Doomsday Clock hits 85 seconds to midnight, the closest point in history

CHICAGO — The Doomsday Clock has moved to 85 seconds to midnight, the closest the symbolic timepiece has ever stood to global collapse, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists announced.

The group cited the escalating risks of nuclear war, climate change, the misuse of biotechnology, and the emerging threats posed by artificial intelligence (AI) as primary drivers for the move.

In its 2026 statement, the Bulletin criticized Russia, China, and the United States for adopting increasingly aggressive and nationalistic stances. The new setting marks a further decline from the 89 seconds recorded in 2025.

The clock was established in 1947 to measure humanity’s proximity to global catastrophe. It reached its safest point in 1991, when it was set at 17 minutes to midnight following the end of the Cold War.

The group acknowledged that 2025 began with a "glimmer of hope" as President Donald Trump sought to end the Russia-Ukraine war. However, they noted that "negative trends" intensified throughout the remainder of the year.

Scientists are now calling on the U.S., Russia, and China to find a path away from the brink. Their recommendations include initiating new nuclear arms negotiations and multilateral discussions to restrict the use of AI in military operations.

The Doomsday Clock’s recent move toward midnight serves as a stark symbolic indicator of a deepening crisis within the international security and scientific communities. Far from a vague warning, this year’s assessment explicitly cites the United States, Russia, and China as the central protagonists in a "great power competition" that is actively eroding the global rules-based order.

Significantly, the report acknowledges early attempts by the Trump administration in 2025 to de-escalate specific tensions, yet it concludes that these efforts have been largely neutralized by broader systemic decay. This highlights the central paradox of contemporary geopolitics: isolated diplomatic overtures are increasingly insufficient to reverse the momentum of structural nationalism and entrenched rivalry. While the report advocates for multilateral cooperation to address the existential risks of artificial intelligence and climate change, such calls remain fundamentally at odds with a political reality defined by profound mutual distrust.

For Southeast Asia, this strategic friction is far from theoretical. Frontier states like Vietnam are currently forced to navigate an increasingly polarized landscape, particularly within the contested waters of the South China Sea. As major powers shift toward a "zero-sum" strategic posture, the risk of miscalculation rises accordingly. In this context, the high-level warnings of the scientific community are no longer abstract global concerns; they represent an immediate and tangible threat to regional stability.

This update carries a particular weight for the older generations within our community—the elders who established the foundations of Little Saigons across the country. Having survived the height of the Cold War, many Vietnamese Americans maintain a deep-seated awareness of the fragility of global peace. For those who spent decades building lives through the nail salon industry or neighborhood phở restaurants while dutifully sending remittances back home, these geopolitical shifts are not merely abstract policy changes. Whether navigating the complexities of the F2B family reunification process or monitoring the stability required for EB-5 investments, our community understands that global tensions have a direct, personal impact on the security of the families we left behind and the ones we have raised here. For a diaspora built on the search for stability, the memory of global conflict remains a powerful lens through which we view the present.