In December 2017, after a hiatus of 15 years, Sweden's Defence Commission recommended building new shelters. Sweden, neutral since 1814, has a history of civil protection and currently has 65,000 nuclear bunkers, enough for about 70 per cent of its population. On January 25, 2018, the Bulletin placed them at two minutes off the hour, citing some leaders' 'provocative actions' which they said 'increased the possibility of nuclear war'.īut how ready is the the world for a renewed arms race, an escalation in proxy wars and - the worst-case scenario - a nuclear war? Cold War 'back with a vengeance' In the early 1960s, after the Cuban Missile Crisis when war was only narrowly averted, the hands stood at nine minutes to midnight. The distance of the clock's hands to midnight is a metaphor for 'how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making'. The first atomic bomb was developed under the auspices of The Manhattan Project.Īfter World War II, scientists from the project founded a publication, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, best known for creating the Doomsday Clock in 1947. Of those latter countries, the last four have not signed up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which entered into force in 1970. More than 90 per cent are in the hands of the USA and Russia, but the UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea also have nuclear capability.

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