapons on its soil and sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—both of which Ukraine did. Russia has also brought its war to the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor sites, violating international protocols and risking widespread release of radioactive materials. Efforts by the International Atomic Energy Agency to secure these plants so far have been rebuffed.
* As Russia’s war on Ukraine continues, the last remaining nuclear weapons treaty between Russia and the United States, New START, stands in jeopardy. Unless the two parties resume negotiations and find a basis for further reductions, the treaty will expire in February 2026. This would eliminate mutual inspections, deepen mistrust, spur a nuclear arms race, and heighten the possibility of a nuclear exchange. As UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres warned in August, the world has entered “a time of nuclear danger not seen since the height of the Cold War.”
* Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased the risk of nuclear weapons use, raised the specter of biological and chemical weapons use, hamstrung the world’s response to climate change, and hampered international efforts to deal with other global concerns. The invasion and annexation of Ukrainian territory have also violated international norms in ways that may embolden others to take actions that challenge previous understandings and threaten stability.

#### Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight (2025)

    Closer than ever: It is now 89 seconds to midnight (28 January 2025)
* In 2024, humanity edged ever closer to catastrophe. Trends that have deeply concerned the Science and Security Board continued, and despite unmistakable signs of danger, national leaders and their societies have failed to do what is needed to change course. Consequently, we now move the Doomsday Clock from 90 seconds to 89 seconds to midnight — the closest it has ever been to catastrophe. Our fervent hope is that leaders will recognize the world’s existential predicament and take bold action to reduce the threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, and the potential misuse of biological science and a variety of emerging technologies.
* In setting the Clock one second closer to midnight, we send a stark signal: Because the world is already perilously close to the precipice, a move of even a single second should be taken as an indication of extreme danger and an unmistakable warning that every second of delay in reversing course increases the probability of global disaster.
* In regard to nuclear risk, the war in Ukraine, now in its third year, looms over the world; the conflict could become nuclear at any moment because of a rash decision or through accident or miscalculation. Conflict in the Middle East threatens to spiral out of control into a wider war without warning. The countries that possess nuclear weapons are increasing the size and role of their arsenals, investing hundreds of billions of dollars in weapons that can destroy civilization. The nuclear arms control process is collapsing, and high-level contacts among nuclear powers are totally inadequate given the danger at hand. Alarmingly, it is no longer unusual for countries without nuclear weapons to consider developing arsenals of their own — actions that would undermine longstanding nonproliferation efforts and increase the ways in which nuclear war could start.
* The impacts of climate change increased in the last year as myriad indicators, including sea-level rise and global surface temperature, surpassed previous records. The global greenhouse gas emissions that drive climate change continued to rise. Extreme weather and other climate change-influenced events — floods, tropical cyclones, heat waves, drought, and wildfires — affected every continent.
* In the biological arena, emerging and re-emerging diseases continue to threaten the economy, society, and security of the world. The off-season appearance and in-season continuance of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI), its spread to farm animals and dairy products, and the occurrence of human cases have combined to create the possibility of a devastating human pandemic. Supposedly high-containment biological laboratories continue to be built throughout the world, but oversight regimes for them are not keeping pace, increasing the possibility that pathogens with pandemic potential may escape. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence have increased the risk that terrorists or countries may attain the capability of designing biological weapons for which countermeasures do not exist.
* An array of other disruptive technologies advanced last year in ways that make the world more dangerous. Systems that incorporate artificial intelligence in military targeting have been used in Ukraine and the Middle East, and several countries are moving to integrate artificial intelligence into their militaries. Such efforts raise questions about the extent to which machines will be allowed to make military decisions — even decisions that could kill on a vast scale, including those related to the use of nuclear weapons.
* The dangers we have just listed are greatly exacerbated by a potent threat multiplier: the spread of misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories that degrade the communication ecosystem and increasingly blur the line between truth and falsehood. Advances in AI are making it easier to spread false or inauthentic information across the internet — and harder to detect it. At the same time, nations are engaging in cross-border efforts to use disinformation and other forms of propaganda to subvert elections, while some technology, media, and political leaders aid the spread of lies and conspiracy theories. This corruption of the information ecosystem undermines the public discourse and honest debate upon which democracy depends. The battered information landscape is also producing leaders who discount science and endeavor to suppress free speech and human rights, compromising the fact-based public discussions that are required to combat the enormous threats facing the world. Blindly continuing on the current path is a form of madness.
* The United States, China, and Russia have the collective power to destroy civilization. These three countries have the prime responsibility to pull the world back from the brink, and they can do so if their leaders seriously commence good-faith discussions about the global threats outlined here. Despite their profound disagreements, they should take that first step without delay. The world depends on immediate action. It is 89 seconds to midnight.

## Quotes about Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

* In January 2018, the experts at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock to two minutes before midnight, where it had stood during the darkest days of the Cold War, from 1953 to 1960. The latest move of the hands was precipitated by the recklessness in Trump’s nuclear thinking and the deepening crisis over Korea. Trump wondered aloud about the point of having nuclear weapons if he couldn’t use them. His answer was to make them more usable, which he did with his new Nuclear Posture Review (NPR), the first since Obama’s 2010 NPR, which had reduced the role of nuclear weapons in the US defense posture. The 2018 NPR significantly elevated their role, permitting use in response to vaguely defined “extreme circumstances,” such as cyberattacks or attacks on the infrastructure of both the United States and its “allies and partners.” The review doubled down on Obama’s unconscionable 30-year trillion-dollar modernization of all parts of the nuclear arsenal. The actual cost looks to be closer to $1.7 trillion and climbing. To make matters worse, all eight other nuclear powers are undertaking their own modernizations, though on a far more modest scale. Russia, it should be noted, actually cut its defense spending this past year. Acting like a hegemon, the United States, starting in 1999, took advantage of Russian weakness and broke its promise not to expand NATO, eventually adding 13 countries, the last of which was Montenegro, in 2017. But now, in March 2018, Putin was declaring that the US effort had failed. He unveiled the existence of five new nuclear weapons, all of which could circumvent US missile-defense systems.
** 2 Minutes and Counting, Crises that seemed contained not long ago have now spiraled out of control—and the prospects for resolving them peacefully look depressingly bleak, the Nation, Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, (3 April 2019)
* The year just past proved perilous and chaotic, a year in which many of the risks foreshadowed in our last Clock statement came into full relief. In 2017, we saw reckless language in the nuclear realm heat up already dangerous situations and re-learned that minimizing evidence-based assessments regarding climate and other global challenges does not lead to better public policies. Although the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists focuses on nuclear risk, climate change, and emerging technologies, the nuclear landscape takes center stage in this year’s Clock statement. Major nuclear actors are on the cusp of a new arms race, one that will be very expensive and will increase the likelihood of accidents and misperceptions. Across the globe, nuclear weapons are poised to become more rather than less usable because of nations’ investments in their nuclear arsenals. This is a concern that the Bulletin has been highlighting for some time, but momentum toward this new reality is increasing. … It is urgent that, collectively, we put in the work necessary to produce a 2019 Clock statement that rewinds the Doomsday Clock. Get engaged, get involved, and help create that future. The time is now.
** Rachel Bronson, in her preface to the 2018 Bulletin: "Statement from the President and CEO" (25 January 2018)
* Days after Donald Trump took the oath of office, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock to 2½ minutes to midnight, in part because of destabilizing comments and threats from America’s new commander in chief. One year later, we are moving the clock forward again by 30 seconds, due to the failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change. The Science and Security Board for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists assesses that the world is not only more dangerous now than it was a year ago; it is as threatening as it has been since World War II. In fact, the Doomsday Clock is as close to midnight today as it was in 1953, when Cold War fears perhaps reached their highest levels.
** Lawrence Krauss and Robert Rosner, in "We’re as close to Doomsday today as we were during the Cold War", The Washington Post (25 January 2018)
* The Bulletin's clock is not a gauge to register the ups and downs of the international power struggle; it is intended to reflect basic changes in the level of continuous danger in which mankind lives in the nuclear age...
** Eugene Rabinowitch, co-founder of the Bulletin, as quoted in "The Doomsday Clock", in The Southeast Missourian (22 February 1984)

## External links

* Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
** Timeline of the Doomsday Clock
** Doomsday Dashboard