Nuclear War: Is this the final countdown?

Nine states possess nuclear weapons: the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea. In the first sixth months of 2025, more than half of these states have attacked other countries. Russia continues its war on Ukraine, with the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear sites at ongoing risk of catastrophic damage. India and Pakistan engaged in missile and drone strikes against each other in early May. Israel has compounded its war on Gaza with attacks on civil nuclear facilities in Iran and assassinations of Iranian leaders. In the past few days, the United States has joined Israel in attacking Iran's nuclear facilities, despite no credible evidence that Iran, a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty which has consistently denied it is attempting to attain nuclear weapons, was developing nuclear arms. 

This demonstrates, perhaps, that states which possess nuclear weapons believe they can act with impunity and disregard the normal conventions of international law and diplomacy by engaging in armed aggression against other countries. 

The hypocrisy of states, which themselves are in blatant contravention of international nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation agreements, carrying out an attack on another state on the pretext of preventing it developing nuclear weapons, is staggering. Attacks on nuclear installations of any kind risk significant environmental damage, as well as the potential impact in terms of human casualties. 

More worryingly, it represents a dramatic decline - even a collapse - in the international order, with the structures for seeking diplomatic solutions dangerously close to being replaced to unprecedented international violence on the part of those seeking to reshape the world in their own interests. If this trend continues, the humanitarian and environmental consequences are unthinkable. It is, tragically, hard to avoid the expectation that such untrammeled recourse to international violence outside of any legal framework by nuclear-armed states will not, sooner or later, lead to the use of nuclear weapons. 

When that moment comes, there is no way back from annihilation. 

Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of rapacious aggressors do not make the world a safer place. They hasten the end of the world as we know it. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has warned that we are closer than ever before to nuclear war, and the events of recent months, weeks and days show how rapidly international violence can escalate. Are we entering the final countdown to destruction?

Irish CND unreservedly condemns all acts of international aggression and urges the use of diplomatic solutions to resolve international disputes. We call on the Irish government to be unambiguous in its condemnation of such attacks, and in its support for international fora committed to peaceful resolution of conflicts, and in particular, the role of the United Nations as a force for peace. There is no room for prevarication. 

In light of the most recent developments, we urge the Irish government to ensure that Irish airports, airspace and territorial waters are not used for the transport of military hardware and personnel by any country engaged in international aggression. 

At at time when the role of the United Nations is being seriously weakened by the aggression of nuclear-armed states, we urge the Irish government to desist from any action which diminishes the role of the UN in Irish foreign policy, particularly in relation to the current debate on the circumstances of the deployment of Irish soldiers in peace-keeping missions. 

Nuclear-buttressed international attacks lead only along a downward trajectory towards destruction. We join our global partners in the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons in calling for re-commitment to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and full implementation of its provisions, and in calling for the universalisation and full implementation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. 

Nuclear Ban Treaty needed more than ever in an uncertain world

The third Meeting of States Parties (MSP) to the Treaty on the Prohibition of NuclearWeapons gets underway at the United Nations in New York on 3^rd March 2025. Civil society organisations will also participate in events during Nuclear Ban Week, including the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), of which Irish CND is a member. 

Photo: ICAN

Nuclear-armed states remain engaged in deadly conflicts in Ukraine and in the Middle East. Rhetoric around the possible use of nuclear weapons in these conflicts has been deeply regrettable, and risks lowering the bar to a dangerous level in discourse on the acceptability of using so-called tactical nuclear weapons, many of which are far more powerful than the bombs which annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. The weaponisation of nuclear facilities likewise casts a frightening shadow of potential destruction.

Nuclear-armed states are pouring vast sums of money into modernising and expanding their deadly arsenals. The United States, in contravention of its commitments under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), continues to station nuclear warheads in Europe. Russia has recently followed suit by moving nuclear arms to neighbouring Belarus. Preparations are reportedly underway for the return of American nuclear weapons to the UK. 

In January 2025, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved the Doomsday Clock to 89 seconds to midnight, the closest point to symbolic doom it has ever represented. Their in-depth analysis of the nuclear threat stated: “Longstanding concerns about nuclear weapons—involving the modernization and expansion of arsenals in all nuclear weapons countries, the build-up of new capabilities, the risks of inadvertent or deliberate nuclear use, the loss of arms control agreements, and the possibility of nuclear proliferation to new countries—continued or were amplified in 2024.” The increasing threats from climate change, biological risks and disruptive technologies all likewise fed into the Bulletin’s negative appraisal.

Even in this bleak scenario, there is hope.

The TPNW explicitly outlaws nuclear weapons, and has now been signed or ratified by almost half the UN membership. The Treaty sets out a clear framework on advancing nuclear disarmament as required by Article 6 of the NPT, and contains vital provisions for victim assistance and environmental remediation, recognising the disproportionate harm caused by nuclear weapons and related activities on women and girls, and on indigenous peoples.

Work on progressing these aspects of the Treaty, as well as on the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, the compatibility of the Treaty with the NPT (an area headed up by Ireland), and the fallacy of nuclear deterrence will be among the themes discussed during the meeting.

Recent research by ICAN and PAX has shown that the stigmatisation of nuclear weapons since the entry into force of the TPNW in 2021 has prompted a marked drop-off in financial institutions investing in companies directly involved in the nuclear weapons industry, with a 23% reduction over less than four years. Both AIB and Bank of Ireland are listed among more than 100 institutions whose investment policies now explicitly exclude nuclear weapons companies. The exclusion of nuclear weapons in their current investment policies reflects the impact of Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Act (2019), which gave effect to the provisions of the TPNW in Irish law.

A proposal to establish an expert panel to examine the potential effects of nuclear war, put forward by Ireland and New Zealand, was overwhelmingly approved by the UN General Assembly in 2024. Work on this expert report is expected to get underway this year, with the report due in 2027. This will be the first report of its kind for several decades, and should serve as a timely reminder of inevitable annihilation that would be intrinsic to nuclear war.

Several times since returning to power in the United States, President Donald Trump has outlined his intention to engage in nuclear disarmament negotiations with Russia and China “in a very big way.” Referring to the costs of the nuclear weapons programme, he spoke of how this represents “spending a lot of money that we could be spending on things that are actually hopefully much more productive.” Considering the possibility that nuclear weapons might ever be used, he concluded his comments with “That’s going to be a very sad day. That’s going to be probably oblivion.”

Campaigners and non-nuclear states having been saying this clearly for decades, so it is encouraging to hear the leader of the country with one of the world’s largest caches of nuclear arms speak in such terms. We hope that his counterparts in Russia and China – and in the other nuclear-armed states – will join him and will match words with actions.

If President Trump is indeed serious about nuclear disarmament, then there is already a clear pathway to that goal, through engaging with the TPNW processes and verifiably putting nuclear weapons out of existence. The USA spent $51.5 billion dollars on nuclear weapons in 2023, over half of the total outlay among nine nuclear-armed states of more than $91billion. It does not take either a genius or a president to work out that such vast amounts of money could and should be spent on things that are, in President Trump’s words, “much more productive”.

There is hope.

Nihon Hidankyo awarded 2024 Nobel Peace Prize

The 2024 Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to Nihon Hidankyo, the Japanese Confederation of Atomic and Hydrogen Bomb Sufferers Organizations, with the award presented at the annual ceremony in Oslo on 10^th December. The ceremony, including the Nobel Lecture delivered by Terumi Tanaka, can be viewed online here.

The award recognizes Nihon Hidankyo, in the words of the Nobel Committee, “for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again.”

Despite immense personal suffering as a result of the impact of the bombs that annihilated Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, survivors of the blasts have borne unfailing witness to the horrific humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons. Their experience and advocacy stand out in the struggle to rid the world of these merciless weapons of mass destruction.

The Irish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament congratulates Nihon Hidankyo on the award of the Nobel Peace Prize, recognizing the power of their courage and determination in exposing the ghastly truth about nuclear weapons, often while battling the personal scars of ill-health, social stigma and advancing age.  

No nuclear weapon has been used in nearly 80 years, but today the number of nuclear-armed and nuclear-capable states is growing. Nuclear arsenals across three continents are being modernized at vast expense.

International treaties limiting nuclear arms stocks have been ended or shelved. Discussions on the future of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, for long considered the bedrock of a supposedly safe nuclear order, broke up earlier this year without agreement.

Bellicose rhetoric invoking the real possibility of the use of nuclear weapons – taboo for many years – has become an all-too-frequent feature of statements by politicians in nuclear-armed states, including Russia and the United States, who still hold over 90% of the global nuclear stockpile.

Even the so-called smaller “tactical” nuclear weapons of today are generally more powerful, more destructive than those which inflicted such destruction on Hiroshima and Nagasaki nearly 80 years ago.

If nuclear weapons are ever used again, the scale of destruction will inevitably be far greater than that which caused such suffering to the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Far too many “near-misses” have already been documented. While nuclear warheads remain ready to fire, life on earth as we know it remains just minutes away from an apocalyptic end.

We have been dependent on luck to avoid that fate for too long. Sooner or later, whether through malice, machismo, miscalculation or malfunction, that luck will run out.

Twice in the past decade, the Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to an organization highlighting the horror of nuclear warfare and calling for an end to nuclear weapons. In 2017, the International Campaign for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons (ICAN, of which Irish CND is a member), also received the award for its work, particularly its efforts to create an international treaty explicitly outlawing nuclear weapons, which came into force in 2021 as the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.

The voices of those who survived the atomic bombs of 1945, invoking in turn the silence of the hundreds of thousands more who did not survive, need to be heard more than ever today.

We cannot afford not to listen.

Irish CND, together with our colleagues across the world working for the abolition of nuclear arms, calls on all states to ratify the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. We call on the leaders of nuclear-armed states, in particular, to heed the call of those who have experienced the utter depravity of nuclear warfare, and to put their countries’ stocks of nuclear warheads out of use forever.