Noam Chomsky Statement

Seventy years ago, humanity entered a new era with the realization that civilization has advanced (or more accurately descended) to the stage where we have achieved the capacity to destroy ourselves, instantaneously. Since then, we have marched resolutely towards that goal in ways so shocking that it hard to find words to describe them. And from the first moments, when US policy makers literally did not even consider the possibility of an international agreement, which might have been feasible, to bar development of the one major threat to American security, ICBMs with nuclear warheads, a failure that provides startling insight into the thinking of those who hold the fate of the world in their hands.

A review of the history of reckless acts of political leaders and their callous disregard for horrendous consequences, accidents that came ominously close to terminal war, the understanding that a first strike would devastate the perpetrator and everyone else… all of this should leave a rational observer almost speechless. One can easily appreciate the retrospective judgment of the former head of the US Strategic Command, General Lee Butler, that we have so far survived the nuclear age “by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.” And no less the haunting question he raises: “By what authority do succeeding generations of leaders in the nuclear-weapons states usurp the power to dictate the odds of continued life on our planet? Most urgently, why does such breathtaking audacity persist at a moment when we should stand trembling in the face of our folly and united in our commitment to abolish its most deadly manifestations?”


On the twentieth anniversary of the grim August day that inaugurated the new era, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein issued a declaration warning the people of the world that they face a choice that is “stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?” The answer so far is dreadful indeed, and the drums of possibly terminal war are now beating once again.

Last January, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists advanced its Doomsday Clock to 3 minutes before midnight, a threat level that had not been reached since a major war scare 30 years earlier, from which we barely escaped disaster. The accompanying statement invoked the constant threat to survival of nuclear weapons and the recent understanding that “unchecked climate change” severely endangers “every person on Earth.”

The choice is indeed “stark and dreadful and inescapable.” Shall we continue to march towards the cliff like the proverbial lemmings, or do we care enough about future generations, about our own grandchildren, to act resolutely to alter this suicidal course?

Noam Chomsky, August 2015