The war in Ukraine and escalating tensions between the PRC and Taiwan are just two examples of the resurgent danger of nuclear war. A revived movement for true international governance is needed to ensure that the unthinkable becomes impossible.
Historians who have conducted research in classified materials understand how seriously governments take secrecy and how secrecy can conceal malfeasance or anti-democratic action.
Nuclear deterrence depends on factors like the rationality of leaders, the integrity of command protocols, and accuracy of information that are far from guaranteed to work in a crisis.
In classical myth, Cassandra was a lone prophet whose accurate predictions were ignored. Today, a growing share of humanity are playing the Cassandra role against a political and economic elite standing in the way of solutions to the threats of climate change, pandemic disease and nuclear annihilation.
Politicians and defense contractors who wanted American nuclear supremacy won out over scientists seeking international effort to contain the extinction-level threat posed by thermonuclear weapons, even to the point of denying the planet-destroying power of the H-bomb.
The march featured the testimony of antinuclear activists and rekindled a demand for New York's city council to divest the city budget from contractors who make nuclear weapons, but too much of the public seems willing to ignore the nuclear threat.
Nuclear-armed nations face a choice: to push ahead with a wasteful course that raises the risk of nuclear war, or to lead toward a world without nuclear weapons.
Today's global problems require leadership from a "peace presidency" that prioritizes global public health, international cooperation, and human rights over militarism and arms.
People who want to end the nightmare of nuclear destruction that has haunted the world since 1945 should consider widening the popular appeal of nuclear weapons abolition by strengthening the UN’s ability to provide international security.
The collapse of the Soviet Union has paradoxically created a climate where the perceived danger of nuclear weapons has waned, taking energy from a growing movement toward arms control and disarmament.
Miyoko Matsubara survived the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and became an advocate for abolishing nuclear weapons. The United States Senate can honor her and all victims and survivors of nuclear war by ratifying the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
Setsuko Thurlow, a survivor of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima 75 years ago this month, has used the power of her personal story to try to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
