The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists has announced its Doomsday Clock for 2023, as it has done every year since 1947. The clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight—10 seconds closer than last year’s announcement of 100 seconds to midnight.
“This year, the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves the hands of the Doomsday Clock forward, largely (though not exclusively) because of the mounting dangers of the war in Ukraine. The Clock now stands at 90 seconds to midnight—the closest to global catastrophe it has ever been.”
In the context of last year’s announcement by The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Helga Zepp-LaRouche issued a statement on Feb. 4, titled, “100 Seconds to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock: We Need a New Security Architecture!” Zepp-LaRouche began by noting that the five nuclear powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council had just affirmed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” in a statement issued a month earlier at the start of 2022. She then said that the U.S. Strategic Command, nonetheless, launched their Global Lightning exercise, designed to test the readiness of U.S. nuclear forces, only a few weeks after that joint statement at the United Nations. That exercise was supposed to simulate an “extended” nuclear war, prompting Helga Zepp-LaRouche to ask:
“Who would be able to survive such a prolonged nuclear war? The few people who can nest in deep underground bunkers? It makes the morbid fantasies of Dr. Strangelove look like a child’s birthday party.”
In her statement, Zepp-LaRouche said that these nuclear exercises were not directed solely at Russia, but at China as well. She referred to the fact that Vladmir Putin and Xi Jinping had just issued their 16-page document entitled, “Joint Declaration of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on International Relations Entering a New Era and Global Sustainable Development,” which she described as calling for “replacing geopolitical confrontation with economic cooperation as the basis for a common security policy.”
She continued: “Both nations are calling on NATO to refrain from further expansion plans, to move beyond Cold War thinking, and to enshrine the long-term security guarantees that Russia is demanding. The role of international organizations such as the G20, BRICS, APEC, and ASEAN should be strengthened, they say. Russia will cooperate in realizing China’s proposed ‘Global Development Initiative’ and emphasizes the importance of the concept of the ‘community of a common destiny for mankind.’”
