The candidates in the coming election in the United States have said little, certainly nothing coherently, about nuclear weapons. Yet those weapons continue to haunt us, even as they move in and out of our conscious awareness.

The Democrats’ 2024 party platform approved on the first night of the convention claims that the Biden administration “is showing what it means to act responsibly as a nuclear power.” But nuclear weapons were scarcely mentioned during the United Center speeches, if at all. Where were all the nukes?

NPR’s Ayesha Rascoe speaks to nuclear expert James Acton from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace about the dangers of what is being called the new nuclear age.

Nuclear weapons offer an illusion of security. By allowing the U.S. nuclear posture to shift from deterrence to employment, there will be a scenario where the U.S. will use nuclear weapons. And then it’s lights out.

The Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists – a crucial barometer and guide in helping preserve the survival of the human race – has now been set at 90 seconds to Midnight since January 2023, the closest setting to Midnight – defined as the outbreak of thermonuclear war – it has ever been.

The military is already upgrading warheads capable of fighting a war with both China and Russia simultaneously

I’d need to write a book to fully answer these questions crucial for the future of life on our planet. The truth is that I’m scared shitless about the global situation. To borrow a phrase from George Kennan, we are like lemmings blindly venturing toward the abyss of nuclear war. All the latest indications are increasingly ominous, but no leaders are doing what is necessary to avert this catastrophe. Instead, the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

The recent collapse of nuclear weapons talks between China and the United States in July 2024, followed the withdrawal by the U.S. and Russia from long-established nuclear weapons treaties, like the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, (ABM) Intermediate-Range Forces Treaty (INF), and The Iran Nuclear Deal (JPCOA). Nuclear tensions have regressed to dangerous levels not seen since the Cold War.

It’s the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, and tensions between nuclear powers are spiking again. Citizen movements against nuclear weapons have always been crucial to avoiding nuclear war, and we need them as much as ever.

Money and political influence play an outsized role in US military force posture, like the $141 billion Sentinel