Kenneth Glad
Across Europe, governments are spending more on defence. One prominent scientist argues that the buildup may make a nuclear crisis harder to contain.
The Doomsday Clock was set to 85 seconds to midnight on January 27, 2026, its closest position since the symbolic clock was created in 1947, according to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Established by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project after the Second World War, the symbolic clock was designed to illustrate how close humanity is to global catastrophe.
Midnight represents civilization-ending disaster, with the clock’s position adjusted to reflect threats such as nuclear weapons, climate change, biological risks and emerging technologies.
For Carlo Rovelli, the Italian physicist and author of the book 85 Seconds to Midnight, that figure is not symbolic background noise. It is a measure of political failure, and a warning about choices being made in real time.
Europe is already moving in the opposite direction. Nato allies in Europe and Canada increased defence spending by 20 percent in 2025, according to the Atlantic Council, while the European Commission’s Readiness 2030 plan aims to mobilize up to 800 billion euros for defence investment.
That shift has been described as a necessary answer to Russia’s war in Ukraine, doubts over long-term US support and the strain on European weapons production.
Rovelli does not deny that the continent faces a harsher security environment. His argument is that the answer being chosen may carry its own danger.
Rearmament can narrow choices
In an interview with The Guardian, Rovelli argues that Russia’s nuclear arsenal, not its conventional military strength, is the central danger:
“The idea of the Russian military being a threat to Europe is ridiculous. Russia can’t even get to Kyiv! A few years ago, Russia had 4% of the world’s military spending and Nato had 40%.”
His objection is not that states have no reason to worry. It is that fear can become a policy machine. A government expands its arsenal, calls it defensive, and its rival reads the same move as preparation for attack.
That cycle is familiar from the Cold War, but Rovelli believes today’s leaders have less patience for restraint. The old language of deterrence has returned, yet the diplomatic habits that once helped contain it appear weaker.
He is especially alarmed by the way the Ukraine war has blurred old limits around nuclear powers. “It’s the first time a [superpower] with nuclear weapons has been actually bombed,” he told the paper.
The point is not whether Moscow’s conduct can be excused. It cannot. The issue, in Rovelli’s view, is what happens when a nuclear state concludes that its own territory is no longer shielded by the threat of retaliation.
Scientists cannot stand aside
Rovelli also places scientists inside the public argument. Nuclear weapons were not an accident of politics alone. They were made possible by physics, engineering and state power working together.
That, he suggests, leaves scientists with more than a historical footnote. The people whose discipline helped unlock nuclear power also have a duty to warn when political leaders treat that power too casually.
“We physicists,” he said, “did create this thing [nuclear weapons]. It is our poisoned gift to humankind.”
That history gives his warning a particular edge. Rovelli is not speaking as a military planner, but as someone from a field that helped give governments the ability to destroy cities in minutes.
His point is also about responsibility after invention. Once a weapon exists, it cannot simply be uninvented, but the public can still challenge the policies, language and rivalries that make its use more imaginable.
For Rovelli, the debate is therefore not only about armies or budgets. It is about whether political leaders can still think beyond national strength at a moment when every crisis is being framed as a contest of power.
His final question is aimed less at generals than at elected leaders: “What politician has the courage to say, ‘Rather than making my own country stronger, I want to make humankind better’?’”
Sources: The Guardian, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Atlantic Council, European Commission
