Nuclear Ban Daily, Vol. 5, No. 1
Editorial: Demanding Disarmament Amidst Rising Fascism
27 February 2025
By Ray Acheson
TPNW states parties and signatories are gathering for their third meeting at a time of rising fascism and accelerating militarism. The chaotic evil characters that have taken charge of the US government are dismantling their own democracy, establishing a dictatorship, fomenting and financing fascism elsewhere, and implementing governance by artificial intelligence (AI). In relation to nuclear weapons, the accidental firing of National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) workers and intentional hiring of OpenAI to manage nuclear security offer an indication of how things are going with the physical stockpile. The firing of military lawyers to remove “roadblocks” to “anything that happens” indicate what lies ahead.
While the US President has said denuclearisation is a “beautiful term” and that he wants to cut the military budget in half, his regime is actually requesting more money for militarism, moving funds around instead of making actual cuts, and continuing to invest in nuclear weapon modernisation. The military-industrial complex and its team of well-funded lobbyists are making sure that the young white supremacist misogynists that make up Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency don’t come anywhere near their costly and deadly toys. More broadly, believing anything a fascist says about wanting to reduce his capacity to wield massive violence is likely a fool’s errand.
Of course, nuclear weapon spending and modernisation was not invented by the Trump regime; the Democrats have done a bang-up job for decades, refusing to fulfil their legal obligation to disarm and designing the multi-trillion dollar plan for revitalising the nuclear-industrial complex, from brand new intercontinental ballistic missiles that put the entire North American continent at risk to plutonium cores that cost 200 times more than their weight in gold.
And, of course, the United States is not the only nuclear-armed state to blame for the grim state of current affairs. All nine of the nuclear-armed states and their allies that include nuclear weapons in their security doctrines have perpetuated the possession and modernisation of nuclear weapons to the detriment of global security and planetary well-being. And they each continue along this grave road—most recently, the UK prime minister has announced that he is cutting aid to finance more militarism; Russia’s government has been emboldened by the new US regime to pursue its annexation of Ukraine; Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians while occupying and bombing several states in the Middle East, and so on. Meanwhile, hundreds of weapon contractors and financial institutions are profiteering from global investments in nuclear arsenals, which reached about 91.3 billion USD in 2023.
But this is not a time for despair; it’s time for action. The bleak reality of this Brave New World is all the more reason for TPNW supporters to work for the abolition of nuclear weapons. For eighty years we have had to live under the threat of massive nuclear violence. During that time, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed, injured, displaced, or harmed by nuclear weapon use and testing. This cannot continue. The luck through which we have somehow so far avoided global annihilation cannot hold.
The threat of use of these weapons is higher than ever—whether by accident from an AI hallucination or from the whim of a wannabe king. The ongoing geopolitical turmoil, with new threats of imperialism and changes in alliances, also demonstrate clearly why nuclear weapons must be eliminated urgently. Amidst uncertainty and unpredictability, more governments are thinking about or actively discussing nuclear weapon acquisition. Nuclear deterrence doctrine has done its job of making the atomic bomb attractive to political “leaders” who feel insecure, which means that unless we take urgent action to stop it, proliferation looms ahead.
The TPNW is the best place for action. There is plenty already on the table. The UN panel on the effects of nuclear war—which emerged from a suggestion of the TPNW Scientific Advisory Group at 2MSP and was established by a UN General Assembly resolution last year—is currently being set up. This is something all states, scientists, and activists can engage in to advance knowledge about nuclear weapons based on lived experience, not theoretical concepts, and to advance the abolition of nuclear weapons as the solution to the risks of nuclear war.
Everything the TPNW community does should be in solidarity with and based on learnings taught by those with lived experiences of resisting empire and the bomb. During 3MSP, the Nuclear Truth Project is hosting community hubs and a side event that offer opportunities to engage with affected communities, and its protocols offer guidance for working together with respect and reciprocity.
The TPNW’s intersessional work on the proposed trust fund to support survivors of nuclear violence must move forward, as must tangible discussions and decisions on implementing the treaty’s provisions and previously agreed action points on gender, universality, complementarity, and security concerns.
Overall, the TPNW community needs to tangibly confront the nuclear arms race and the theories that sustain it, such as deterrence and geostrategic security. Nuclear abolition is not an abstract goal, it is a concrete reality that can be achieved through divestment, direct action, and determined political engagement.
Now is not the time for playing it safe. Now is a time of monsters, and only through refusal of fear and harm can we make the changes we need to survive, together.
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