The Australian founders of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) have warned that President Macron’s announcement of an expansion of France’s nuclear arsenal risks accelerating a new global arms race. The decision underscores a troubling shift towards growing global nuclear weapons stocks and the heightened risk of their use, placing strain on longstanding commitments to disarmament and non-proliferation. 

This reinforces the urgent need for renewed diplomatic efforts and collective action to strengthen the global non-proliferation regime and advance meaningful steps towards nuclear disarmament.

“We are at a turning point where we need to either get serious about ending these catastrophic arsenals before they end us, or face a new nuclear arms race,” said Dr Tilman Ruff, founding chair of the Nobel Peace Prize winning ICAN.

“Nuclear deterrence is just a theory. It assumes rational leadership and no accidental launches or hacking. President Macron stated a nuclear first strike could be used as a warning. That is not deterrence, instead it is proof of the unreliability of deterrence. Any use of nuclear weapons is likely to lead to rapid escalation,” continued Dr Ruff.

Deployment of nuclear weapons in other countries and ending transparency about nuclear forces, as President Macron has proposed, also increase the risk of escalation. The announcement violates France’s disarmament obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

“More weapons equals more risk of inadvertent use. We have already lived through many near misses due to human and technical error, and now increasingly sophisticated AI-enabled hackers are a concern,” said Dr Margaret Beavis, ICAN board member.  

“We have also seen the terrible impacts of France’s nuclear weapons program in Algeria and the Pacific, that has ruined lives and left ongoing contamination.”

“The Australian government talks loudly about nuclear disarmament. It needs to take urgent action and the best way it can do this is by joining the 99 other countries – a global majority including most of our Pacific neighbours – and sign the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons,” Dr Beavis added.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) Australia joins ICAN International to unequivocally condemn yesterday’s military strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran. Nuclear-armed states launching unlawful attacks is no way to reduce nuclear threats. 

Responding to the Australian government’s position stating its approval of the US “acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon”, ICAN Australia calls on the government to support diplomatic efforts to encourage the parties to the conflict to an immediate return to negotiations and to bolster its own position on nuclear non-proliferation by signing the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW).  

These shocking events have provoked a dangerous escalation in an already volatile region. This is underscored by the impact of retaliatory attacks on US bases in Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates, making the need to de-escalate more urgent. 

As a close military partner of the United States, Australia cannot assume it is insulated from these risks. By hosting joint facilities, providing logistical support, and willingly accommodating the enlarged presence of US forces in Australia, including nuclear-capable submarines and aircraft; Australia’s increasing vulnerability to the risk of entanglement is clear. 

ICAN Australia Co-Chairs Tara Gutman and Marianne Hanson stated:

“Australia is being too quick to support force, and too slow to grow peace.” 

“Australia was among the first nations to announce it backed the US and Israeli strikes. In doing so, it has aligned itself with high-risk military action before diplomatic avenues were exhausted and is knowingly condoning clear violations of international law—the very backbone of international peace and security architecture.”

“The United States and Israel are both nuclear-armed states. A conflict being waged by not one but two nuclear powers further heightens the risk of miscalculation, misunderstanding and mistake. The best way to manage nuclear risks is through diplomacy and respect for international law.  Australia needs to hold these principles close, not dispense with them.”

“By adding Australia to the list of 99 countries who have joined the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, Australia would be supporting the only global, legally binding instrument designed to comprehensively prohibit  nuclear weapons and reduce nuclear risk. This would also ring fence Australia from nuclear risks inherent in our growing military integration with nuclear-armed allies.”

“The only way to avoid nuclear catastrophe and to discourage more states from seeking their own nuclear weapons, is to uphold and vigorously defend international law and to implement the TPNW—a treaty which seeks to ban nuclear weapons for all states. In moments of crisis such as these, the temptation is to close ranks. The responsibility of middle powers like Australia, however, is in fact the opposite: to insist that the rules matter most when they are most inconvenient.”

The collapse of the New START treaty on 5 February removes the last legally binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals at a time of heightened global tension and nuclear threats.

With inspections halted, data exchanges frozen, and no successor agreement in place, the end of New START marks a decisive breakdown of nuclear restraint between Russia and the United States, which together possess 87% of the world’s nuclear weapons.

The treaty’s verification, notification, on-site inspection and dispute resolution mechanisms provided ongoing communication, reduced uncertainty and helped prevent miscalculation. Their loss deepens mistrust and increases the risk of escalation.

The end of New START also exposes a central failure of deterrence and arms control. Arms control can regulate numbers and deployments but does not eliminate nuclear weapons. When restraint collapses or accidents or cyberattack happen, so does the system meant to prevent nuclear catastrophe.

Dr Tilman Ruff, ICAN founding chair, said:

“New START was the last treaty constraint on the most destructive weapons ever built. Its collapse leaves the world more dangerous and less predictable. 

“We are back in a full-scale arms race. Russia and the US could double their deployed nuclear weapons within months of New START’s end unless President Trump takes up President Putin’s offer to continue to respect New START’s limits. He should do this urgently.”

“But this would not be enough. Nuclear-armed states should start negotiations to verifiably eliminate their Doomsday arsenals, as they committed to do more than 50 years ago in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.”

“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons lights the path forward. It draws a clear line—nuclear weapons are illegal, unacceptable, and must be eliminated— and it provides the only internationally agreed, verified, time-bound framework to do so.”

The end of New START has immediate implications for Australia. Close to half the US B52 bombers planned for ongoing deployment at RAAF Tindal in the NT starting this year—which were modified to be unable to carry nuclear weapons under the New START Treaty—can quickly again be made nuclear-capable. That would mean that for the first time in decades nuclear weapons could be brought into and launched from Australia, even without Australia knowing.

Dr Ruff said:

“Australia cannot credibly support nuclear restraint and disarmament while standing outside the global ban, which has been joined by over half the world’s nations. The best way to put sovereign guardrails excluding nuclear weapons around our military cooperation with the United States is to join the ban treaty. The end of New START makes doing that, as Labor’s national policy platform commits, more urgent.”

Today, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset the Doomsday Clock from 89 to 85 seconds to midnight, signalling that humanity is moving closer to catastrophe.

The new setting reflects a world facing escalating nuclear dangers and a full-blown new nuclear arms race, widening wars, rapid advances in artificial intelligence, and the accelerating climate crisis. Together, these threats are compounding global instability and increasing the risk of miscalculation and mass harm.

A central driver of this worsening outlook is the collapse of nuclear restraint. The impending end of the New START Treaty will remove the last remaining, binding limits on the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals, stripping away vital guardrails against escalation at a time of heightened tension and mistrust.

The Doomsday Clock has long delivered a consistent message: tweaking nuclear weapons does not make the world safe. As long as these weapons exist, the risk of catastrophic use—by design, accident or miscalculation—remains.

 ICAN co-founder, A/Prof Tilman Ruff AO, said: 

“The Doomsday Clock is telling us what nuclear-armed states refuse to acknowledge: restraint is breaking down, and the danger is growing. They are repudiating international law and cooperation, making threats and using mis- and dis-information campaigns, and ratcheting up nuclear brinkmanship. ”

“With New START ending next week, the last limits on US and Russian nuclear arsenals are disappearing. Deployed nuclear weapons can be expected to rise alongside an arms race in space. Their failure of leadership puts everyone at risk.”

“Wars in Ukraine and Gaza, the integration of artificial intelligence into military systems, and the accelerating climate crisis all intensify instability—but nuclear weapons remain the most immediate existential threat.”

“Decades of arms control have failed to deliver disarmament. Now even those hard-won constraints are in tatters. Nuclear-armed states continue to modernise, expand and threaten to use their arsenals while forcing the rest of the world to live with the consequences.”

“The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons exists because this approach has failed. It sets a clear international standard that nuclear weapons are illegal for everyone and must be eliminated, and includes the only internationally agreed framework for their elimination.”

Implications for Australia

The new Doomsday Clock setting reinforces the urgency for Australia to move beyond statements of concern and align its security policy with international law by joining the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Dr Ruff said:

“Australia cannot credibly respond to this warning while standing outside the nuclear weapons ban, and providing increasing assistance for the possible use of US nuclear weapons, including by the deployment in Australia this year of B-52 bombers that can now carry nuclear weapons, and in future years, submarines that are likely to again carry nuclear weapons. Joining the treaty is the most meaningful step we can take to help turn the Doomsday Clock back.”