Ray Acheson highlights the work of states, scientists, activists, and affected communities to challenge nuclear deterrence and abolish nuclear weapons. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, they argue, is the best place for tangible action to change the world’s current trajectory away from annihilation, and towards peace and justice

In his foundational article for this series, Mahmoud Javadi concludes that 'nuclear security is a precarious illusion'. Dismantling this illusion 'requires bold, uncompromising action, grounded in critical reflections that challenge entrenched doctrines and reimagine security itself'.

This is the mandate that activists, diplomats, and others who worked to ban nuclear weapons set for themselves. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is designed to help abolish nuclear weapons and provide assistance to those who have experienced harm from them. None of the nine nuclear-armed states have yet joined the treaty. However, TPNW supporters are actively working for nuclear disarmament through divestment, scientific study, supporting survivors, challenging nuclearism, and more.

Dismantling deterrence

Last year, TPNW members engaged in consultations to examine their security concerns. This process explicitly critiqued nuclear deterrence theory. The report concluded that 'nuclear deterrence is not a sustainable approach to security. It is built on creating extreme risks and an ethos of fear based on the threat of mutual annihilation and global catastrophic consequences'. On this basis, TPNW states parties have a right and obligation to protect their populations and the planet from what the report calls 'unpredictable and unsustainable luck-based approaches to security'.

A 2025 report by TPNW members concluded that nuclear deterrence is built on creating an ethos of fear based on the threat of mutual annihilation

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) has said that this report 'contains the blueprint for dismantling the prevailing and misleading narrative of nuclear weapons in the public discourse'. ICAN urged all TPNW supporters to question 'nuclear-armed states and their allies about their policies frequently, at the highest levels, and across different forums, to expose the contradictions in their arguments, and to demand accountability for the risks they impose on the world'.

We are all well aware of the grave risks and harms of nuclear weapons. For eighty years, we have lived with the threat of nuclear violence. And this violence is not confined to the use or testing of nuclear weapons. As ICAN explains, 'The insidious reality is that the manufacturing of these weapons, their maintenance and their eventual disposal all cost the earth, even without any direct use. These weapons displace people and communities from cradle to grave, diverting funds and scientific knowhow from pressing global needs.'

Militarism and modernisation

But governments that possess these weapons of mass destruction dismiss such realities, perpetuating instead the benefits of possession and proliferation.

The current US regime, while slashing social services and international aid, has sought more money for weapons and war. The Trump administration has a multitrillion-dollar plan for revitalising the US nuclear-industrial complex. Its plan includes brand new intercontinental ballistic missiles that put the entire North American continent at risk, and plutonium cores that cost 200 times more than their weight in gold.

Nuclear-armed states dismiss the grave risks and harms of nuclear weapons, perpetuating instead the benefits of possession and proliferation

Meanwhile, the UK prime minister has announced that he is cutting aid to finance more militarism. Russia’s government is sharing its nuclear bombs with Belarus as it pursues annexation of Ukraine. Israel is committing genocide against Palestinians and has threatened to use nuclear weapons in the process. The French President has called for talks about the development of a European nuclear force. This raises the spectre of proliferation of nuclear weapons in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Europe is already heavily militarised, yet the European Commission President has announced a plan to 'rearm' the continent. This troubling plan will result in social and environmental harm, as more and more money is redirected away from people towards weapon companies and warfighting. Many European countries are already among the top military spenders; many more also profit from the international arms trade.

Action for abolition

The UN has cautioned that the world is already 'woefully off track' to meet agreed development goals. Additional cuts to aid will further impoverish those who have long suffered the inequalities imposed by colonialism, imperialism, and militarism. And the redirection of these funds to weapons, including nuclear weapons, means more violence will follow. As Mexico’s delegation warned at the recent gathering of TPNW states parties, 'We are, in practice, following a perfect recipe for the annihilation of humanity.'

Redirection of aid money to fund the development of nuclear arsenals drastically reduces the chances of meeting UN development goals and increases the risks of nuclear war

But this is not a time for despair; it’s time for action. The TPNW is one of the few spaces where any real work for denuclearisation is underway. TPNW states parties are engaged in work on nuclear disarmament verification, universalising the treaty, developing a gender analysis, amplifying complementarity, and establishing a trust fund to provide for victim assistance and environmental remediation. The TPNW Scientific Advisory Group worked with states to establish a new UN panel on the effects of nuclear war. This panel will help advance knowledge about nuclear weapons based on lived experience, not theoretical concepts.

Dismantle, change, build

There are countless ways for all states to help achieve the abolition of nuclear weapons. Activists, affected communities, academics, international organisations, and others can all get involved. Nuclear weapons are entangled in many other structures of state violence. Their abolition, therefore, has broader implications for peace and justice in our world.

The theory of change used by other abolitionist movements is 'dismantle, change, build'. In the case of nuclear weapons, this means dismantling the nuclear-industrial complex and nuclear deterrence theory. It means changing resource allocation and public opinion away from nuclear weapons. And it means building practices, skills, relationships, and resources that address the needs of our communities and our world.

We might not be able to eliminate nuclear weapons overnight. But we must allow ourselves the space to imagine a different world, to collectively envisage and invent what we need to build it, and to try many different efforts towards those ends. As Costa Rica urged at the most recent TPNW meeting, we should use this treaty 'to bind up the wounds of the world scarred by nuclear weapons'.

☢️ No.3 in a series on the Nuclear Politics Paradox