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nuclear weapons
Beyond Climate Chaos and Militarized Security at COP31
COP31 must be more than another conference of promises. It should mark a political turning point where climate action, peace building, and disarmament, including nuclear disarmament, are recognized as mutually reinforcing priorities.
Nov 04, 2026
The climate crisis will not wait for geopolitics to improve. As leaders gather in Antalya, Türkiye from 9-20 November 2026 for the 31st Conference of Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, or COP31, the world enters a moment where extreme weather, energy insecurity, armed conflict, and rising militarization reinforce one another. Half measures are no longer enough. Governments must arrive with the courage to act and leave Türkiye with commitments equal to the crises already unfolding: record heat, devastating floods, mass displacement, and fragile energy systems.
COP31’s agenda is demanding: accelerating the just energy transition; closing the adaptation finance gap; strengthening early-warning systems; and improving transparency in emissions reporting, including sectors long exempted from scrutiny. A strong El Niño is developing against exceptionally warm oceans, increasing the likelihood of extreme heat, drought, floods, and disruptive rainfall. These risks translate into deaths, displacement, damaged infrastructure, food insecurity, and pressure on communities already affected by conflict and poverty. Climate inaction is increasingly a failure to protect human security.
Climate Risks as Human Risks
Human security is climate security. Climate impacts are not statistics; they are lived realities for families, elders, persons with disabilities, and communities already carrying the weight of conflict and poverty.
The climate crisis demands a redefinition of security: one that prioritizes human survival over military prestige.
Over decades of work in health, disability, humanitarian action, and human security, I have learned that crises rarely arrive one at a time. For people already living with illness, disability, displacement, poverty, or insecurity, one disruption can quickly become another: Electricity fails, essential services are interrupted, mobility becomes harder, and the margin between vulnerability and catastrophe narrows.
For peace and disarmament campaigners, the message is clear: The world cannot confront climate chaos while expanding military systems, fossil fuel dependence, and nuclear arsenals that deepen insecurity. Global military expenditure reached about $2.9 trillion in 2025, the highest level ever recorded. At the same time, developing countries face a severe shortfall in the finance required to adapt to climate change. The question is not whether governments have resources, but what they choose to define as security.
Military activities depend heavily on fossil fuels and generate substantial greenhouse gas emissions through aircraft, ships, vehicles, bases, procurement, and supply chains. One major assessment estimated that the global military carbon footprint could account for about 5.5% of global emissions, while noting serious gaps in reporting. National security exemptions must not become a blind spot in climate accountability.
Nuclear weapons add an even more severe dimension. Their production, testing, deployment, and potential use carry catastrophic environmental consequences. The use of even a fraction of the world’s nuclear weapons would trigger a nuclear winter scenario: global cooling, crop failure, and mass starvation. Such an event would undo decades of climate progress and plunge humanity into a combined climate-nuclear catastrophe.
Energy insecurity provides another warning. Disruption around the Strait of Hormuz has shown how dependence on concentrated fossil fuel supply routes exposes economies to geopolitical shocks and price volatility. True energy security must mean reducing dependence on vulnerable fossil fuel systems through renewable energy, efficiency, storage, and electrification.
There are encouraging signs. The Santa Marta process has brought governments together around cooperation for a fair transition away from coal, oil, and gas. The Electrify Now coalition seeks to accelerate electrification and expand renewable-powered energy systems. These initiatives show that cooperation remains possible even in a fractured geopolitical environment.
But solidarity must extend further. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) estimates that developing countries may need more than $300 billion annually for adaptation by 2035, several times current international public adaptation finance. Those who contributed least to historical emissions are often among those facing the greatest consequences. Delivering climate finance is not charity. It is responsibility and justice.
COP31 also exposes a political reality: Some governments continue to resist global consensus on climate ambition, transparency, and equitable finance. Their withdrawal from collective commitments weakens global action and directly harms communities whose security depends on adaptation, resilience, and stable public services. When governments step back from responsibility, the burden falls on the most vulnerable. This is not a policy gap; it is a human cost.
The Military Footprint in a Warming World
For the disarmament community, COP31 offers a critical opportunity to challenge the assumption that militarization, and especially nuclear deterrence, is the natural answer to climate insecurity. Border fortification, arms races, and competition over resources deepen vulnerability rather than resolve it. Climate stress can aggravate existing tensions, but it does not inevitably cause war. The appropriate response is cooperation, equitable adaptation, resilient public services, and peaceful management of shared resources.
Nuclear weapons offer no protection against climate extremes. They cannot stop heatwaves, floods, or droughts. They cannot rebuild destroyed infrastructure or feed displaced families. Yet they absorb enormous financial, scientific, and political resources that could instead strengthen climate resilience. Every dollar spent on modernizing nuclear arsenals is a dollar not spent on clean energy, adaptation, or public health. The climate crisis demands a redefinition of security: one that prioritizes human survival over military prestige.
Climate and disarmament campaigners should therefore ask governments to make the connections visible. Military emissions should be measured and reported transparently. Climate finance should not be crowded out by escalating military and nuclear expenditure. Investments should shift toward clean energy, public health, resilient infrastructure, adaptation, and human security. Security policy must protect people, not merely territory.
Throughout decades of humanitarian and public service, one truth has remained constant: Our common future can only be secured through collective action. As extreme weather intensifies and energy systems remain vulnerable to geopolitical shocks, the world will be watching Antalya.
My years in humanitarian and public service have shown that real security begins with protecting people, not power. That is the responsibility we owe to future generations.
A Turning Point for COP31
COP31 must be more than another conference of promises. It should mark a political turning point where climate action, peace building, and disarmament, including nuclear disarmament, are recognized as mutually reinforcing priorities.
The time for treating these crises separately has passed. The world is already beyond the breaking point. The task now is to build a safer way forward: for the climate, for peace, and for the generations who will inherit the consequences of today’s choices.
Call for Action at COP31
COP31 must deliver concrete steps that reflect the urgency of the climate and human security crisis. Governments should commit to:
- Transparent reporting of military emissions within global MRV systems;
- Redirecting part of military and nuclear budgets toward climate adaptation and clean energy;
- Launching an international pathway to reduce the military carbon footprint;
- Closing the adaptation finance gap in line with UNEP estimates; and
- Embedding human security in climate policy.
Climate security is human security. COP31 must be a turning point toward cooperation, responsibility, and shared survival.
The measure of COP31 should therefore not be what governments say about security, but whether their decisions leave people safer, healthier, and better able to survive the crises ahead.
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To Avoid 'Unconscionable Horror,' Trump Called to 'Unequivocally Rule Out' Nuclear Attack on Iran
"Congress must urgently intervene to prevent further escalation and bring an end to this devastating war before an already horrific conflict becomes an irreversible catastrophe."
Nov 02, 2026
US President Donald Trump, who has long sought the Nobel Peace Prize while bombing various countries, is under pressure to rule out launching a nuclear attack on Iran after former Fox News host Tucker Carlson reported Sunday night that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is pushing for one.
"The target would be Pickaxe Mountain in central Iran, where Israeli intelligence claims the Iranian government has restarted its nuclear enrichment program," Carlson wrote on social media. "No conventional weapon in the American arsenal can penetrate 300 feet of solid granite to destroy the tunnels where enrichment is supposedly taking place. The only military option is a nuclear strike."
The US midterm election is on Tuesday, and according to Carlson, "close observers say Trump is likely to decide by next weekend whether or not to use nuclear weapons. That would be November 7... To his credit, he's hesitating. At the moment, Trump is listening to his vice president, JD Vance, and to his envoy and friend Steve Witkoff, both of whom argue a deal with Iran can be made."
However, Netanyahu "is cornered and desperate," Carlson noted. "After last week's election results, he can't form a government unless Trump intervenes directly in Israeli politics and brokers a deal with other parties that gives Netanyahu 61 seats in the Knesset. Otherwise, he is out as prime minister and on his way to ignominy, investigations, and possibly jail. Netanyahu must stay close to Trump. He needs this war."
Responding to Carlson's post, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) said that "whether these allegations reflect serious military planning or reckless posturing, the very possibility of a US nuclear attack on Iran is an unconscionable horror. After eight months of devastating war, Iranian Americans are once again being forced to wait in terror as the Trump administration reportedly weighs another catastrophic escalation at the urging of Benjamin Netanyahu."
"NIAC demands that President Trump immediately and unequivocally rule out any use of nuclear weapons against Iran," the group asserted. "Congress must urgently intervene to prevent further escalation and bring an end to this devastating war before an already horrific conflict becomes an irreversible catastrophe."
The group's policy director, Ryan Costello, stressed that such an attack "would be an unimaginable catastrophe in its own right, and the radioactive plume of a blast could extend hundreds of miles and reach major population centers, depending on yield and wind direction. Isfahan province alone, where Pickaxe is, is home to more than 5 million Iranians."
"The Trump administration would also have to consider the ramifications of breaking the nuclear taboo in a war of aggression," he continued, suggesting that the US and Israel using such weapons could spur similar action by the other nuclear-armed nations: China, France, India, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and the United Kingdom.
Would Russian President Vladimir "abstain from using nuclear weapons in Ukraine if Trump had dropped a nuclear weapon in Iran?" Costello wondered. "It would be a new, far more dangerous world."
While people across the ideological spectrum expressed alarm, some dismissed Carlson's lengthy post.
However, Drop Site News co-founder Ryan Grim highlighted that "Tucker is extremely well sourced in the Trump administration and shouldn't be ignored if this is what he's being told," and fellow journalist Pablo Manríquez agreed.
Pushing back against one skeptic, Andrew Day, senior editor at The American Conservative, pointed out that recently "Trump threatened to 'annihilate' Iranian civilization and unleash 'military terror' not seen since World War II. Those statements are plausibly implicit nuclear threats. Now Trump is finding that conventional weapons don't force Iran's capitulation. Concern is warranted."
Iran's government was already preparing its people for a possible US nuclear attack, and last Friday, more than 200 global civil society groups implored Congress to stop Trump from using such weapons in a bid to end the illegal war that he and Netanyahu launched at the end of February.
"In recent weeks, President Trump has threatened to ‘hit Iran hard’ after the US midterm elections next week," wrote members of the Back From the Brink Coalition. "On October 15, President Trump stated that he would not use nuclear weapons against Iran. But frequent, abrupt changes of policy have become a staple feature of his presidency, and the single statement that he will not use nuclear weapons stands against a string of threats to do just that."
Even if Trump opts not to use nuclear weapons, there are mounting global concerns about his next steps. After being briefed on the administration's military schemes behind closed doors, US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) declared last week that "their plan is insane."
The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that "America's Gulf allies are steeling themselves for a heavy US bombardment of Iran that they expect to trigger a vicious cycle of retaliation against their own economic and civilian infrastructure as early as this week."
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Who Needs a Dystopian Novel When You Have the Daily News?
A world with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in power is not the world that anyone should want to be on at a time when humanity has discovered at least two ways of doing this planet in.
Oct 27, 2026
I’ve read The New York Times since I was a teenager. It was once a way to keep up on the news. It’s now a daily way to experience a living nightmare of a world.
I’m thinking, of course, of Donald Trump’s world—although it could be Vladimir Putin’s, too—and that’s just to start down an ever-lengthening grim list. This, in all honesty, is not the world that anyone should want to be on at a time when humanity has discovered at least two ways of doing this planet in, the slow-motion version known as climate change and the (more or less) instantaneous version of nuclear war. And in this strange world of ours, who honestly knows what Artificial Intelligence, or AI, might be able to do when it comes to creating a potential third pathway to ultimate destruction? (Not this old man, that’s for sure.)
Consider it strange, given that nuclear weapons are clearly also doomsday ones, that, in the 80-plus years since the US dropped two of them on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki with devastating effect, including the deaths of more than 200,000 people (almost 40,000 of them believed to have been children), nine countries have come to possess far more devastating versions of just such weaponry. It’s now estimated that there are more than 12,000 nuclear weapons on this planet, with the US and Russia each believed to possess more than 5,000. That’s enough, of course, to destroy any number of planets, with most of those weapons six to 50 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Worse yet, their cumulative numbers only continue to grow in this world of ours, and they are ever more devastatingly powerful.
Can you explain to me what kind of creatures would plan for, pour funding into, and work to create anything-but-obvious or easy-to-produce ways of bringing about their own extermination, not to speak of that of all life around them?
Given our history over all these centuries (and the global hellscapes we’ve already created), what could possibly go wrong? Count on this (if you’re still counting): In the near future, the number of countries in possession of such weaponry will undoubtedly only rise again.
Once upon a time, end-of-the-world scenarios were nightmarish fantasies of fiction, the sort of thing that novelists like George Orwell or Aldous Huxley came up with and that I read with fascination in my youth.
Now, who needs a dystopian novel when, just sitting down each morning (or evening) to read the Times, as I still do (one day late, of course, since I read the paper version, which says plenty about this old man), has a strangely end-of-world feeling to it? After all, we humans have come up with at least a second (slow-motion) way to do in ourselves and every other living thing on this planet that has gained the all too mild label “climate change.” Why it’s not “climate devastation,” “climate destruction,” “climate catastrophe,” or something even worse? Change, really? Gee, climate mutation doesn’t sound so bad either, does it?
In mid-October, as I was starting this piece, I went out on my daily early morning walk in New York City, wearing just khakis, a long-sleeved shirt, and a light jacket. By 8:30 am, I had already tied my jacket around my waist and rolled up my shirt sleeves—and I still felt slightly uncomfortable.
I know, I know, any passingly hot day or even a warm few weeks doesn’t truly prove a thing. Still, only recently, record highs were “forecast to stretch all across the central and eastern United States, with temperatures running about 20°F above average, according to Weather.com meteorologist Rob Shackelford.”
In addition, the British medical magazine The Lancet‘s Commission on 21st Century Global Threats recently offered this apocalyptic scenario (as reported by The Guardian): “’Malicious use of AI, including bioweapons, and nuclear conflict with nuclear famine carry risks of extinction in the next 75 years,’ the report said, adding that, while their likelihood remained low, they had the potential to end humanity in the case of nuclear conflict by injecting enough particles into the upper atmosphere to block sunlight and cause famine, or via AI-created biological weapons.”
And as Jeet Heer recently pointed out at The Nation magazine, “AI is clearly the most dangerous technology that humankind has developed since nuclear weapons, and our current lack of oversight for it is a travesty.”
Am I surprised? Not really... sigh...
Living in a Dystopian Novel of a World
In truth, I’m already too damn old to genuinely grasp that third possibility for ultimate destruction, involving AI—though anything AI-related makes me instantaneously anxious as hell. Though it’s not possible anymore to avoid AI if you’re simply looking for something online, I still do my damnedest (so to speak) to avoid it otherwise, since I prefer to be on a planet where the best and worst things in life aren’t caused by some almost unimaginable computer-created irreality—or do I mean surreality, since this world seems (thank you Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin!) ever more surreal in all too many ways?
Of course, here’s the truly strange thing: Can you explain to me what kind of creatures would plan for, pour funding into, and work to create anything-but-obvious or easy-to-produce ways of bringing about their own extermination, not to speak of that of all life around them?
I know, I know, that first way of doing us all in, atomic weaponry, still passes for war. But explain to me, what a country could possibly win with more than 5,000 nuclear weapons? Honestly, how mad can you be to purposely create ever more world-ending weaponry to—yes!—(theoretically) defend yourself?
In truth, if this heavily nuclear-armed world of ours and leaders like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin weren’t our reality, this piece would be the most unbelievable kind of dystopian fiction around.
And then, of course, we humans put in power characters like Donald Trump, who, at the United Nations this September, implicitly threatened to use such weaponry to “annihilate” Iran, or Vladimir Putin, who has actually threatened to use nuclear weapons in any future conflict with other European powers that might develop out of his war on Ukraine. Ask yourself, would you really choose to put either of their trigger fingers on the American or Russian nuclear arsenals?
And how much madder do you have to be, as president of the United States (no less), than to put so much of your extra energy into promoting anything that will burn down (or do I mean burn up) this planet of ours? That, of course, is what “our” president is now doing when it comes to the full-scale promotion of the ever greater use of oil, coal, and natural gas. And, of course, he not only continues to essentially deny that climate change is even happening, but at the UN last year called it “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world.” Consider him nothing short of a promoter (of course, who doesn’t know that he’s a promoter?) of a world-ending reality—or do I mean surreality?
Honestly, I’d like to bring George Orwell and Aldous Huxley back from the dead so many years later, because I’d love to read Orwell’s next novel: 2030 or Huxley’s Brave New Trump (or, for that matter, Brave New Putin). And give me some credit here, since I haven’t even bothered you with the possibility that India and Pakistan, both nuclear armed, could someday engage in a globally devastating “limited” nuclear war, creating what’s known as a “nuclear winter” on this planet that might kill not just Indians and Pakistanis but billions of the rest of us.
In truth, if this heavily nuclear-armed world of ours and leaders like Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin weren’t our reality, this piece would be the most unbelievable kind of dystopian fiction around. And yet, keep in mind that, at this very moment, given climate change, we’re already experiencing a slow-motion version of nuclear-style disaster on this planet of ours. Hopefully, I’m (mis)reading the times (as well as the Times) when it comes to our future nuclear peril. Unfortunately, when it comes to the slow-motion version of nuclear war, which we call climate change and the overheating of this planet of ours, a distinctly dystopian future is already well underway.
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To End the Iran War, the US Must Understand Tehran's Perspective
Trump and US war planners misread Tehran’s perception of the war. Iran is not on the verge of collapse; on the contrary, its leaders are now committed to match escalation with escalation until securing a negotiated settlement based on mutual concessions.
Oct 24, 2026
The war between the United States and Iran persists in a dangerous strategic stalemate. As Washington maintains a punishing economic and maritime blockade, Tehran continues to restrict passage through the Strait of Hormuz, imposing mounting costs on the United States, its allies, and the global economy. Neither side appears prepared to concede.
The Pentagon is sending a third aircraft carrier strike group to the region, while the Trump administration is reportedly considering strikes against Iranian nuclear and energy infrastructure, potentially using the GBU-43/B bomb, known as the “mother of all bombs.” Both moves support the possibility of the United States attempting to break this stalemate through force. Iran, meanwhile, has in recent weeks intensified attacks on commercial vessels attempting to transit Hormuz outside its designated route, with strikes becoming more frequent and destructive.
Washington appears to be continuing to misread the Iran it is confronting. The wars of 2025 and 2026 accelerated a fundamental shift in Tehran’s strategic thinking, away from years of relative restraint and toward a determination to impose sustained costs on the United States and its allies. Iranian leaders increasingly believe that their earlier restraint invited further attacks rather than deterring them, and that absorbing more punishment without retaliating forcefully would only encourage additional aggression.
Tehran is still willing to negotiate, but it is far less prepared to give up its leverage based on American assurances that it has little reason to trust.
A failure to understand this changed posture makes another round of American or Israeli strikes particularly dangerous: Rather than compelling Iran to surrender, it would likely provoke an even more damaging Iranian response. Tehran’s growing willingness to escalate does not mean it has abandoned diplomacy. The challenge for President Donald Trump is that the Iran emerging from this war is one less willing to yield to coercion, which remains open to a settlement based on meaningful reciprocal concessions.
Washington’s Options—and Their Limits
The central question is whether Washington is preparing to break the stalemate militarily. But as Carl von Clausewitz famously argued, war is a continuation of politics by other means. Whether Trump chooses to escalate therefore depends on his assessment of the political objectives at stake and whether further military force can advance them. The buildup of American forces alone tells us little about that calculation, particularly after months of warfare and economic coercion have failed to compel Tehran to yield.
How Washington perceives the war will determine what it believes it can do to break the current stalemate. If Washington sees continued economic hardship as eventually forcing Tehran to accept its demands, it can maintain the blockade and continue the war of attrition. But if the United States and Israel launch another major attack, it would suggest at least one of them no longer believes the current balance of pressure is working in their favor, or that they can afford to wait for Iran to buckle. Such an escalation would presumably seek to shift that balance by inflicting enough additional damage to compel Iranian concessions, particularly on the nuclear issue, where Tehran has resisted demands to surrender its stockpile of highly enriched uranium upfront, and over the future of the Strait of Hormuz, where Iran is seeking a new arrangement that preserves its leverage over maritime traffic.
Further attacks are likely to backfire, particularly given Tehran’s growing conviction that restraint has only invited further aggression. Iran has considerable scope to intensify its own pressure through Hormuz and strikes on regional energy infrastructure, driving up oil prices more, further disrupting global markets, and making the war even more costly for Washington to sustain. Tehran may also escalate on its own if it concludes that the existing level of disruption is insufficient to force American concessions. In either case, a new round of escalation could shift the balance of pressure further against Washington, leaving Trump in an even more difficult position despite inflicting greater destruction on Iran.
For Tehran, the experience of the war has reinforced the belief that surrendering its leverage before securing concrete American concessions would leave it vulnerable to renewed pressure and attacks.
A failure to understand Tehran’s own political calculus is a persistent problem in Washington, and one often at the root of maximalist attempts to compel changed behavior by coercion or force. Should the Trump administration pursue force despite Tehran’s changed posture, it will be repeating the failure of many presidencies before it.
The remaining options are political. Trump could unilaterally ease or end the blockade and effectively abandon the effort to compel Iran’s surrender, though that appears unlikely under present circumstances. Another similar possibility, according to CNN, is a final, spectacular military strike, potentially involving the “mother of all bombs,” designed to give Trump a symbolic “victory” he can declare before withdrawing. Some military planners have reportedly discussed what amounts to a “fireworks show,” even if the strikes fail to achieve Washington’s stated objectives. But such an exit would depend on Iran’s response, and Tehran could instead retaliate with further attacks on shipping and regional energy infrastructure, making it harder for Trump to declare the war over.
More realistically, Washington could negotiate a compromise to end the confrontation, accepting that any durable settlement will require meaningful concessions from both sides, including reciprocal steps on sanctions, Hormuz, and the nuclear issue.
The two sides remain far apart, however, on what a negotiated settlement would entail. Tehran continues to insist on seven conditions for ending the war, including lifting the blockade and sanctions, and presented mediators with a proposal during the United Nations General Assembly in September. The proposal reportedly builds on the June Islamabad memorandum of understanding (MOU), but changes the sequencing of concessions: Washington would first have to fulfill Iran’s conditions, including lifting the blockade and releasing frozen Iranian assets, before Tehran eases its restrictions on Hormuz and enters substantive nuclear negotiations.
This reflects Tehran’s deep distrust of Washington, rooted in what Iran sees as the United States’ failure to honor its commitments under the June MOU and by the subsequent resumption of major hostilities for 13 days in July. Washington, by contrast, is pressing for immediate nuclear concessions, including renewed inspections and removal of enriched uranium, while offering more limited economic relief and the release of frozen Iranian assets.
The central impasse is therefore not simply over the terms of a possible agreement, but over who must deliver first. For Tehran, the experience of the war has reinforced the belief that surrendering its leverage before securing concrete American concessions would leave it vulnerable to renewed pressure and attacks.
Against this backdrop, the battle over Hormuz has become an increasingly costly contest of adaptation and counter-adaptation, illustrating Tehran’s determination to impose economic costs rather than simply absorb American pressure. The United States and its Persian Gulf partners have developed an elaborate ship-to-ship transfer system in which smaller shuttle tankers carry oil through the strait, hugging the Omani coast, often under US military protection and with their tracking systems switched off, before transferring their cargoes to larger vessels in the Gulf of Oman. Many of these crossings take place at night while still under Iranian fire. Nevertheless, alongside Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline to the Red Sea, this has helped restore substantial volume of oil exports despite Iran’s restrictions, and at a price premium. Tehran has responded by sharply escalating attacks on vessels using these routes, including tankers involved in ship-to-ship transfers. The conflict has also expanded to the Red Sea, where Iran-aligned Houthis have attacked Saudi shipping and energy infrastructure and curtailed the Bab el-Mandeb chokepoint, while a separate drone strike launched from Iraq temporarily shut down Saudi Arabia’s East-West pipeline. These workarounds and countermeasures have kept both sides in the fight, but at mounting economic cost. The ship-to-ship transfer system is being pushed to its limits, freight and insurance costs have soared, Brent oil remains well above $100 a barrel, US gasoline and diesel prices have surged to record levels, and the resulting inflationary pressures are driving up borrowing costs across the American economy.
Realistic Paths to End the War
Iran’s increasingly aggressive campaign around Hormuz illustrates how profoundly the war changed Tehran’s approach to deterrence. As I argued in a recent Quincy Institute report, the wars of 2025 and 2026 have accelerated Tehran’s shift from strategic patience toward a doctrine of persistent counter-escalation. Tehran’s leaders now operate from an assumption that earlier restraint invited further attacks rather than deterring them, a changed posture revealed in a willingness to weaponize Hormuz and threaten the wider regional economy despite the enormous damage Iran itself has suffered. Another major American or Israeli attack is therefore unlikely to restore the old pattern of Iranian restraint. Instead, it could strengthen Tehran’s conviction that only sustained pressure on American and allied interests can deter further attacks and compel Washington to compromise.
Yet a more confrontational Iran is not necessarily an Iran unwilling to negotiate. As I argued in a separate Center for International Policy report, American policy has repeatedly underestimated Tehran’s capacity for pragmatism while overestimating the likelihood that mounting pressure will produce capitulation. Iran has a long history of pursuing diplomatic openings when its leaders perceive a credible opportunity to advance national interests, from the Rafsanjani and Khatami presidencies to the negotiations that produced the 2015 nuclear agreement. Even amid the present war, Tehran continues to put forward proposals for a negotiated settlement. What changed is its assessment of the risks of making concessions without reliable guarantees of American reciprocity. Tehran is still willing to negotiate, but it is far less prepared to give up its leverage based on American assurances that it has little reason to trust.
Washington retains overwhelming conventional military superiority, but months of warfare have shown the limits of pursuing maximalist objectives, whether Iran’s unconditional surrender or the collapse of its government.
Trump would be wise to recognize both realities. The June Islamabad MOU, together with Iran’s subsequent proposal at the UN General Assembly, offers a starting point for renewed diplomacy. The June understanding envisaged reciprocal steps, with Washington easing its blockade and economic restrictions and Tehran loosening its grip on Hormuz and eventually addressing its stockpile of highly enriched uranium through new nuclear negotiations. Reviving that framework would require the two sides to agree on a credible sequence of verifiable concessions, particularly given the latest collapse of trust following July’s renewed fighting.
Neither side would get everything it wants, but an agreement along these lines would offer Trump something that months of military escalation have failed to deliver: a way to end the war without inviting another round of potentially catastrophic Iranian retaliation in the region. Washington retains overwhelming conventional military superiority, but months of warfare have shown the limits of pursuing maximalist objectives, whether Iran’s unconditional surrender or the collapse of its government.
The question now is whether Trump will continue seeking capitulation through military pressure, or recognize that the war has made Tehran more determined to resist coercion while remaining open to a negotiated compromise.
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A Framework for Peace in Ukraine
This proposed settlement—designed to help end a conflict that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and carries a continuing risk of confrontation—addresses the causes of the war rather than only its symptoms.
Oct 20, 2026
The war in Ukraine can be ended permanently on terms that protect Ukraine's statehood, meet Russia's security concerns, and lay the foundation for a durable European security order. As another round of negotiations gears up in Norway, I propose a settlement concluded as a single package, signed by Ukraine and Russia, adopted by a vote of the United Nations Security Council under Chapter VII of the Charter, and guaranteed jointly by the five permanent members of the Council together with other states that choose to join. The proposal rests on the principle of indivisible security set out in the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris.
The package would have four core commitments.
The first is Ukraine's permanent neutrality, adopted in a constitutional law on the model of Austria's law of 1955, which would return Ukraine to the founding choice of its Declaration of State Sovereignty of 1990. Ukraine would join no military alliance and host no foreign bases or forces, whether of NATO, the European Union, their member states, or Russia. Neutrality would not mean disarmament, and Ukraine would retain armed forces for its own defense.
The second is that Ukraine would pursue its candidacy for membership in the European Union as a permanently neutral state, with a neutrality protocol in its accession treaty on the model of Ireland's, and Russia would affirm that Ukraine's membership in the EU is consistent with Russia's security.
The third is an armistice line drawn along the line of contact on the date of signature. Each side would exercise de facto jurisdiction on its side of the line, neither would recognize the other's territorial claims, and both would renounce force in any future adjustment. This formula is compatible with both countries' constitutions, which bar or severely restrict the cession of territory.
The fourth is the end of NATO enlargement eastward. At signature the North Atlantic Council would declare that NATO will not admit Ukraine or other new members in Eastern Europe or the South Caucasus, withdrawing the Bucharest pledge of 2008.
The settlement would take effect as a permanent end of hostilities on signature, not as a temporary ceasefire, and its provisions would be implemented in stages under international verification. No element would be negotiated in isolation, and no party would be asked to make a concession in advance of signature.
The territorial arrangements are designed to address the concerns and claims of both sides. Ukrainian forces would withdraw from the part of Donetsk region that Ukraine now controls, which would become a demilitarized special zone. Russian forces would not enter it, the existing local civil administration would continue to function, and its final status would be left to negotiation. Russia would withdraw from the areas it holds in Dnipropetrovsk region and from the Kinburn Spit. A Northern Security Zone would be demilitarized on both sides of the Russian-Ukrainian border, and Russian forces would leave the areas they hold in Kharkiv and Sumy regions as Ukrainian forces withdraw from their side. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant would remain under Russian control with IAEA safety oversight and would sell an agreed share of its electricity to Ukraine at cost.
A demilitarized belt would run along both sides of the armistice line, with heavy weapons and long-range strike systems withdrawn to agreed distances, and mutual ceilings on forces would apply in the border regions on both sides. In the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, commercial navigation would be free for all Ukrainian and Russian ports, and attacks on shipping and ports would be prohibited.
The settlement in Ukraine should also begin the repair of European security as a whole. NATO and Russia would agree on a moratorium on ground-launched intermediate-range missiles in Europe, refrain from deploying nuclear weapons in any additional state, and restore the NATO-Russia Council. Normal diplomatic relations would be restored on both sides. The parties would convene the first summit of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe since 2010 to entrust the OSCE with monitoring the settlement, verifying arms limits, and overseeing the provisions on rights.
Questions of language, education, culture, and religion would be resolved according to European standards, with the Russian language treated on the same basis as Ukraine's other minority languages, and Russia would accept the same obligations toward Ukrainian speakers and religious communities on its side of the line. All obligations concerning extremism and incitement would be mutual and monitored by the OSCE. Prisoners of war would be exchanged on an all-for-all basis, detained civilians released, and separated children reunited with their families.
Sanctions would be lifted during 2027. Russia's immobilized sovereign assets would also be released, and private property seized or immobilized on both sides would be restored. An international reconstruction fund administered by the European Investment Bank would finance reconstruction on both sides of the line, with contributions from all parties, Russia included, in a common effort rather than as reparations. Gas transit through Ukraine could resume wherever there are willing buyers, without any commitment by the European Union to purchase Russian gas.
A report of serious violation by an OSCE monitoring mission of unarmed observers from states outside NATO would trigger consultations among the guarantors and referral to the Security Council. Ukraine would lift martial law and hold elections under OSCE observation, and the newly elected Verkhovna Rada would ratify the settlement and adopt the constitutional law on neutrality, while the Russian Federal Assembly would ratify it at the same stage.
This proposed settlement addresses the causes of the war rather than only its symptoms. Europe has been largely absent from the design of the peace. By putting forward such a framework, European governments can take the lead in building Europe’s indivisible security and help end a war that has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and carries a continuing risk of confrontation between nuclear powers.
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Take Action October 20 to End the Illegal US-Israeli War on Iran
The war is not just illegal, but massively unpopular with the US public, and Trump and his Republican enablers may take a deserved shellacking, in no small part because of the war, at the polls in November, but voting is not sufficient.
Oct 19, 2026
President Donald Trump has been less than coy about possibly ramping up his illegal war of aggression against Iran after the midterm elections, and now states the United States would not use a nuclear weapon, but possibly the “Mother of All Bombs,” MOAB for short—with apologies to that lovely town in Utah—officially the GBU-43-B Massive Ordnance Air Blast Bomb. The target would supposedly be Iran’s energy infrastructure and nuclear facilities, which were supposedly obliterated by US and Israeli attacks over a year ago.
A few reminders are in order. The US-Israeli war on Iran is illegal under domestic and international law, lacking authorization from Congress and the United Nations Security Council. Combined with ongoing attacks on Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen, the region is in flames, and putting out the fire with gasoline would be a stupendously bad move. There are indirect diplomatic talks underway, and those need to succeed, and quickly, to end this disaster harming the people of Iran, the region, and the US and global economy. Unfortunately, Trump, ever the statesmen, quipped, “I don’t know who the hell we are negotiating with.”
Iran does not have nuclear weapons, and was verifiably in compliance with its obligations under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), foolishly abrogated by Trump in his first term (and former President Joe Biden, who as vice president was part of the Obama Administration that negotiated that agreement, inexplicably failed to renew while in the White House). Yet Iran still does not have nuclear weapons, and the US (thousands) and Israel (hundreds) do.
Moreover, the US plans to send more conventional weapons to Israel (the latest proposed shipment being 40,000 one-ton bombs) and Saudi Arabia, and to conclude a nuclear technology deal with the latter, which cannot help but put Iran and other countries in the region even more on edge.
The war is not just illegal, but massively unpopular with the US public, and Trump and his Republican enablers may take a deserved shellacking, in no small part because of the war, at the polls in November.
Voting is crucial, but not sufficient. On Tuesday, October 20, just two weeks before the midterms, peace advocates will hold dozens of rallies across the country to demand Peace with Iran NOW! A coalition of nearly 100 national and local organizations, including the National Iranian American Council; Action Corps; Peace Action; and veterans, faith-based, peace, and human rights organizations, are holding rallies at congressional offices to demand the following of Congress:
- Cut off funding for the war;
- Enforce the Iran War Powers Resolutions passed by Congress (which make clear the illegality of Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war of aggression);
- Demand accountability for the Minab elementary school bombing on the first day of the war, which reportedly killed 120 children as well as teachers and staff AND investigate the bombing of the civilian wedding party in Kuhestak. The public deserves a full accounting, and the victims’ families deserve truth and accountability; and
- Support diplomacy, sanctions, and a peace agreement to end the war.
Looking longer term, a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone was first proposed by Iran and Egypt over five decades ago, and establishing such a zone was included in the UN Resolution that ended the first US war on Iraq. It remains to be established, but still could be a useful part of the solution to the current mess started by the US and Israel.
We need lasting solutions, including the following:
- End this war now, via diplomacy, or Congress refusing to fund it;
- End the sole authority for any president to initiate a nuclear attack, especially when Congress has not declared war;
- Dramatically reduce the War Budget, especially for nuclear weapons and Golden Dome; invest in human needs and addressing climate catastrophe; and
- Support a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction-Free Zone, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
For now, the immediate priority is to demand Congress do its job, and we have the opportunity to say so, loud and clear, at pro-peace rallies on Tuesday, October 20.
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We Can't Ignore the Insanity of Trump’s Threats to Annihilate Iran
It is not possible to excuse, justify, or condone this kind of rhetoric. The only question is what to do about it.
Oct 18, 2026
Of all of the things that President Donald Trump has said publicly since returning to the White House, his threats to annihilate Iran are arguably the worst. This is not only because the repeated statements are deeply immoral and illegal—deliberate killing of civilians is a war crime—but because they represent the kind of irresponsible rhetoric that will lead us into a global apocalypse and collapse of not just the Persian nation but human civilization as a whole. It is not possible to excuse, justify, or condone this kind of rhetoric. The only question is what to do about it.
As much as some well-meaning people might want to see nuclear weapons as instruments that ended World War II and have kept the peace ever since, the exact opposite has actually been true. Nuclear weapons brutally murdered a couple of hundred thousand civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and injured and sentenced to years and decades of illness and suffering many hundreds of thousands more. As we have written before, multiple alternatives existed to end the war in 1945. In many ways, the false narrative of the atomic bombings averting an invasion and saving lives has enabled the perpetuation of nuclear weapons, bringing the risks to humanity’s survival to levels previously unimaginable. Turning a brutally violent beginning of the nuclear age into something positive has managed to complicate and obfuscate an issue that should never have been complicated. Nuclear weapons are and have always been immoral. Their possession should be illegal.
Although the end of World War II coincided with the advent of nuclear weapons, and we have technically not fought another world war since, this is merely a correlation. Other significant changes in our world, including the founding of the United Nations, technological and scientific progress, and globalized trade, took place over that same time period. In addition, one has to wonder, whose peace we are talking about. Since 1945, over 20 million people have died in armed conflicts around the world, with up to 50 million more indirect deaths stemming from those conflicts. Today, there are nearly 100 armed conflicts across the planet according to the Geneva Academy, and 25 international armed conflicts involving more than one nation state.
It is not reassuring to have the US president talking about nuclear bombs exploding over American cities.
All along, in addition to the deaths and suffering in war zones across the planet and the horrific toll exacted by poverty and inequality, humanity has been waiting almost helplessly for another nuclear weapon to explode by accident, miscalculation, or intention, likely triggering a full-blown nuclear war in which tens or even thousands of nuclear weapons are used. The past eight decades have witnessed numerous incidents in which human wisdom and decency or just plain luck interrupted a course of events that seemed inexorably leading to nuclear war. Nuclear weapons have not brought the peace. Quite the opposite—they threaten what little of it we have each and every day.
And yet, for all of his threats on Truth Social and most recently in the halls of the United Nations, Trump has also stated that nuclear weapons “could destroy the world 50 times over, 100 times over,” calling for “denuclearization.” In fact, two days after his unacceptable statement to “drive [Iran] into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness” at the UN General Assembly in September, Trump suggested to President Xi Jinping in DC that there be a nuclear summit between China, Russia, and the United States.
Trump did so knowing full well that Xi’s government’s participation in arms control negotiations is contingent upon China achieving rough parity with the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia. This should be pursued not by China continuing to expand its arsenal to the gargantuan size of the US and Russian arsenals, but by the US and Russia reducing theirs to the size of China’s, and adopting China’s demand for an across-the-board no-first-use policy.
Since his latest threat, delivered in the world’s premier diplomatic space unlike his earlier Truth Social rants, including the one on April 7 that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” Trump actually seemed to welcome Iranian destruction of Los Angeles and San Diego at an election rally. Even if he now unconvincingly claims that the original clips, which suggested that such destruction was a small price to pay, were taken out of context and the small price to pay was about the price of gas, it is not reassuring to have the US president talking about nuclear bombs exploding over American cities. Never mind that Iran neither has the nuclear weapons nor the ability to send missiles toward US soil. Nuclear Armageddon seems to be on Trump’s mind.
Is the real estate developer who seemed to understand that a lot of effort, capital, and human ingenuity, not to mention time, go into building modern cities gone? What happened to the businessman who in 1986 “summoned Dr. Bernard Lown of the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) to the Trump Tower for a meeting?” Trump sought advice from Dr. Lown on negotiating nuclear arms agreements with Mikhail Gorbachev just after IPPNW had won the Nobel Peace Prize a year earlier. Is that person no longer here or do his “denuclearization” comments offer some hope?
Among those refusing to be passive in all of this is Pope Leo XIV who has not only deplored war and called for nuclear disarmament but who recently decried leaders, presumably including Trump, who are “beginning to speak about nuclear weapons and wars that are becoming ever more destructive,” and urged leaders to “come together, sit down, engage in dialogue.” The Holy See was one of the original parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and remains a strong supporter of nuclear abolition. It is time for Pope Leo XIV, speaking for the planet, to use his unique moral authority to demand an emergency summit of, at a minimum, Trump, Xi, and Vladimir Putin to get us off this path of war and potential nuclear annihilation.
In addition to insisting on such actions from others, each of us needs to think long and hard about what we can do to address the insanity of Trump’s threats and the insanity of nuclear weapons.
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Something Else to Worry About: Biological Weapons
Recent reports that a young woman working in a Russian biolab became ill and died echo Annie Jacobsen’s new book, Biological War: A Scenario. How concerned should we be?
Oct 17, 2026
A few months ago, I ordered a pre-publication copy of Annie Jacobsen’s new non-fiction book, Biological War: A Scenario, which followed on from her excellent book, Nuclear War: A Scenario—not because I enjoy reading about existential risks, but because I’m an information seeker and feel that it’s important to stay informed. But when it arrived a few weeks later, in spite of having written an opinion piece about her nuclear book, entitled, “Why We Avoid Thinking About Nuclear War—and Why We Shouldn’t,” after seeing the frightening cover illustration of men in hazmat suits, I stashed it on the bookshelf of my study rather than reading it—for the same reasons I discussed in my earlier piece: I didn’t want to know!
But after the recent reports of a biolab accident in Russia, I retrieved it from the bookshelf and read it in two days.
The “scenario” in the book is that of a “biological weapons lab accident,” where a scientist working to modify pneumonic plague into a deadly biological weapon experiences remorse and tries to destroy it. But the small fire he lights causes an explosion that propels the Yersinia pestis bacteria (which causes the plague) into the atmosphere. In the process, he becomes infected with his weaponized pneumonic plague, although he doesn’t yet know it.
Although most of us cannot directly influence negotiations about strengthening the BWC, there are things that we can do to support such efforts and to lessen the increasingly grave dangers that confront us.
The next morning, he goes to an Orthodox church to confess where, by coughing in the midst of confession, he infects the priest, as well as the next person in line—a pre-med foreign exchange student, who is back in this small Russian town visiting family—before returning to the US shortly thereafter, where he is studying and doing volunteer work with homeless people. The student subsequently infects scores on Skid Row, who, in turn, infect the first responders who come to help them and, ultimately, the whole city of Los Angeles.
Following his confession, the scientist goes into the woods to shoot himself but collapses from the symptoms of plague. He is found by men on an international hunting trip, who administer mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and carry him back to their hunting lodge, where he is collected by officials. After dining together, using the same sauna and steam bath, and driving to the airport in the same van, seven of the hunters board flights to six of the world’s seven continents, while another goes off on a sea cruise—spreading pneumonic plague on their flights and sea voyage—and ultimately around the world.
In the real-world scenario, reported on October 2, Darya Shipilova, a 28-year old laboratory technician working in an “Anti-Plague Institute” in Irkutsk, Siberia died, according to Russian officials, of “a pneumonia of unknown etiology.” A Russian news agency reported that she had broken a test tube containing live bacteria of the pneumonic plague pathogen, leading to widespread speculation that she had, indeed, died of pneumonic plague.
These concerns were reinforced by reports that Russian health authorities imposed sweeping quarantine restrictions on the lab where she worked, the hospital where she died, and other nearby hospitals. Neighbors also reported that workers in protective suits and gas masks repeatedly disinfected the building where she lived, telling residents that it was “for cockroaches,” although the building has no cockroaches. More recently, Russia’s health agency asserted that the plague was not detected in follow-up tests of “thousands of people in the region.”
The overall opacity (a familiar playbook for crises in Russia) of Russian public health officials in responding to urgent requests for more information from the World Health Organization, the US, and other governments led to considerable disquiet around the world.
When asked if her death was related to a bioweapon, President Donald Trump responded, not very reassuringly, “We don’t think so.” He also acknowledged the similarities in how Chinese officials handled Covid-19 before it became a global pandemic: “China didn’t say much, and Russia is not saying much either.”
The Biological Weapons Convention Was Supposed to Prevent This, Then Came the Secret Soviet Biological Weapons Program
The 1925 Geneva Protocol banned the use of biological weapons, but not their development or possession. Although ratified by a number of countries in the 1920s and 30s, it wasn’t ratified by the US until 1975.
After 27 years of a US biological weapons program, President Richard Nixon unexpectedly announced on November 25, 1969 that the US would unilaterally end its offensive biological weapons program, stating, “The United States shall renounce the use of lethal biological agents and weapons, and all other methods of biological warfare… [and] confine its biological research to defensive measures such as immunization and safety measures.” Over the next years, US biological weapons stocks were destroyed with the process completed in May 1972.
Subsequently, the United Nations Conference on Disarmament negotiated “The Biological Weapons Convention” (BWC), the first multilateral treaty to ban an entire class of weapons of mass destruction. It was opened for signature on April 10, 1972 and signed by the US, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union the same day. It entered into force on March 26, 1975. Currently, it has 189 State Parties and four Signatory States, with only four States outside the Convention.
Because it was the first of its kind, however, the BWC lacked the important monitoring and verification procedures that were later included in the Chemical Weapons Convention. There are no mandatory verified declarations of biological facilities or activities; no inspections or site visits to verify compliance; no international organization to oversee implementation; and no penalties for non-compliance, although complaints can be made to the UN Security Council (which are subject to veto by any of the five Permanent Members). Only four staff are involved in its tiny Implementation Support Unit, compared with over 500 for the Chemical Weapons Convention.
In spite of the Soviet Union becoming a signatory to the BWC in 1972, the USSR continued to covertly develop and produce offensive biological weapons in what became the world’s largest and most sophisticated biological weapons program, with 40-50 biological research facilities scattered around the country, employing 65,000 people. The aim was to create “exotic biological weapons using techniques made possible by recombinant DNA.” Recombinant DNA, also called genetic engineering, involves joining the DNA from two entirely different species to make new pathogens.
Not detecting this vast biological weapons program was one of the biggest intelligence failures of the Cold War as it was totally unknown in the West until 1989, when a Soviet scientist, Vladimir Pasechnik, defected, shocking the British Intelligence Services and the CIA with details of the massive program and its deadly stockpiles. They learned that the Soviets had “genetically engineered a strain of Yersinia pestis to resist antibiotics” and had also stockpiled vast volumes of other deadly pathogens in the labs’ freezers, such as smallpox, anthrax, ebola, Marburg virus disease, and many others—all weaponized to kill populations in the most diabolical manner.
The terrifying extent of this biowarfare program was later confirmed by other defecting Soviet scientists, especially after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. In January 1992, Boris Yeltsin admitted that he knew about the program and pledged to close down the institutes, retire their directors, and ask for international inspections. But the two generals he appointed to carry out this mission resisted his orders. In 1992, a Trilateral Agreement was signed by Russia with the United States and the United Kingdom “promising to end biological weapons programs and convert facilities to benevolent purposes, but compliance with the agreement—and the fate of the former Soviet bio-agents and facilities—is still mostly undocumented.”
The State Department’s 2025 compliance report states: “The United States assesses that Russia maintains an offensive biological warfare program and is in violation of its obligations under Article I and II of the BWC… Key military biological facilities associated with the Soviet offensive program remain, inaccessible and not transparent, nearly 30 years after Yeltsin’s decree.”
Jacobsen’s Book Is Based on the Secret Soviet Biological Weapons Program
The latter part of Jacobsen’s book deals with the breakdown of law and order, as mass death and panic take hold and cause chaos. Ultimately, the president deploys the Insurrection Act, whereby military forces attempt to establish martial law for the first time in American history. Just as they are about to release the strategic national stockpiles of medicine, scientists at the US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Disease receive their first bacterial specimens (from the infected hunter who landed in Dallas and died in a local hospital). Microbiologists in biocontainment suits examine the specimens, and plague cultures are grown and used to test for antibiotic resistance in small animals. Simultaneously, microbiologists extract DNA from the specimen and feed it into a high-speed sequencing machine to get a genetic fingerprint of the pathogen.
What they discover is appalling—the organism has been bioengineered and “looks alarmingly like a 21st century version of something Russian scientists worked on during the Soviet-era secret biological weapons programs.” It is a combination of two pathogens, one concealed within another, referred to as a “bobby-trap bio-weapon,” whereby, after a person becomes infected with pneumonic plague and takes antibiotics as soon as possible under the assumption they will be cured, the antibiotics trigger the chimera weapon’s bobby-trap mechanism—in this fictional case, the Venezuelan equine encephalitis gene which has been covertly spliced into the Yersinia pestis genome to cause acute neurological symptoms and death. As a result, there is no cure.
The book is not meant to create unnecessary fear. It is meant to make clear what is now possible, and what is at stake. The tools to engineer life are advancing faster than the rules that govern them. This gap is where existential danger lives. The point is not panic; the point is pressure. To demand guardrails, oversight, and accountability before the science outruns our ability to control it. Before we set something irreversible in motion.
Although the real-life situation in Siberia will hopefully not turn out to be the same as in Annie Jacobsen’s book, it should cause us to take notice.
Attempts to Improve the Biological Weapons Convention
Serious attempts have been made in the past to strengthen the BWC but without success. An Ad Hoc Group labored from 1995 to 2001 to create a protocol where states would submit declarations of treaty-relevant facilities and activities to an international body that would conduct routine on-site visits, as well as challenge inspections of suspect facilities and activities. But the draft was rejected by the US under President George W. Bush, who argued that it could harm US national security. Nothing more happened for many years.
Another attempt is currently underway, although progress is slow. A Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention Working Group was established at the 2022 BWC Review Conference and has been working steadily over the last four years to come up with the text of draft recommendations before the 2027 BWC Review Conference. At their August meeting this year, 90.6% of the text had been agreed, although fundamental disagreements over verification frameworks, transfer controls, and funding remain—and tensions are high.
The chair of the Working Group has highlighted the urgency, arguing that the sudden convergence of artificial intelligence and biology is “creating new security challenges,” warning that a gap “may emerge between these rapidly advancing capabilities and our collective ability to understand their governance and prevent their misuse.”
What We Can Do
Although most of us cannot directly influence negotiations about strengthening the BWC, there are things that we can do to support such efforts and to lessen the increasingly grave dangers that confront us.
We can be sure to vote in the upcoming midterms for Democratic candidates, who have been more likely to support regulatory controls in Congress, as well as multilaterally. We can support these candidates with financial contributions and by working on their campaigns to ensure that they get elected, since time is short. Once elected, we can strive to persuade them to urgently implement appropriate policies.
After all, who wants human extinction? Presumably, none of us—no matter how jaded we may have become.
We can educate ourselves about the threats by reading widely, including Jacobsen’s excellent books, as well as opinion pieces on the subject, such as ones I’ve written on AI and nuclear weapons. We can do online research to identify, join, financially support, and work with others in public advocacy organizations against threats that are of particular concern to us. We can attend protest rallies and discuss our concerns with friends, encouraging them to also become active, so that we can develop a large public constituency to combat these extreme dangers.
Just a couple of days ago, on October 11, The Lancet Commission on 21st Century Global Threats to Health highlighted 17 major threats to human health over the next 75 years, asserting that, “Malicious use of AI, including bioweapons, and nuclear conflict with nuclear famine [caused by nuclear winter] carry risks of extinction in the next 75 years.” There are so many existential dangers to confront that it can sometimes feel overwhelming and lead us to a state of helplessness when what we need, instead, is a pro-active approach that will foster resourcefulness.
By facing up to our natural tendency to avoid frightening information and by confronting our fears head-on, we can gain a true sense of self-efficacy and social responsibility. In this way, we can save those we love; ensure that future generations thrive; preserve the rich cultural heritage we have created; protect the magnificent array of other species on Earth; and safeguard our beautiful, one-of-a-kind planet—from all of these truly insane and, frankly, evil machinations—often designed by normal people, who have been seduced by competitive processes; rationales that “everyone is doing it”; lucrative remuneration; lapse of conscience; and bad ideas into creating conditions for the most dystopian futures imaginable.
As Gareth Evans, former Australian foreign minister, former president and CEO of the International Crisis Group, and co-chair of the Commission on Nuclear Proliferation and Disarmament has recently commented with regard to the nuclear threat, “It is up to those of us who passionately believe in both the possibility and necessity of a nuclear weapon free world, however disappointed and frustrated we may be right now, to get out there and continue to campaign our hearts out for it.” I suggest that we extend his call to action to all the existential threats we face. After all, who wants human extinction? Presumably, none of us—no matter how jaded we may have become. We must assume responsibility for the continuation of our kind and choose human survival.
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Remembering the Missed Opportunity of Reykjavík as Nuclear Doomsday Looms
Four decades ago, US and Russian leaders came closer than ever to eliminating all nuclear weapons. How can we keep that vision alive today?
Oct 16, 2026
Forty years ago this week President Ronald Reagan and Secretary General Mikhail Gorbachev met from October 11-12 in Reykjavík, Iceland in a hastily organized summit that came closer to the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons than at any point in our nuclear age. This was a time at the peak of the Cold War, when there were roughly 70,000 nuclear weapons in the global arsenals and the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock was set at three minutes till midnight.
Meeting in Geneva in November 1985, the year before, the two leaders made their joint declaration that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” The two Cold Warriors shared an understanding of the horror of nuclear weapons.
The Icelandic summit between the two leaders came together quickly after Reagan gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in September 1986 calling for a nuclear arms reduction accord. This was followed closely by Secretary General Gorbachev extending an offer to meet in October culminating in the Icelandic Summit.
Nuclear war is a real and present danger. It is not a future that must be. But it is the future that will be if we do not act.
At Reykjavík, Gorbachev argued for a 50% reduction in strategic nuclear weapons and total elimination of all intermediate range missiles deployed in Europe. Back-and-forth discussions continued throughout the summit, and in the final hours, Reagan proposed the complete elimination of ALL nuclear arms. The caveat was his unwavering commitment to the flawed Strategic Defense Initiative or so-called “Star Wars,” a protective shield over the planet to protect from nuclear attack. He wanted testing and development to be allowed in space.
In the final hours, Gorbachev insisted that testing be limited to the labs and not in space. And thus the talks collapsed and humanity lost its greatest chance to date to eliminate these weapons.
This summit paved the way for continued dialogue and, in the years to follow, serious, though far less magnanimous, arms control agreements were reached. These included the Intermediate Nuclear Force Treaty, INF, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons, and the 1991 START Treaty dramatically removing approximately 80% of the world's strategic nuclear weapons.
Fast forward 40 years to October 2026. While there have been dramatic reductions in global nuclear arsenals to 12,187 weapons we find ourselves much closer to nuclear war than at any time throughout the entire 81-year nuclear age.
We have the leaders of the two largest nuclear powers reminding the world of their nuclear arsenals and threatening to use them, whether in Russia’s war on Ukraine or Trump‘s repeated threats throughout his terms, both in terms of nuclear button size envy and threats to bring fire and fury on adversaries. His lack of leadership in arms control has allowed treaties to expire on his watch. His careless media bravado in April, posting “a whole civilization will die tonight never to be brought back again,” does little to resolve crises of his own making. Just last month, speaking to world leaders at the 81st opening sessions of the United Nations General Assembly, he asked, “Would there be a deal that let Iran rebuild a greater country than it ever was before?“ After which he considered whether to “annihilate the Islamic Republic” and “drive them into hell with no chance of survival and hope of future greatness or generations?“
Analogous to “Star Wars,“ Trump‘s obsession with being top dog has resulted in his own “Golden Dome,” a proposal to provide an impenetrable shield from a nuclear attack. At a projected cost of $1.2 trillion, the program with a projected success rate of 80% would be better named the “golden sieve.”
Taking into account these nuclear realities, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists this year moved their Doomsday Clock minute hand to 85 seconds to midnight, which is the closest it has ever been since its inception.
In making their decision they have considered:
- The state of current nuclear arsenals with the ongoing modernization of all global arsenals, breakdown in nuclear arms control talks, and current nuclear use rhetoric;
- Climate change complacency and lack of policies;
- Disruptive technologies, including AI, particularly in military settings where nuclear launch scenarios have been posed to AI, and in bio-hazard design capabilities of AI; and
- Bio threats, and misinformation.
Nuclear war is a real and present danger. It is not a future that must be. But it is the future that will be if we do not act. If we do nothing then it is not a matter of “if” nuclear weapons will be used, it is a question of “when.” There are no “right hands” when it comes to controlling the nuclear button, but it is obvious that Trump’s hand must be removed from that possibility. As citizens, we must demand the United States move Back From the Brink of nuclear war, and lead a global effort to abolish these weapons once and for all.
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Democratic Senators Aim to Block Trump Nuclear Deal With Saudi Arabia
"We can't sleepwalk into a decision this consequential. The law gives Congress the power to review and block a deal like this, and the Senate will now have the chance to fulfill its statutory responsibility before it's too late."
Oct 15, 2026
US Sens. Ed Markey and Jeff Merkley on Thursday continued to push back against President Donald Trump's proposed nuclear energy agreement with Saudi Arabia, setting up a vote on legislation that could block the deal before it takes effect.
"Giving Saudi Arabia access to US civilian nuclear energy technology without ironclad protections to make sure it doesn't provide a foundation for a nuclear bomb is unacceptable," declared Merkley (D-Ore.), a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who co-chairs the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group with Markey (D-Mass.).
Under Section 123 of the Atomic Energy Act, Congress has 90 days of continuous session to review the deal. The pair of senators introduced a joint resolution of disapproval, on which the Senate is set to vote after November 29. The JRD would need to pass both GOP-controlled chambers by veto-proof majorities to actually block the agreement.
I refuse to let the U.S. sleepwalk into a dangerous nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia. The law gives Congress the power to review and block a deal like this.@markey.senate.gov and I are making sure the Senate fulfills that responsibility before it’s too late.
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— Senator Jeff Merkley (@merkley.senate.gov) October 15, 2026 at 12:37 PM
The senators are alarmed that Trump's agreement lacks a "gold standard" provision barring Saudi Arabia from reprocessing spent fuel or enriching uranium. They are also alarmed that the proposal doesn't require allowing International Atomic Energy Agency investigators to confirm that the nation is not trying to develop a nuclear weapon.
"It is essential that nations pursuing civilian energy programs agree to the 'gold standard' of restrictions on fuel reprocessing and enrichment and rigorous inspections to ensure that a nuclear energy program doesn't become a covert nuclear weapons program," Merkley argued. "We can't sleepwalk into a decision this consequential. The law gives Congress the power to review and block a deal like this, and the Senate will now have the chance to fulfill its statutory responsibility before it's too late."
The details of the agreement have concerned not only progressive senators, but also nuclear nonproliferation experts.
"The US-Saudi nuclear deal is about megatons, not megawatts. Trump should not be sharing nuclear bomb technology with a nation that US intelligence says may want nuclear weapons," said Markey. "This deal is the starting gun for a Middle East nuclear arms race. Congress must reject it."
The introduction came roughly a month after Markey and Merkley partnered with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) for another JRD designed to block a $5 billion conventional weapons sale to Saudi Arabia, which includes over 10,000 joint direct attack munition guidance kits and a similar number of "dumb bombs" that can be combined to create precision weapons.
"I am deeply concerned by the kingdom's human rights abuses, the security of the region as the war in Iran rages on, and the proxy war that is escalating between Iran and Saudi Arabia in Yemen," Markey said at the time. "Further escalation in the Saudi-Iran proxy war will worsen an already dire humanitarian catastrophe in Yemen and risks setting off a nuclear arms race between Iran and Saudi Arabia."
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