It is now 85 seconds to midnight

2026 Doomsday Clock Statement

Science and Security Board
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists,Editor, John Mecklin, January 27, 2026

A year ago, we warned that the world was perilously close to global disaster and that any delay in reversing course increased the probability of catastrophe. Rather than heed this warning, Russia, China, the United States, and other major countries have instead become increasingly aggressive, adversarial, and nationalistic. Hard-won global understandings are collapsing, accelerating a winner-takes-all great power competition and undermining the international cooperation critical to reducing the risks of nuclear war, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, the potential threat of artificial intelligence, and other apocalyptic dangers. Far too many leaders have grown complacent and indifferent, in many cases adopting rhetoric and policies that accelerate rather than mitigate these existential risks. Because of this failure of leadership, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Science and Security Board today sets the Doomsday Clock at 85 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to catastrophe.

Last year started with a glimmer of hope in regard to nuclear risks, as incoming US President Donald Trump made efforts to halt the Russia-Ukraine war and even suggested that major powers pursue “denuclearization.” Over the course of 2025, however, negative trends—old and new—intensified, with three regional conflicts involving nuclear powers all threatening to escalate. The Russia–Ukraine war has featured novel and potentially destabilizing military tactics and Russian allusions to nuclear weapons use. Conflict between India and Pakistan erupted in May, leading to cross-border drone and missile attacks amid nuclear brinkmanship. In June, Israel and the United States launched aerial attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities suspected of supporting the country’s nuclear weapons ambitions. It remains unclear whether the attacks constrained those efforts—or if they instead persuaded the country to pursue nuclear weapons covertly.

Meanwhile, competition among major powers has become a full-blown arms race, as evidenced by increasing numbers of nuclear warheads and platforms in China, and the modernization of nuclear delivery systems in the United States, Russia, and China. The United States plans to deploy a new, multilayered missile defense system, Golden Dome, that will include space-based interceptors, increasing the probability of conflict in space and likely fueling a new space-based arms race. As these worrying trends continued, countries with nuclear weapons failed to talk about strategic stability or arms control, much less nuclear disarmament, and questions about US extended deterrence commitments to traditional allies in Europe and Asia led some countries without nuclear weapons to consider acquiring them. As we publish this statement, the last major agreement limiting the numbers of strategic nuclear weapons deployed by the United States and Russia, New START, is set to expire, ending nearly 60 years of efforts to constrain nuclear competition between the world’s two largest nuclear countries. In addition, the US administration may be considering the resumption of explosive nuclear testing, further accelerating a renewed nuclear arms race……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Even as the hands of the Doomsday Clock move closer to midnight, there are many actions that could pull humanity back from the brink:

The United States and Russia can resume dialogue about limiting their nuclear arsenals. All nuclear-armed states can avoid destabilizing investments in missile defense and observe the existing moratorium on explosive nuclear testing.
Through both multilateral agreements and national regulations, the international community can take all feasible steps to prevent the creation of mirror life and cooperate on meaningful measures to reduce the prospect that AI be used to create biological threats.
The United States Congress can repudiate President Trump’s war on renewable energy, instead providing incentives and investments that will enable rapid reduction in fossil fuel use.
The United States, Russia, and China can engage in bilateral and multilateral dialogue on meaningful guidelines regarding the incorporation of artificial intelligence in their militaries, particularly in nuclear command and control systems.

Our current trajectory is unsustainable. National leaders—particularly those in the United States, Russia, and China—must take the lead in finding a path away from the brink. Citizens must insist they do so.

It is 85 seconds to midnight.

Editor’s note: Additional information on the threats posed by nuclear weapons, climate change, biological events, and the misuse of other disruptive technologies can be found elsewhere on this page and in the full PDF / print version of the Doomsday Clock statement.

Learn more about how each of the Bulletin‘s areas of concern contributed to the setting of the Doomsday Clock this year:

Nuclear Risk

The lack of arms control talks and a general dearth of leadership on nuclear issues has worsened the nuclear outlook. Read more…

Climate Change

Reducing the threat of climate catastrophe requires actions both to reduce the primary cause—the burning of fossil fuels—and to deal with the damage climate change is already causing. Read more…

Biological Threats

Four developments—research into self-replicating “mirror life”; AI tools that can design biological threats; state-sponsored biological weapons programs; and the dismantling of US public health efforts—have increased the possibility of bio-catastrophe. Read more…