Nuclear war would end liveable life on our one and only planet. By launching a new nuclear arms race, world leaders are smothering prospects for peace and bringing us closer to the brink of ruin.
As the country where the UK’s nuclear weapons are based, Scotland has a vital role to play in avoiding a future of nuclear disaster. Join Scottish CND and our civil society partners on Saturday 1st of November to build the movement against the nuclear arms race!
The goalposts of “nuclear deterrence” doctrine constantly shift to justify the possession of nuclear weapons.
Do nuclear weapons prevent war? Clearly not, as millions have died in wars around the world since their invention in 1945.
Do nuclear weapons prevent nuclear states from having to go to war? Again no, as nuclear states have had an infamous proclivity to launch wars.
Russia and the US, who between them possess almost 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads, have in fact conscripted hundreds of thousands of their own peaceful citizens to die in foreign wars since 1945: the US in Korea and Vietnam, and Russia in Afghanistan and now Ukraine.
Well, even if nuclear states are constantly imposing war on non-nuclear states, do these weapons prevent war between nuclear states? Again no, as regular escalations of tensions between India and Pakistan show including a hot war earlier this year.
The final argument of “nuclear deterrence” mythologists may go as follows: Granted, nuclear weapons do naught to prevent war or ensure international security, but the logic of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) means that ‘at least’ nuclear states will never launch nuclear weapons at one another, since this would guarantee their own elimination.
This is the most dangerous argument of all, because it rests the fate of humanity on an article of faith.
Faith in (improbably) seamless communication between nuclear adversaries, faith there will be no accidents, faith that nuclear weapons are always controlled by ‘rational’ actors. MAD theory is an abstract speculation and, for nuclear advocates, cannot be proven false – until it is proven false at the greatest imaginable cost.
A recent online video by Science Time with 24 million views details what this cost would be:
The video explains how a single, fully-armed Trident missile fired from one of the submarines based on Scotland’s west coast would likely kill over 2.7 million people in an instant and injure almost twice that number. Subsequent deaths from untreatable injury and radiation exposure are incalculable.
Trident is therefore indisputably a holocaust device, and that is what the UK government considers “defence”.
The recent words of the Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, permanent observer of the Holy See at the UN, encapsulate the current crisis and capture the spirit of our own campaign:
“Rather than advancing towards disarmament and a culture of peace, we are witnessing a resurgence of aggressive nuclear rhetoric, the development of increasingly destructive nuclear weapons and a significant rise in military expenditure, often at the expense of investment in integral human development and the promotion of the common good.” (04.09.2025)
It is our belief in ‘integral human development’ and ‘the common good’ that motivates our opposition to nuclear omnicide weapons, and fuels our decades-long struggle for a more peaceful future.
Join our campaign today if you share these values, and help us in the fight against nuclear escalation.