Nuclear Weapons: 89 Seconds to Midnight and No One at the Wheel

How Close Are We to Nuclear War?

Closer than at any point in human history. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists' Doomsday Clock — maintained since 1947 by the scientists who built the first nuclear weapons — now sits at 85 seconds to midnight. That's closer than the Cuban Missile Crisis. Closer than the peak of the Cold War arms race. And the factors driving it are getting worse, not better.

Russia and Ukraine. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has produced the most direct nuclear threats from a major power since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Putin has explicitly invoked Russia's nuclear arsenal, lowered Russia's declared threshold for nuclear use, deployed tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, and suspended participation in New START — the last remaining treaty limiting US and Russian nuclear arsenals. Russia maintains approximately 5,580 nuclear warheads, the largest arsenal on Earth. The conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated that nuclear-armed states can wage aggressive wars while using their arsenals as shields against intervention.

China's nuclear buildup. China is expanding its nuclear arsenal faster than any country since the Cold War. From approximately 200 warheads a decade ago, China now possesses 400+ and is on track to exceed 1,000 by 2030 according to the Pentagon. China has constructed over 300 new missile silos in its western desert, is developing a nuclear triad (land, sea, and air delivery), and has rejected all calls to join arms control negotiations. This buildup is destabilizing because it occurs outside any treaty framework.

Arms control collapse. The architecture of agreements that constrained nuclear weapons for decades is disintegrating. The US withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019. The Iran nuclear deal was abandoned in 2018. The Open Skies Treaty ended in 2020. New START's future is uncertain. North Korea continues expanding its arsenal with no diplomatic engagement. India and Pakistan, both nuclear-armed, regularly exchange military threats over Kashmir. For the first time since the atomic age began, there is no active negotiation between the two largest nuclear powers on reducing their arsenals.

The world has 12,121 nuclear warheads across nine states. The systems that prevent their use — treaties, hotlines, diplomatic channels, mutual understanding — are weaker now than at any point in the last 50 years. This is not a drill. For the broader security context, see our defense and national security page.

Who Can Launch Nuclear Weapons — and What Checks Exist?

In the United States, one person — the president — has the sole, unchecked authority to order a nuclear strike that could kill hundreds of millions of people and end civilization as we know it. There are no checks. There is no balance. There is no vote.

The four-minute window. If early warning systems detect an incoming nuclear attack, the president has approximately four minutes to decide whether to launch a retaliatory strike. In that window, the president is briefed by military advisors, chooses from pre-set strike options, and issues the order. The Secretary of Defense verifies the president's identity and transmits the order — but has no authority to refuse it. If the secretary refuses, the president can fire them and issue the order to the next in the chain of command. The entire process, from decision to missile launch, can take less than ten minutes.

No congressional approval required. Despite the Constitution granting Congress the power to declare war, nuclear launch authority has never been subject to legislative check. No law requires the president to consult Congress, the cabinet, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, or anyone else before ordering a nuclear strike. This arrangement was designed in the early Cold War when the primary concern was retaliatory speed — the idea that if Soviet missiles were incoming, there would be no time for deliberation. That logic assumed a massive surprise attack requiring immediate response — a scenario that, while not impossible, is far less likely than the other scenarios where a president might consider nuclear use.

Why this is insane. No other decision in human history carries the consequences of a nuclear launch order. A single Trident submarine carries roughly 90 warheads, each 6-30 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The US has 14 Trident submarines. The decision to use these weapons — a decision that could kill hundreds of millions of people, trigger nuclear winter, collapse global agriculture, and end organized civilization — rests with one human being, under time pressure, with no requirement for consultation or approval. We require more checks to approve a federal highway project than to end civilization.

The Common Good plan requires congressional authorization for any first use of nuclear weapons, while preserving the president's authority to respond to a confirmed nuclear attack. This is not a radical proposal — it is a minimum standard of democratic governance over the most consequential decision a nation can make. See our government accountability page for more on executive power constraints.

How Does the Common Good Nuclear Plan Work?

The Common Good nuclear plan is built on a single principle: reduce the risk of nuclear war through every available mechanism — democratic oversight, arms control, minimum deterrence, and nonproliferation — without compromising America's security.

The plan has eight provisions, each addressing a specific failure in current nuclear policy. Together, they create a framework that is safer, cheaper, and more democratically accountable than the status quo.

• No First Use Policy: Declare that the United States will never use nuclear weapons first. This reduces the risk of miscalculation, reassures adversaries that US nuclear weapons are defensive, and brings US policy in line with China and India. Critics argue NFU weakens deterrence; the evidence from countries that have adopted it shows no such effect.
• Congressional Authorization for First Strike: Require congressional approval before any first use of nuclear weapons. The president retains sole authority to respond to a confirmed incoming nuclear attack — the four-minute scenario — but cannot initiate nuclear war unilaterally. This is the minimum standard of democratic accountability for a civilization-ending decision.
• Extend and Expand Arms Control: Extend New START and pursue a successor agreement that covers all warhead types, includes limits on tactical nuclear weapons, and creates a framework for bringing China into multilateral arms control. Arms control works: the treaties of the 1970s-2010s reduced global arsenals from 70,000 warheads to 12,121.
• Rejoin Arms Control Frameworks: Seek to restore the arms control architecture dismantled in recent years: re-engage on the INF Treaty's objectives, pursue a new Open Skies agreement, and return to diplomatic engagement with Iran and North Korea on nuclear issues. The alternative — a world with no constraints on nuclear weapons — is more dangerous than any imperfect agreement.
• Reduce Arsenal to Minimum Deterrence: Reduce the US arsenal from approximately 5,044 warheads to 1,000 — a level that multiple studies, including by former military officials, confirm is more than sufficient for credible deterrence. A single Trident submarine can destroy any nation on Earth. We do not need 5,044 warheads to deter attack.
• Invest in Nonproliferation: Strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, fund the IAEA, support the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, and invest in the technologies that detect and prevent nuclear proliferation. Every dollar spent on nonproliferation saves thousands on the consequences of a new nuclear state.
• Engage with the Nuclear Ban Treaty: While the US cannot immediately join the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (signed by 93 countries), it should attend as an observer and engage constructively with the treaty's objectives. Dismissing the global movement against nuclear weapons alienates allies and undermines American moral authority.
• Redirect Modernization Savings: The current $1.7 trillion modernization program is bloated beyond strategic necessity. The Sentinel ICBM program alone is 81% over budget. Reduce modernization to the systems actually required for minimum deterrence and redirect savings to conventional military readiness, infrastructure, and domestic needs.

For the complete nuclear policy with sourcing and implementation details, see the full nuclear weapons issue page.

How Do Nuclear Arsenals Compare Globally?

Nine countries possess nuclear weapons. Two of them — the United States and Russia — hold approximately 88% of the global total. The asymmetries in arsenal size, doctrine, and transparency have profound implications for global security.

The table reveals several critical facts. The US and Russia together hold over 10,000 warheads — enough to destroy civilization many times over. Only two countries have No First Use policies. Only one bilateral treaty constrains the two largest arsenals, and its future is uncertain. China is engaged in the largest nuclear buildup outside a treaty framework. India and Pakistan — nuclear-armed rivals who share a contested border — are both expanding their arsenals. And North Korea's program continues to advance with no diplomatic engagement.

Sources: Federation of American Scientists, SIPRI Yearbook, US Department of Defense Annual Report to Congress. See the full nuclear weapons issue page for detailed sourcing.

What Would a Nuclear War Actually Mean?

Nuclear war is discussed in abstractions — "deterrence," "strategic stability," "escalation ladders." The reality is concrete and the reason we avoid describing it is that it is unbearable to contemplate. But policy made without confronting consequences is not policy — it is denial.

A single warhead on a major city. A single W88 warhead — the type carried on US Trident submarine missiles — has a yield of 475 kilotons, roughly 30 times the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Detonated over Manhattan, it would create a fireball one mile in diameter, killing everyone within it instantly. The blast wave would destroy every building within three miles. Third-degree burns would extend for five miles in every direction. Fallout would render parts of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut uninhabitable. Estimated immediate casualties: 1.5-2 million dead. Estimated injuries: 3-4 million. And this is one warhead. A Trident submarine carries up to 90.

Nuclear winter. Climate modeling by Rutgers University and other institutions shows that a nuclear war involving even a fraction of existing arsenals would inject millions of tons of soot into the stratosphere, blocking sunlight and reducing global temperatures by 5-10 degrees Celsius for a decade. Growing seasons would shorten or vanish across much of the Northern Hemisphere. A full-scale US-Russia exchange — involving roughly 4,000 warheads — would produce temperature drops not seen since the last Ice Age.

Global famine. Nuclear winter would collapse global agriculture. A 2022 study published in Nature Food estimated that a full-scale nuclear war would kill 5 billion people from famine alone — not from the blasts, not from radiation, but from the collapse of the food supply. Even a "limited" nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan (100 warheads, less than 1% of global arsenals) would put 2 billion people at risk of starvation due to crop failures caused by atmospheric soot.

Why deterrence is not enough. Deterrence theory assumes rational actors, perfect information, and functioning communication. History shows that near-misses have occurred repeatedly — false alarms, miscommunications, technical malfunctions — and that we have survived as much through luck as through strategy. Deterrence has worked so far. But a system that relies on perfection in perpetuity, with consequences of failure measured in billions of lives, is not a system anyone should be comfortable with. Deterrence must be supplemented with arms control, risk reduction, and democratic oversight. See the defense page for the full security framework.

What Are the Biggest Myths About Nuclear Weapons?

Nuclear weapons policy is shaped by myths that serve the interests of the defense industry and the national security bureaucracy. These myths persist because challenging them is politically uncomfortable — but they lead to policies that make us less safe, not more.

Nuclear Weapons Policy: Frequently Asked Questions

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