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Faster, stealthier missiles, accelerated weapons development, and the threat of an unrestrained nuclear arms race, set against the backdrop of a withering arms control regime, point to a worsening global nuclear threat as 2025 comes to a close. On top of that, just before meeting with China’s leader Xi Jinping in October, President Donald Trump abruptly, and very imprecisely announced in a social media post, “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis.”

The suggestion that the United States might break with a more than three decade-long moratorium on explosive tests sparked a global wave of uncertainty, anxiety, and speculation about the impacts of a potential return to explosive nuclear testing. This comes in the final months of a year when five of the world’s nine nuclear armed countries have been engaged in active warfare. In May, India and Pakistan attacked each other with missiles, Russia has continuously bombed Ukraine, and the U.S. and Israel bombed Iran and other nations and territories.

Eighty years after the beginning of the atomic age, the deteriorating nuclear threat landscape is reflected in the symbolic Doomsday Clock, now set at 89 seconds to midnight, its closest-ever setting to global catastrophe, with the last U.S.-Russia arms control treaty expected to expire in early February.

On July 16, the 80th anniversary of the world’s first nuclear detonation, a gathering of 60 nuclear weapons experts and around 20 Nobel laureates assembled at the University of Chicago to come up with a list of pragmatic, actionable steps which they are urging world leaders to take to reduce the risk of nuclear war. That two-page document, the Nobel Laureate Declaration, calls for a recommitment to a moratorium on nuclear explosive testing, enhancement and expansion of nuclear diplomacy, and for scientists, academics, communities of faith, and civil society to create pressure on global leaders to take nuclear risk reduction measures.

Five of the nuclear experts and one Nobel laureate who were central to writing the declaration (now signed by 129 Nobel prize winners) spoke to Truthout to discuss what the exercise achieved and what they want to see happen next. Everyone interviewed for this story agreed that nuclear threats have increased in recent months, underscoring the urgent need to reduce risks and begin new conversations.

“That conversation has been picked up by a lot of people around the world but it has not yet, in my opinion, changed the dial, but it is the beginning,” said Brian Schmidt, a professor of astrophysics at........

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