WASHINGTON (Dispatches) – Leading American political analyst and philosopher Noam Chomsky says the world is racing toward an “irreversible” disaster due to an increased risk of nuclear war, failure to address climate challenges, and a diminished ability of great powers to tackle international problems rationally
In an interview with RT on Saturday, Chomsky recalled that in recent years the Doomsday Clock, which reflects how close humanity is to nuclear Armageddon, has moved closer to Midnight, which symbolizes the extinction of humanity.
Chomsky, a Laureate Professor of Linguistics at the University of Arizona, said humanity’s main concerns are “an increasing threat of nuclear war” and “a very severe and growing threat of destruction of the climate.”
He added that the latter problem persists because “states are not doing what they know they must do to solve this crisis.”
Chomsky also raised concern over “the deterioration of an arena of rational serious debate and deliberation” combined with “the collapse of democratic forces” around the world.
“All three have gotten considerably worse during the past year, and unless there’s a sharp reversal, we’ll simply be heading for a precipice, falling over, irreversible, and not in the long distant future,” he warned.
Chomsky’s comments came after former Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said that those who want to see Moscow defeated in Ukraine, ignore the fact that “a loss by a nuclear power in a conventional war may trigger the start of a nuclear war.”
Medvedev, who now serves as deputy chairman of President Vladimir Putin’s Security Council, said, “Nuclear powers have never lost major conflicts on which their fate depends.”
Russia and the United States, the largest nuclear powers, hold around 90% of the world’s nuclear warheads.
Previously, Chomsky said the rising tension between Russia and the United States might lead to a nuclear war that could cause the end of mankind.
“The U.S. has just sharply increased; it quadrupled military expenses on its side. The Russians are doing something similar. There are constant near collisions, jets coming close to colliding with one another... That threat is escalating and very serious,” Chomsky added.
Chomsky said tensions between Moscow and Washington have put the world on the verge of “termination for the species.”
He said the symbolic Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which represents a countdown to possible global catastrophe, is moving closer to Midnight.
Established in 1947, the founders of the Doomsday Clock, who are advised by 18 Nobel Laureates, said that the clock stood at three minutes to midnight, due to “[un]checked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin stated in December that nuclear tensions had risen because of the war in Ukraine.
Putin warned that the Ukraine war could go on for a long time. He also spoke about the risk of a nuclear war but added that Russia has not “gone mad” and sees its own nuclear arsenal as a purely defensive deterrent.