Durante d\u00e9cadas, los acuerdos globales de control de armas han tenido dificultades para disipar los temores de los pa\u00edses sin armas nucleares. El Tratado de No Proliferaci\u00f3n Nuclear (TNP), esencialmente un acuerdo entre los que poseen armas nucleares y los que no las tienen, promet\u00eda un desarme final, pero el progreso ha sido glacial. Las principales potencias han estado retrocediendo: el Tratado sobre Fuerzas Nucleares de Alcance Intermedio es historia, y el \u00faltimo pacto de armas entre Estados Unidos y Rusia, el Nuevo START, est\u00e1 en terapia intensiva y expirar\u00e1 en menos de un a\u00f1o.<\/p>\n
Amid Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine, nuclear saber-rattling, and the United States\u2019 sudden turn away from its longtime transatlantic alliances, fears of nuclear conflict are leading European governments to pursue new ways of protecting themselves. Last month, European Union leaders\u00a0approved<\/a>\u00a0a massive new militarization independent of US support; France is considering extending its own nuclear deterrent over the whole continent; and some countries have resurrected Cold War-style civil defense plans. Germany, for\u00a0example<\/a>, has piloted a smartphone app to direct citizens to the nearest bomb shelter, while Norway is\u00a0reintroducing<\/a>\u00a0a policy that requires bomb shelters in all new buildings. And the EU has\u00a0called on its citizens<\/a>\u00a0to stockpile 72 hours-worth of supplies in the face of \u201cemerging threats.\u201d<\/p>\n But what of the rest of the world? Even so-called \u201climited\u201d use of nuclear weapons is unlikely to stay limited to one region; a nuclear war of any kind will almost certainly not. Radioactive fallout, climate disruption, and economic shockwaves can cross borders and continents, meaning no country truly stands apart from the danger. Nations far from the blast zone\u2014whether or not they participate in a nuclear conflict\u2014could still face crop failures, mass migrations, and other cascading disasters. In short, if nuclear weapons are used anywhere, everyone\u2019s safety is at risk.<\/p>\n Survival requires attention to larger, systemic issues\u2014international cooperation, governance of risk, and global diplomacy\u2014that offer more meaningful protection than any nuclear weapon or bunker can. The popularization of civil defense discussions, while potentially comforting in their simplicity, in fact exposes a collective failure to tackle the underlying causes of these fears. Humanity\u2019s long-term survival depends on global efforts to reduce the risks that threaten us.<\/p>\n The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is one such global effort. Critics initially dismissed the\u00a0treaty<\/a>\u00a0as a purely symbolic gesture\u2014a \u201cprotest treaty\u201d unlikely to affect real-world security. But recent developments suggest the ban treaty is growing some teeth. In November 2024, TPNW states prevailed on the United Nations General Assembly to launch a comprehensive scientific study on the effects of nuclear war. And at the treaty members\u2019 most recent major meeting in March\u2014which I attended\u2014a detailed report articulating the security concerns of non-nuclear countries took center stage at the UN\u2019s New York headquarters.<\/p>\n These steps represent a pivotal milestone for the treaty, which is now emerging as a key venue for serious diplomatic deliberations about nuclear security at a critical moment\u2014a moment when many traditional arms-control agreements and forums have either collapsed or stalled. Thanks largely to the TPNW, a new space has opened up, in which frank and thorough examination of the catastrophic human and environmental consequences of nuclear weapons use can help expose the risks of nuclear deterrence itself.<\/p>\n Fixing the nuclear diplomacy gap.\u00a0<\/strong>For decades, global arms control agreements have struggled to ease the fears of countries without nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT)\u2014essentially a bargain between nuclear haves and have-nots\u2014promised eventual disarmament, but progress has been glacial. Major powers have been backsliding: The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty is history, and the last US-Russia arms pact, New START, is on life support and set to expire in less than a year. Traditional forums like the UN Conference on Disarmament have been deadlocked for years.<\/p>\n All the while, the security concerns of non-nuclear weapon states have been largely ignored. In meetings of treaties like the NPT, discussions tend to focus on keeping nuclear weapons out of the wrong hands\u2014but what about the danger posed to everyone by the weapons the great powers already have? For a country with no nukes, the prospect of radiation drifting across its borders or a \u201cnuclear winter\u201d causing famine remains an existential threat. Yet, in the old forums, nuclear-armed states and their allies have often brushed aside these worries, insisting that their deterrence doctrines keep the peace.<\/p>\n Against this backdrop, the countries party to the TPNW have shifted focus to address these issues head-on. At the treaty\u2019s third meeting of states parties in early 2025, they unveiled a\u00a0report on the security concerns<\/a>\u00a0of states living under the shadow of nuclear weapons. This move signaled the ban-treaty states aren\u2019t just pursuing disarmament ideals but are also eager to articulate their own concrete security priorities in a world with ongoing nuclear threats.<\/p>\n The report synthesizes the collected input of TPNW states, experts, and non-governmental organizations after the treaty\u2019s second meeting at the end of 2023. The report\u2019s findings challenge the notion that states consider deterrence a source of stability and security. The report notes that TPNW states consider that \u201cnuclear deterrence is a dangerous, misguided and unacceptable approach to security.\u201d It then recasts humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons as core national security concerns for non-nuclear nations and explains why: a single nuclear detonation wouldn\u2019t just devastate the immediate target; it could knock out electrical grids with electromagnetic pulses and blanket entire regions in radioactive fallout. And the damage wouldn\u2019t stop there. The authors describe the \u201ctransboundary\u201d impacts: mass migrations of refugees fleeing irradiated zones, the breakdown of emergency services, global supply chains for food and medicine ruptured, and the potential collapse of public order far from ground zero.<\/p>\n In other words, nuclear war anywhere endangers people everywhere\u2014and since the existential security of the world\u2019s non-nuclear states continues to be entirely determined by the security priorities of a few nuclear powers, the report reframes those humanitarian consequences as fundamental security concerns for every state: \u201cFrom the perspective of States parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, policy decisions regarding nuclear weapons should be based primarily on the available scientific facts about the consequences and risks of nuclear weapons rather than on the uncertain security benefits of nuclear deterrence.\u201d<\/p>\n What we know and what we don\u2019t know.<\/strong>\u00a0The last UN-mandated study on nuclear war impacts, conducted by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) in 1988, was a\u00a0landmark assessment\u00a0<\/a>that brought scientific consensus to the global threat of nuclear winter. However, the study is now outdated. In the 37 years since, we have made significant advancements in climate modeling and environmental science in ways that allow for higher-resolution simulations of atmospheric effects, such as those caused by soot and dust following nuclear detonations to better simulate the cascading impacts of nuclear conflict.<\/p>\n Subsequent studies have examined the global impacts of nuclear war, including\u00a0influential work<\/a>\u00a0by Alan Robock and Brian Toon in the 2000s and 2010s on cooling and agricultural effects, and a\u00a02019 study\u00a0<\/a>projecting severe global food and health consequences from an India-Pakistan nuclear conflict. Although these supplementary independent studies are important, there is still a lack of broader appreciation of the full-scale impact of nuclear detonations.<\/p>\n Our ignorance is, to some extent, by design. The effects of nuclear war are often viewed (especially by nuclear weapon states and their allies) through a military lens, focused primarily on the immediate consequences of a nuclear strike, without fully accounting for the long-term environmental, societal, and human impacts.<\/p>\n To address this gap, members of the TPNW\u2019s Scientific Advisory Group\u00a0recommended<\/a>\u00a0in 2023 that the UN mandate an assessment of the effects of nuclear war. In November of last year, a resolution establishing an independent Scientific Panel on the Effects of Nuclear War was brought to the General Assembly, cosponsored by 20 TPNW states. Apart from the nuclear weapons states, the resolution received overwhelming support: 144 countries voted in favor, 30 abstained.<\/p>\n Of the nuclear weapon states, France, the United Kingdom and Russia\u00a0voted against<\/a>\u00a0the resolution; the United States did not record a vote; and with the exception of China, which voted for the study, other nuclear states (Israel, India, Pakistan, and North Korea) all formally abstained.<\/p>\n In explaining their votes, both\u00a0France<\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0UK<\/a>\u00a0curiously stated that a scientific panel would not provide any \u201cnew\u201d insights into our understanding of the effects of nuclear war. The UK, in particular, raised concerns about the budgetary implications, despite the panel\u2019s\u00a0total operating cost<\/a>\u00a0being only $300,100\u2014equivalent to the\u00a0cost<\/a>\u00a0of operating the UK\u2019s nuclear deterrent for two hours. Imagine then, if this panel (in conjunction with the World Trade Organization) were to reveal the economic impact of a limited nuclear war on global socioeconomic systems? Such findings are very feasible, given the broad mandate of the scientific panel: Article 7 of the\u00a0resolution<\/a>\u00a0calls upon a range of global agencies to support the panel\u2019s work beyond obvious ones like the International Atomic Energy Agency\u2014including those that look at financial, health and agricultural effects, like the World Health Organization, the World Food Programme, the Food and Agricultural Organization, and the World Trade Organization.<\/p>\n Deterrence as science denial.<\/strong>\u00a0Studies on self-deterrence have shown that political leaders\u2019 decisions about nuclear weapons aren\u2019t just shaped by military strategy\u2014they\u2019re deeply influenced by the moral and psychological weight of such decisions. Many leaders may hold back from using nuclear weapons not because they fear defeat, but because they\u00a0want to maintain<\/a>international legitimacy, avoid alienating allies, and protect the global non-proliferation system; and because they understand some of the devastating, irreversible consequences, especially for the environment and future generations. The idea of being the person who triggers the end of civilization or leaves the planet in ruins is something most leaders are\u00a0reluctant to face<\/a>.<\/p>\n Even\u00a0Donald Trump<\/a>\u00a0has acknowledged the dangers of nuclear weapons, as when he said in October 2024, \u201cgetting rid of nuclear weapons would be so good \u2026 because it\u2019s too powerful, it\u2019s too much,\u201d and his more recent statements suggesting that \u201cthe destructive capability is something that we don\u2019t even want to talk about\u201d and that the United States, China and Russia could denuclearize.<\/p>\n This, perhaps, explains why updated studies on the societal impact of nuclear war are so politically charged, and why some states opposed the\u00a0new study<\/a>\u00a0(which after all, is just a study). To acknowledge the global societal impact of nuclear weapons is to confront the unmanageable consequences of their use and challenge the foundations of deterrence itself. As Robock\u00a0notes<\/a>\u00a0in an interview with the\u00a0Bulletin<\/em>, if the US nuclear establishment \u201cacknowledged the horrific impacts of nuclear war, their theory of deterrence would fail.\u201d<\/p>\n Survival beyond bunkers.\u00a0<\/strong>Ultimately, humanity\u2019s safety depends not on geographical location, but on global efforts to reduce risks. Since its entry into force, the TPNW has begun to emerge as an unexpected yet indispensable forum for questioning whether the logic of deterrence itself makes sense in a world that cannot afford the consequences of failure.<\/p>\n Illuminating the true impacts of nuclear war has a way of cutting through abstract theories \u2014 as it did in the 1980s when public horror at nuclear winter nudged even hardline leaders toward arms control. In the same way, the convergence of the UN\u2019s new impacts study and the TPNW\u2019s security initiative could shatter any lingering illusion that nuclear war can be \u201cmanaged.\u201d<\/p>\n In just four years, the TPNW has evolved beyond the caricature of a \u201cprotest treaty.\u201d It offers something the traditional forums often cannot: a willingness to confront the uncomfortable truths about nuclear weapons, from their humanitarian consequences to the fragility of deterrence itself. The TPNW is not about dismantling the system overnight; it\u2019s about ensuring we have the courage and the foresight to imagine a future where nuclear arsenals\u2014and the assumption that we need them\u2014no longer exist.<\/p>\n