An Appeal to Stewards of Atom: The Case for Strategic Sanity sanity
Today, as the world stands perilously close to the brink and many fear the outbreak of a third world war, K.G. Sharma adds his voice to the countless pacifists who have long warned that any future global conflict is likely to draw in nuclear weapons. He argues that even a limited use of nuclear arms would bring disastrous consequences not only for those alive today, but also for generations yet to come.
An Appeal to the Stewards of the Atom: The Case for Strategic Sanity
Krishan Gopal Sharma
This appeal is addressed to the Leaders of the Nine Nuclear-Armed States, and to the Citizens they represent.
On 5 February 2026, a silent but seismic shift has occurred in the foundation of global security. With the expiration of the New START Treaty, the last legally binding limits on US and Russian strategic nuclear arsenals have disappeared, ending more than half a century of treaty‑based caps on the world’s two largest nuclear stockpiles. For the first time in over fifty years, we have entered a “nuclear interregnum” in which our survival rests far more on the private restraint of a few individuals than on formal legal constraints.
This article is not merely an appeal to diplomacy, but as a warning of metaphysical consequence. The current path of unconstrained modernisation and the infusion of Artificial Intelligence into nuclear command systems is not a pursuit of "stability." It is a march toward a precipice.
The Decisive Mandate of Science
We must dispense with the delusion of a “winnable” or “theatre” nuclear war. Recent peer‑reviewed simulations show that even a regional India–Pakistan‑scale exchange could loft about five million tons of soot into the upper atmosphere, triggering years of global cooling and serious reductions in food production. In the most extreme scenarios, involving a full‑scale US–Russia nuclear war, climate‑driven crop failures could cut global calorie production by around 90% within a few years and put more than five billion people at risk of starvation. The atmosphere is a single, interconnected lung; to puncture it anywhere is to suffocate the species everywhere.
The Scorched Soul: A Moral Emergency
Beyond the biological catastrophe lies an even more profound erasure. In a nuclear conflict, we do not just lose lives; we lose the "Human Story." We speak of the "scorching of the soul" to describe the metaphysical vandalism that occurs when a species uses the energy of the stars to incinerate its own libraries, its own heritage, and the very potential of its descendants. It is the ultimate intergenerational theft—a debt of ash passed on to those who never consented to this bargain.
The Roadmap to 2045: The "Middle Path"
The 2026 NPT Review Conference must abandon the "Nuclear Apartheid" of the past and adopt a Universal Disarmament Convention. This must begin with a Global No First Use (NFU) pledge—a de-escalation anchor that moves us away from the "use it or lose it" pressure of launch-on-warning systems.
I summarise here a four-step protocol for 2026 which is based on already existing public discourse on this matter:
1. A Strategic Freeze: A moratorium on warhead increases while new frameworks are negotiated.
2. The "Human-in-the-Loop" Mandate: An absolute ban on autonomous AI in nuclear command; silicon must never decide the fate of carbon.
3. Satellite-Based Transparency: A neutral registry to track global stockpiles, replacing suspicion with verifiable data.
4. A Time-Bound Roadmap: A commitment to the systematic, proportional elimination of all WMDs by the year 2045. A 2045 deadline for global nuclear abolition has been explicitly proposed by ALP/BPO/UNFOLD ZERO and others
The Sovereignty of Survival
National security is a dangerous illusion on a planet that shares a single sky. We are not emperors; we are temporary stewards of a civilisation perched on a tipping point. The passing of New START must be seen not as a license to build, but as a mandate to transcend.
If the final fire is lit, there will be no one left to remember the victory. Let us choose the path of sanity now, while we still have the breath to ask for it.
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The writer is a retired officer of the Indian Information Service and a former Editor-in-Charge of DD News and AIR News (Akashvani), India’s national broadcasters. He has also served as an international media consultant with UNICEF Nigeria and contributes regularly to various publications.
kgsharma1@gmail.com
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