The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has moved the Doomsday Clock closer to midnight, warning that the risk of global catastrophe is rising as nuclear dangers intensify and international restraint breaks down.
The Clock has been reset from 89 seconds to 85 seconds to midnight, reflecting what the Bulletin describes as an increasingly unstable global environment shaped by a renewed nuclear arms race, expanding wars, rapid advances in artificial intelligence and the accelerating impacts of climate change. Together, these pressures are compounding the risk of miscalculation and large-scale harm.
A key factor behind the worsening assessment is the collapse of nuclear arms control. The imminent expiry of the New START Treaty will remove the last remaining legally binding limits on the nuclear arsenals of the United States and Russia, eliminating guardrails that have constrained escalation for more than a decade. The Bulletin warns that without these limits, deployed nuclear weapons are likely to increase, alongside rising competition in space and emerging technologies.
The Doomsday Clock’s warning reinforces a long-standing message from nuclear experts that modernising or adjusting nuclear arsenals does not reduce risk. As long as nuclear weapons exist, the possibility of their use—whether deliberate, accidental or through miscalculation—remains.
ICAN co-founder Associate Professor Tilman Ruff AO said the new setting reflects what nuclear-armed states continue to ignore. He said restraint is breaking down as governments abandon international cooperation, undermine international law and engage in nuclear brinkmanship, while using misinformation and threats to justify expansion of their arsenals.
Ruff said the end of New START marks a critical moment, with the disappearance of the last limits on US and Russian nuclear forces placing the entire world at greater risk. He added that while conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, the integration of artificial intelligence into military systems and climate change all contribute to instability, nuclear weapons remain the most immediate existential threat.
He said decades of arms control efforts have failed to achieve disarmament, and even those limited constraints are now unravelling. Nuclear-armed states, he said, continue to modernise and expand their arsenals while threatening their use, forcing global populations to bear the consequences.
Ruff pointed to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons as the only internationally agreed framework for the elimination of nuclear weapons. He said the treaty exists because traditional arms control approaches have failed, and it establishes a clear global standard that nuclear weapons are illegal and must be abolished.
For Australia, the new Doomsday Clock setting has renewed calls for a shift in national policy. Ruff said Australia cannot credibly respond to the warning while remaining outside the nuclear weapons ban treaty and increasing its involvement in arrangements that support potential use of US nuclear weapons. He cited the planned deployment of B-52 bombers in Australia, which are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, and future submarines likely to do the same.
He said joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons would be the most meaningful step Australia could take to help reverse the trajectory reflected by the Doomsday Clock.
