How close are we to Armageddon? The answer is: closer than ever, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, an organisation devoted to raising awareness of the dangers of existential risks. The organisation has published a “Doomsday Clock” every year since 1947, and this week it was reported that the clock hand has been kept at 90 seconds to “midnight”, or the total collapse of human society. The prognosis, in other words, looks pretty bleak. 

The lucky thing is that the organisation’s pronouncements, which are often touted as objective assessments of likely extinction, are anything but. Indeed, the Doomsday Clock has shown itself to be woefully inadequate at separating itself from the politics and ideology that surrounds it. As the clock creeps closer to midnight, slicing the minutes that separate the world from annihilation into finer and finer fragments, the ridiculous character of the whole venture is becoming increasingly self-evident.

The Doomsday Clock was first created to raise awareness of the risk of nuclear war. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists was then — and remains— overwhelmingly concerned with the threat of nuclear weapons, and this is what has driven the biggest shifts in the Clock’s position. 

Unfortunately, the Clock is predisposed to inflating nearly all threats facing humanity. When India confirmed in 1998 that it had developed nuclear weapons, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists suggested that the world was over a third more dangerous. In retrospect, that call looks off. India has been just as responsible as any other major nuclear power with its weapons, and its nuclear arsenal has remained limited and proportional to the threats it faces. 

At other points, the Doomsday Clock has failed to separate itself from the American political culture in which it is immersed. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it dropped by a full two minutes — citing the risk of extremists getting hold of nuclear weapons. Again, this possibility did not come to pass.

Potentially most importantly, the Doomsday Clock has, more than anything, failed to recognise changes in how nuclear weapons are perceived and treated by national governments. Nuclear weapons were seen as a significant threat in the late 1940s because they had recently been used in Japan. It was entirely feasible that they would be used again soon. 

Things have changed, however, and the use of nuclear weapons is not nearly as likely as in the past: it is practically inconceivable now that any power would actually use them in conventional conflict. Though in recent years questions have been raised about Russian willingness to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine, Moscow still hasn’t carried through on the threat, despite mounting costs and losses in its war. 

The language of nuclear apocalypse conflates reality with fear. As a result, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists fails to take account of the subtleties and perspectives required to understand how close we really are to Armageddon. We should call time on the Doomsday Clock.