Nuclear weapons: The greatest threat to humanity
“The Doomsday Clock reminds us that we are the first generation of our species to face so many, in some cases overlapping, conceivable forms of a terrible end to the human project. And this horrifying realisation has a profound impact on all of us living today, although some are aware of it whilst many are not.”
This is how Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor describe our current situation in their new book *Endzeitfaschismus*. It is just seconds to midnight on the Doomsday Clock.
101 states have already signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons – but Germany has not. Yet Germany, of all countries, should certainly not be missing from this list. In June 2022, the signatory states “unequivocally condemned all nuclear threats, whether explicit or implicit, and regardless of the circumstances”.
Nuclear weapons continue to play a role as a potential threat in Russia’s war against Ukraine. Yet UN Secretary-General Guterres said in August 2026: “The world must never again witness a nuclear explosion. I call on all states possessing nuclear weapons… to bring the Treaty on the Comprehensive Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons into force without delay.”
The German action alliance “atomwaffenfrei.jetzt”, a coalition of around 80 peace groups, supports this call by the UN Secretary-General. This also includes the German Federal Government taking part in the first Review Conference on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in December 2026 and advocating for a global ban on nuclear weapons.
Maintaining nuclear weapons in preparation for a possible war, or threatening to use them, remains – alongside climate change – the greatest threat to humanity. We must mobilise the international community against this threat. Everyone has a moral obligation to do so. Our children and grandchildren will one day ask us what we did.
Former US President Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953–1961): “A world under arms wastes not only money. It also wastes the sweat of its workers, the minds of its scientists and the hopes of its children.”
