18 - An old danger grows

The nuclear arms race is revving up

Sean Arent, the Nuclear Weapons Abolition Program manager for Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility and coordinator for the regional Northwest Against Nuclear Weapons coalition, and I posted the following opinion in the Seattle Times today.

Many of you are concerned about our political divide around many important issues, but there should be no divide around the prevention of nuclear war. The risk is greater than ever. “Nuclear deterrence” success has been pure luck, given the number very near misses. What success deterrence has had has been based on human psychology, which artificial intelligence doesn’t have. Increasing use of AI at every decision-point almost assures a future nuclear catastrophe.

Our grandchildren’s futures required completing what Reagan and Gorbachev almost did - complete elimination of nuclear warheads. The world has eliminated 99% of chemical stockpiles and now nuclear must follow.

Forty years ago today, the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. I was a young physician at the time. I remember the profound sense of possibility that came with that moment: Scientists and doctors across ideological divides were working together to warn humanity about the medical consequences of nuclear war — consequences no health system, no matter how sophisticated, could ever hope to manage.

In October, I (Steve Overman) traveled to Nagasaki to attend the 2025 IPPNW World Congress. Standing only yards from where tens of thousands were incinerated in seconds, I felt the same mixture of grief and responsibility that motivated the physicians who founded IPPNW. The hibakusha — survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — are fewer each year, but I met with several who continue to plead with the world: Let this never happen again. Their message is unchanged. What has changed is the global landscape around nuclear weapons, and not for the better.

For the first time in decades, the very foundation of U.S.–Russian nuclear arms control is at risk of vanishing. The New START Treaty, which limits deployed strategic nuclear warheads and allows essential on-site inspections, expires in February. There is currently no follow-on agreement in place and no negotiations underway.

If New START collapses with nothing to replace it, both countries will be free to expand their arsenals rapidly without transparency or limits. Arms-control experts warn that we could soon see a return to the nuclear arms race we thought we left behind in the 1980s.

At the same time, recent statements about the U.S. resuming nuclear weapons testing should alarm every American. Atmospheric nuclear testing — the kind that spread radioactive fallout across the country and the Marshall Islands
— caused cancers, birth defects and contamination that we are still
documenting generations later. Underground testing carried its own deadly legacy. Scientists agree: there is no military need to resume nuclear testing, and doing so would likely trigger other nuclear-armed states to follow.

Yet instead of investing in diplomacy and verification, the United States is moving forward with the Sentinel intercontinental ballistic missile, a program whose cost has ballooned to more than $130 billion. With expanding use of AI in all aspects of detection and decision-making, the Sentinel’s first strike deterrence no longer does anything to make Americans safer — but it does funnel public dollars into an outdated defense strategy that increases the risk of accidental or rapid nuclear escalation.

This is not the future any of us were promised when the Cold War ended. Our world is suffering from increasing self-destructive activities. We must build diplomatic bridges to reduce the fear and misunderstandings.

Nuclear war creates the ultimate untreatable public health emergency — one for which there can be no treatment plan, no triage protocol, no adequate emergency response. Prevention is not only the best option; it is the only option. Washingtonians have a proud history of pushing all of our elected leaders to reduce the nuclear threat. It’s time to do so again.

U.S. Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and our House delegation must publicly call for and support negotiations on a follow-on agreement to New START. They must oppose any move to resume nuclear weapons testing, and they should press for the cancellation of the Sentinel ICBM program in favor of more cost-effective and stabilizing alternatives. These are not partisan issues. They are matters of national and global survival.

At the Nagasaki conference, I met medical students from around the world who are stepping into the work my generation began: educating governments, sounding the alarm and pushing for policies that reduce rather than heighten nuclear risks. I left encouraged by their energy — but also determined not to leave them with a problem we created.

Forty years after IPPNW’s Nobel Prize, the world once again needs clear voices willing to speak uncomfortable truths. Nuclear weapons do not keep us safe. Diplomacy, verification and restraint do.

Today, on this anniversary, I ask my fellow Washingtonians: Contact your representatives. Write letters. Show up. Make your voice heard. The path to a safer future begins with insisting that our leaders choose it.