By: Jacob Rabin

November 26, 2024

In February 2023, Russia announced that it would suspend its participation in the New START treaty, the last remaining check on American and Russian nuclear stockpiles. At this point, there have been no negotiations with Russia on a new nuclear arms treaty.

China and the United States lack such a treaty as well, and China halted recent informal negotiations due to the United States continuing to sell arms to Taiwan.

These three countries represent over 92% of the world’s nuclear weapons. Although China’s stockpile lags far behind the United States and Russia, the Defense Intelligence Agency recently published a report stating that China has surpassed earlier growth projections, and by 2030 it is estimated China will have over 1,000 nuclear warheads.

After a brief respite following the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war has skyrocketed. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock still remains at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been.

The United States government is being forced to respond to these recent developments. The United States is now in the process of a $1.7 trillion nuclear overhaul that is expected to be completed in three decades. The developments include building new nuclear facilities, modernizing aged warheads, developing  bombers, and submarines. Jill Hruby, the Director of the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), the agency that oversees the country’s nuclear weapons, recently called the plan a “renaissance.”

Not only does the plan have massive implications for the future of nuclear war, but even on the home front, these developments will have significant impacts on the communities in which they occur. Although the United States no longer routinely tests nuclear warheads, the effects of even building these weapons have extensive effects. 

In 1989, the last time that the US produced plutonium “pits,” the facility in Colorado where production occurred was actually shut down by the Environmental Protection Agency for environmental violations. The effects persist to this day, with plutonium found in the air near the plant just this past summer.

Other communities will  either be temporarily or permanently changed as thousands of employees descend on rural towns.

This is worrying. As tensions continue to escalate between Russia and Ukraine,, a war in the Middle East becoming increasingly likely, and nonstop posturing in the South China Sea over Taiwan, it’s not like there aren’t ongoing conflicts involving nuclear powers. One mistake or overreaction could genuinely change the future trajectory of the planet.

The simple truth is that we need to be alarmed. This is a multifaceted issue whose neglect will have impacts on people both now and later. We need to bring more attention to his issue. We need to work together  to build a nuclear-free future where countries, including the United States, aren’t devoting trillions of dollars to technology that could legitimately destroy the world.