"Physicists helped end the Cold War nuclear arms race. Now we need to get involved again"
The danger of deliberate nuclear use diminished with the end of the Cold War but came to the fore again in 2022 with President Putin’s threats of nuclear use in connection with his invasion of Ukraine. In parallel, the great achievements of nuclear arms control have been destroyed or are under threat – currently even the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. Physicists worked to prevent nuclear arms races, starting with Niels Bohr’s efforts to prevent a US-Soviet nuclear arms race in meetings with President Roosevelt and Winston Churchill in 1944 and James Franck’s and Leo Szilard’s efforts in 1945 to have nuclear weapons revealed to the world through a demonstration for the UN rather than through the destruction of Japanese cities.
A large fraction of U.S. and Russian strategic missiles remain in their Cold War launch-on- warning postures. The danger of accidental nuclear war may have increased in an era when hackers are able penetrate our most sensitive computer systems. With both Russia and the U.S. actively replacing their nuclear weapons with “modern” versions, China building up its nuclear arsenal and six other nuclear-armed states, there is no end in sight. Physicists invented nuclear arms control and contributed to its development. It is time to engage again. In 2019, the American Physical Society supported the establishment of a new Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction – now numbering 1700 – to help physicists educate themselves and their Representatives and Senators on the dangers and policies that could reduce them.
