Nagasaki notice: next nuclear nightmare nears

Eighty years ago, days after dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, the U.S. dropped a second, bigger atomic bomb – this time on the city of Nagasaki.

In an instant, 40,000 people were killed, many of them children.

Entire neighborhoods were vaporized. Survivors staggered through fire and ash. Tens of thousands more died from radiation poisoning in the days and years that followed.

So many swore that humanity would never again unleash the horrors of atomic weapons but the terrifying reality is that today, we’re dangerously close to the brink of nuclear catastrophe.

As President Donald Trump issues orders that put the world on edge, Congress is about to stoke the flames by authorizing billions more dollars for unnecessary, dangerous nuclear weapons.

Avoiding the threat of nuclear war has been a huge part of Win Without War’s work since our founding, and the group’s leaders say they are not slowing down.

That’s why Win Without War is ramping up its organizing and advocacy to bring the world back from the brink, reduce the threat of nuclear war, and stop Congress from rubber-stamping massive new investments in weapons capable of global annihilation.

Today, global nuclear tensions are only rising: All nine nuclear powers — Russia, the United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea — grew their arsenals last year.

We’re facing a five-alarm fire. Leading scientists have already declared our entire planet close to nuclear armageddon.

Closer than at the start of the nuclear arms race in 1953.

Closer than during the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Closer than the height of the Cold War in the 1980s.

And that was before two nuclear-armed countries narrowly avoided a prolonged conflict earlier this year.

Before the U.S. and Israeli government strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities put an entire region on the precipice of all-out war.

Before the recent round of nuclear saber-rattling between Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev and Trump.

The same Trump who once asked, “if we have nukes, why can’t we use them?” and who is currently requesting $5.5 billion to increase nuclear weapons spending.

As multiple countries ramp up nuclear weapons development, the risk of technological error and human miscalculation skyrockets, along with the likelihood of mutual destruction.

We can demand something different, but it’ll take a wildly ambitious, multi-pronged, and crucially important campaign to avoid doomsday.

It will look like derailing any attempts to expand the nuclear arsenal during National Defense Authorization Act negotiations, urging all DC decision-makers to block bad ideas like resuming nuclear testing, and fighting to stop any effort to pad the Pentagon budget with money for more dangerous, unnecessary, and unaffordable weapons.