Doomsday Clock

The Doomsday Clock is a visual tool designed to warn the public about how close humans are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies. The time on the clock is set by experts to reflect how far away from annihilation (midnight) we are, and if it is accurate we are currently the closest we have ever been to the end.

- Aakar Patel

The clock was created in 1947, the year of India’s independence, when the great global threat was of course that of nuclear weapons. The bombs had gone off over Nagasaki and Hiroshima only two years before that, and the Soviets were developing their own nuclear weapons. They achieved this capability in 1949, then the United Kingdom went nuclear in 1952, France in 1960 and China in 1964.

India weaponised its programme in 1974, and then in the 1990s Pakistan also demonstrated its capability. Israel and North Korea are understood to have the weapons and it is likely only a matter of time before Iran acquires them.

In the 1980s, when I was a student in the United States, the most important related element was something called the Strategic Defence Initiative, nicknamed Star Wars. Under it the Ronald Reagan administration was developing a system that would allow the US to shoot down incoming missiles while retaining its own offensive capability. This likely sent the Doomsday Clock forward.

After the Soviet Union perished, the Doomsday Clock was moved back to 17 minutes to midnight in 1991, the farthest it has ever been. The threat of nuclear weapons appeared to have abated to a large extent. At least this was how the news reported it. There were many more reports, analysis, civil society groups (like Pugwash) then and more activism on nuclear weapons before 1991 than is visible today.