The world’s richest man, President Donald Trump’s hatchet man Elon Musk, and his Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) have unbridled access to the government’s data and computer systems.
Earlier this month, the systems in the Department of Energy, which oversees America’s nuclear weapons, were accessed. This news raised enough concern that Secretary of Energy Chris Wright went on the air to deny that Musk and DOGE have access to atomic nuclear codes. Wright told CNBC’s Brian Sullivan, “I’ve heard these rumors. They’re like seeing our nuclear secrets. None of that is true at all.”
It’s absurd and frightening that we must be concerned about unelected “tech bros” like Musk getting anywhere near the U.S. nuclear codes.
On Jan. 29, Fresno community members who consider themselves too young to die participated in an event at the Robert E. Coyle Federal Building. The event started with a “die-in” to dramatize the threat of nuclear war with the participation of about 50 people. It was followed by speakers and a protest to demand that President Trump and Congress stop nuclear madness by joining the Nuclear Weapons Ban Treaty.
The event was organized by a coalition of peace and advocacy organizations, including Peace Fresno, Raza Against War, the Palestine Liberation Group, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom–Fresno, the Fresno Center for Nonviolence, Veterans for Peace–Fresno, Fresno for Palestine, Back from the Brink and the Fresno County Libertarian Party.
The rising threat of all-out nuclear war increases daily. The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic timepiece that represents how close humanity is to destroying itself. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a Chicago-based nonprofit, set the clock at 90 seconds to midnight in 2023, the closest the clock has ever been to midnight. It was reset on Jan. 28 to 89 seconds to midnight.
In 2019, President Trump withdrew from the cold war’s Intermediate Nuclear Missile pact, aka the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) treaty, between the United States and the Soviet Union. That led to a new nuclear arms race. The world’s nine nuclear powers spent $91.4 billion on their nuclear arsenals in 2023. The U.S. share was $51.5 billion.
The ongoing genocide in Gaza and other Israeli aggression in the region could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. Israel is estimated to have 80–400 nuclear weapons. Israel neither confirms nor denies the existence of these weapons. It is unknown whether Iran has developed a nuclear weapon, and Israel has repeatedly threatened to attack Iran.
The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that Israel has approximately 90 intact nuclear weapons, of which 50 are thought to be assigned for delivery by land-based Jericho ballistic missiles and 30 are gravity bombs for delivery by F-16I or F-15 aircraft.
The ongoing war in Ukraine could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. Today, the United States deploys 1,419 and Russia deploys 1,549 strategic warheads on several hundred bombers and missiles, and both are modernizing their nuclear delivery systems. Russia’s recent development of a hypersonic missile delivery system increases the threat dramatically.
Warheads are counted using the provisions of the New START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) agreement, which was extended for five years in January 2021. Russia suspended its participation in the treaty on Feb. 21, 2023; in response, the United States instituted countermeasures limiting information sharing and inspections.
We are closer to nuclear war than ever, and it could even start by mistake or accident. There have been more than two dozen times in the past when nuclear war nearly broke out by mistake or miscommunication.
Dan Yaseen, president of Peace Fresno, says that “Dr. Martin Luther King said on April 4, 1967, that the United States is the greatest purveyor of violence in the world. It is still true today.
“We are here to ask President Trump and Congress to stop the war in Ukraine, end all military aid to Israel and restart the nuclear weapons ban treaty. Peace Fresno and our coalition members agree with the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
“We are on the brink—only 89 seconds from a nuclear catastrophe. The time to stop the nuclear madness is now. We are concerned about the survival of this planet.”
Camille Russell, also with Peace Fresno, explained the origins of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and the Nuclear Doomsday Clock. “It was created by those scientists that worked on the Manhattan Project to create the nuclear bomb in 1947. Then, it was seven seconds to midnight.” The time has varied over the years, but now we are closer to nuclear annihilation than at any time since 1947.
The organizers of the “die-in” issued the following statement:
We teeter on a precipice no human has ever witnessed before. It is a precipice of great evil. We say evil because with one detonation of one thermonuclear warhead, millions of lives will be gone. We say evil because with one warhead will come more warheads and billions of lives will be gone. We say evil because a general exchange of nuclear weapons would end most life on Earth.
We align ourselves with the thinking of those who are concerned that the world is on a downward spiral toward climate catastrophe and our nation increasingly wastes its scarce resources on weapons that are ultimately useless except to line pockets the of the Military Industrial Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academic-Think-Tank Complex (MICIMATT).
International security would best be served by committing a World War level of effort to address the climate crisis rather than preparing for every conceivable military threat. With an accelerated global reduction and rapid elimination of nuclear weapons, the risk of nuclear confrontation will be greatly reduced, will bring us back from the precipice, and will ensure future generations will be born.
Currently, 14,000 nuclear bombs exist; 13,000 of them are controlled by the US and Russia. With a US proposed budget of nearly two trillion dollars in the next 30 years for two new bomb factories, new missiles, planes, submarines, and redesigned warheads, it is clear that the US is not acting in “good faith” for a “cessation of the arms race at an early date” as required by the 1970 Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), to which it is a signatory.
Various proposals to bring the US back to a place of acting in good faith include:
- The US immediately cease its “modernization” program and redirect funds to implement non-carbon, non-nuclear energy systems, reduce the impact of climate change and provide for societal needs;
- The US immediately separate all the warheads from their delivery systems and make the world safer from unintended nuclear catastrophe;
- US nuclear weapons be removed from other countries;
- Re-implement the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and eliminate all missile “defense” systems;
- Ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty;
- Negotiate with Russia to reduce our nuclear arsenals to 1,000 nuclear weapons each and call all the other parties to the table to negotiate for a treaty to ABOLISH nuclear weapons.
Many more proposals exist that the US could implement but that would require the will to do so. The world is a much more dangerous place with nuclear weapons, particularly given the current confrontations among nuclear-armed nations.
Activist efforts to restrain US militarism and intervention around the globe, to cut the military budget, and to encourage mutual respect and diplomacy among nations must therefore go hand-in-hand with efforts to reduce and eliminate all nuclear weapons.
The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), which went into effect January 22, 2021, is an historic and extremely important event. It expresses the clear desire of the peoples of the world to be free from nuclear weapons and the threat of a nuclear war that could end human civilization.
We thank Veterans for Peace for their Nuclear Posture Review, from which many ideas expressed here were taken. Together, we can step away from the precipice threatening our very existence. Together we can ignite that which is needed now more than ever and that is a notable and profound transformation in the way the US thinks about its posture towards the rest of the world.
We say, “Let’s give peace a chance.” We say, “Abolish nuclear weapons.”
