29 October 2026

There is a lot of warfare in our world at the moment – and a lot of talk about war. The Government has been urged to increase the amount it spends on defence and people have been encouraged to store up water, tins of groceries, blankets and even a battery operated radio.

Is it possible that all of this preparation could become a self-fulling prophecy?  Preparing for war puts us in the line of thinking about war and befriending the possibility of going to war. Worst of all, it encourages us to view other nations from a negative perspective and to interpret their actions accordingly.

In his book, ’85 Seconds to Midnight’, the Italian physicist, Carlo Rovelli, blames scientists for putting pressure on the American Government during the Second World War to build an atomic bomb. Their argument was twofold.

Firstly, it was possible to build it before the end of the war. This proved to be false. Germany surrendered before the bomb was built. Secondly, Germany was surely just as determined to build an atomic bomb. This proved to be false too.

Rovelli makes a very pertinent point. ‘If the atomic weapon had been born in peacetime …The force of the atom could have been a force for peace and human beings could perhaps have been reasonable enough to submit it to shared international control, as they have been able to do with biological weapons or chemical weapons.’

It is fear which lies behind the nuclear arms race. The pre-war physicists actually knew each other and were not inimical towards one another. The War changed all that and gave birth to the current contest to assert dominance on the international stage. This is not a prelude to peace.