On Oscar night, millions of people will tune in to see if the captivating story about the race to create the world's first nuclear weapon will take home a slew of Academy Awards. As we watch, we must remember this: no matter who gets a golden statuette on March 10, all We will wake up on March 11 to just one terrible miscalculation, accident or deliberate act of insanity of nuclear destruction that will end civilization.
We deeply appreciate that “Oppenheimer” brought the story of the origin of the atomic bomb to the big screen. Movies have the power to educate and inspire, and Christopher Nolan's blockbuster is raising awareness that today's nuclear danger is all too real, as horrific wars rage in two nuclear-armed regions of the world, a new race accelerates. arms race and global nuclear arsenals are increasing. more vulnerable to the risks associated with cyber and emerging technologies. Last week, Vladimir Putin issued a chilling warning to countries considering aiding Ukraine. They must understand, he said, that “all this really threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons and, therefore, with the destruction of civilization.”
Not since the height of the Cold War has the threat of nuclear weapons been so sinister. How did we get here and how can we step back from the brink of catastrophe?
Nolan's film takes viewers back to World War II, when J. Robert Oppenheimer led a secret project to build the world's first nuclear bomb. But “Oppenheimer” It's not just history: it's also a devastating warning. Oppenheimer himself warned the world about the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the development of weapons even more powerful than the two that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
After those bombings, we learned the heartbreaking stories of those who experienced atomic devastation. For decades, schoolchildren participated in duck-and-cover exercises as the United States and the Soviet Union raced to build the largest nuclear arsenals. In 1962, the world watched as Americans faced suffocating fear for 13 days during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Eventually, almost 70,000 nuclear weapons threatened the world. Geopolitics and social action helped change that. With the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the United States and Russia reduced their nuclear arsenals; 80% of the world's nuclear arsenals were eventually eliminated. The glaring threat of nuclear weapons seemed to fade. But there are still 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world and now the trend line is going in the wrong direction.
Iran has demonstrated the technological capacity to join the “nuclear club”: Russia, China, North Korea, Israel, India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Leaders of other countries, from South Korea to Saudi Arabia, have suggested that they, too, could develop nuclear weapons in response to regional nuclear threats.
Some of the weapons that exist now are up to 80 times more powerful than those Oppenheimer built. Some are in the hands of volatile dictators and in unstable regions; some could fall into the hands of non-state actors. And with cyber threats and the integration of artificial intelligence into military systems, he faces the danger of nuclear war by accident or mistake.
Just the mere possession The accumulation of thousands of nuclear weapons, spread across nine countries, presents an unprecedented danger and its implications are not widely understood. A small number of fallible human beings and a complex set of technical controls (by no means fail-safe) are all that separates us from now and a nuclear apocalypse.
By showing viewers the detonation of a single nuclear weapon, “Oppenheimer” serves as a powerful reminder of the nuclear threat at a particularly dangerous time.
Of course, this is not the first time that nuclear threats have been the focus of attention in movies and cinemas.
In the 1960s, Stanley Kubrick captured audiences' attention with his black comedy “Dr. Strangelove” and, more recently, Peter Sellars brought to life the contemporary opera “Doctor Atomic,” telling, as “Oppenheimer” does, the story of the Manhattan Project. In the 1980s, “Terminator” imagined an artificial intelligence network that would launch a nuclear war.
The fact is that we live at the mercy of weapons that could destroy civilization many times over.
It does not have to be this way.
We must wake up to the reality of today's nuclear threats, raise our voices and seize the opportunity to build a more peaceful world. Politicians must challenge the assumption that nuclear arsenals keep us safe. Leaders around the world must rethink and strengthen nonproliferation treaties and agreements. Quickly and deliberately, we must take steps toward a world without nuclear weapons. We have done it before. We can do it again.
It's time to heed Oppenheimer's warnings.
Jerry Brown is CEO of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and former governor of California. Ernest Moniz is co-chairman and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and former US Secretary of Energy.
