Our Inheritance: A Scary World

Once Upon A Time (in 1945) Albert Einstein and some University of Chicago scientists who were previously involved in the Manhattan Project founded the Doomsday Clock.

Using the metaphor of a clock ticking down to zero, it conveys threats to humanity and the planet.

The Clock is set each year by some very smart people from the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in consultation with its Board of Sponsors which includes 10 Nobel Laureates.

Since its creation, the Doomsday Clock has become a “universally recognized indicator of the world’s vulnerability to global catastrophe”.

In 1984, the Cold War was arguably at its height. The world was rife with fear and tension as the US and the Soviet Union, two heavily armed nuclear superpowers, continued to compete in a rapidly escalating nuclear arms race. That year, the Clock was set at 3 minutes to midnight.

Forty years later the world has gone through so much, changed so much.

We now have smartphones! 

We have Amazon Prime! 

We can watch all the cat videos we could ever want!

But now, forty years later, as of 16 January 2024, the Doomsday Clock is at 90 seconds to midnight.

It adds that we are living in “a time of unprecedented danger”.

Even without the clock, many of us know or feel like we're living in a time of unprecedented danger.

Sadly, and maybe unsurprisingly, your feelings are probably widely shared. Not just by an international group of atomic scientists, but by a large amount of the world population.

I think many of us are scared of what the future holds but we don’t know how to talk about it.

We’ve been through so much recently and we’re still going through a lot. 

And yet, it feels like there’s a lot more over the horizon.

It wasn’t so long ago that we all went through a global pandemic. It feels surreal how significant it was, not only to our lives but to world history.

Not even accounting for the actual health issue caused by the virus, the pandemic exposed many issues in our globalised society including a deep fragility in our current systems.

The rampant economic downturn, an ensuing cost-of-living crisis, entrenched political polarisation, the growing distrust in almost every longstanding institution including the media, politicians, and even medical bodies.

The pandemic alone would have been enough to keep us busy for a long time.

However, only a few weeks after US President Biden announced that the Covid global health emergency was coming to an end, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Meant to be a blitzkrieg invasion, US intelligence agencies estimated that Ukraine would be conquered within a few days. As we all know this isn’t what happened; the invasion evolved into a drawn-out war which has now lasted two years.

While the war is now our “new normal” the amount of tension it has created in the international system is staggering. 

Discussions abounded about a restructuring of the international system and a new potential economic and political divide that would partition the world.

The BRICS countries held talks on creating alternative international financial and economic structures to divorce themselves from Western-dominated systems.

Saudi Arabia felt confident and bold enough to ignore Biden’s phone calls when the US approached for oil following the ensuing deficit from cutting off Russian oil.

Towards the end of 2022, Biden was warning of a potential nuclear “Armageddon” due to Russian actions during their ongoing invasion of Ukraine.

Adding to the chaos, China has become far more aggressive about its claims on Taiwan with strong rhetoric and daily incursions into Taiwanese airspace. Unlike with Ukraine, the US has promised a military response to an invasion of Taiwan; in other words, promising the start of World War 3.

With both China and the US posturing with military mobilisation and forceful rhetoric, tensions have only swelled. 

On the other hand, there was the thing with the pandas, but personally, that hasn’t really allayed my concerns.

Now we have the Israel-Gaza war. We have watched from our phones in an almost ghoulish fashion as this war has led to a horrifically high number of casualties. In its first month, more children were killed than in all other conflicts combined since 2019.

Concerns of a regional war abound. Such a conflict would involve at least Iran and its militias spread throughout the region, Lebanon’s Hezbollah, and even the Houthis in Yemen as potential players. The US has even moved two carrier strike groups to the region, something not seen since the Iraq war.

Recently Israel killed a Hamas leader in the Lebanese capital by drone strike. The strike which also accompanies previous exchanges of missiles from both sides at the border has raised tensions and pushes us closer to a regional war. Additionally, the US and its allies launched airstrikes on the Houthis in Yemen achieving the same result.

So…to summarize…

Russia is actively pursuing their goals, most of which are antagonistic to the US. They are willing to undertake military force to achieve said goals. How far they are willing to continue to go is currently unknown, but they have threatened the use of nuclear weapons.

China has doubled down on its claim to Taiwan and is continuously entering its air and sea territories. There is a very strong possibility that should they see the right opportunity, they would invade Taiwan. The US is committed to a military response should this happen.

The Israel-Gaza war has seen players like Iran and Hezbollah stating a willingness to act. The US appears to be committed to being involved in a response to any such action. The Israeli strike in Lebanon and recently a US-led strike against the Houthis in Yemen indicate an encroaching regional war.

The US is spread thin across the world. Its involvement in all these situations means that an escalation in one situation likely will lead to an escalation in all the others.

For example, if the US gets involved in a regional war in the Middle East, China will likely see that as an opportunity to seize Taiwan.

In other words, we have all these different powder kegs waiting to blow, and it is likely that if one explodes, they all will.

Now let’s be clear- it is entirely possible that I have misread the entire situation. It is possible that this can all blow over and everything will be fine.

However, humanity is flirting with global catastrophe. 

Just like any attempt at flirting, nothing may come of it.

But something might.

Powerful individuals in all these different countries are actively calling for conflict and blood.

We are probably closer to a third world war than we ever have been.

And while it should be unnecessary to say (yet the number of people who advocate for war daily apparently indicates that it isn’t), the sheer cost of a global war should be so dauntingly horrific that any possibility should be considered absolutely unacceptable.

But when we look at our politicians, we see them using more aggressive rhetoric, stronger stances, more mobilisation, more weapons, more military.

We are living in a world where people struggle to heat their homes yet billions are spent on big metal things that go boom.

We seem to live in a world that is edging, day by day, closer and closer to a global conflagration never seen before in human history.

Yet, there are no serious attempts at peacebuilding or bridging divides.

And all of this says nothing of other lurking disasters such as Climate Change. 

Even if none of these political tensions were a thing, our future would still be in jeopardy and there would still be so much work to do.

This is insanity.

This is 90 seconds to midnight.

A question that inevitably arises. Is war inevitable? Could we have done something? Is there something we still can still do?

In this upcoming series of articles, I will aim to analyse what is going on in the world today, discuss why we are in this situation, and explore the meaning and possibility of peace.