As geopolitical tensions simmer across multiple fronts, experts are sounding alarms about the escalating risk of nuclear conflict in 2025, a year marked by eroding arms control agreements and aggressive posturing from nuclear powers. Recent analyses paint a grim picture: the Doomsday Clock, maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, has ticked closer to midnight than ever before, now set at 89 seconds, signaling unprecedented peril from nuclear weapons alongside climate and technological threats. This adjustment, detailed in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ 2025 Doomsday Clock statement, underscores how longstanding nuclear concerns were amplified in 2024 without any major new calamities, yet the status quo remains dangerously unstable.

In parallel, think tanks like the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace are pioneering probabilistic forecasting to gauge escalation risks. Their report, Forecasting Nuclear Escalation Risks: Cloudy With a Chance of Fallout, argues that estimating the likelihood of nuclear events could inform better policy, though it highlights the fog of uncertainty in predicting outcomes amid ongoing wars.

Arms Race Revival and Weakened Controls

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) warns of a burgeoning nuclear arms race in its 2025 Yearbook, released in June. As per the SIPRI assessment, nuclear risks are surging as arms control regimes weaken, with advancements in AI and space technologies reshaping capabilities. This comes at a time when nine nations possess nuclear arsenals, and experts fear proliferation could expand that number significantly.

Echoing this, the Council on Foreign Relations notes in its analysis, The Risk of Nuclear War Continues to Rise, that conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East have accelerated the erosion of nuclear guardrails. Russian actions, including hypersonic missile launches and heightened nuclear alerts, have lowered the threshold for use, raising stakes for incoming U.S. administrations.

Expert Nostalgia for Cold War Stability

Bloomberg’s opinion piece, Nuclear War Experts Are at a Loss Right Now, captures a surprising sentiment among strategists: a near-nostalgic view of Cold War deterrence, which offered clearer rules than today’s multipolar chaos. With autocrats wielding deadlier weapons and disinformation rampant, the Washington Post opines in its interactive feature, Why we should worry about nuclear weapons again, that collapsing arms control heightens catastrophe risks.

Recent news amplifies these fears. A United Nations scientific panel, as reported by NHK World-Japan News on September 6, has begun a two-year study on nuclear war’s impacts, aiming for a 2027 report amid heightened global anxieties. Meanwhile, Truthout highlights in its August 4 article, Threat of Nuclear War Is Rising, But Scientists Say the Public Can Change That, how five nuclear-armed states engaged in hostilities in early 2025, urging public action to avert disaster.

Proliferation Pressures in Asia

Allied concerns are particularly acute in Asia. Reuters reports in its August 20 investigation, Trump shock spurs Japan to think about the unthinkable: nuclear arms, that uncertainties over U.S. security guarantees are prompting Japan and South Korea to reconsider non-nuclear stances, fueled by North Korean threats and shifting alliances.

Social media sentiment, drawn from posts on X, reflects public unease, with betting markets like Polymarket showing spikes in perceived odds of nuclear detonation—jumping to 19% after Ukrainian strikes on Russian bases in June, though such figures remain speculative and not definitive predictors.

Calls for Urgent Diplomacy

The Nobel Laureate Assembly, convened in July as detailed in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ declaration, The Nobel Laureate Assembly Declaration for the Prevention of Nuclear War, brought together laureates and experts to recommend policy shifts, emphasizing disarmament’s stagnation. IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, quoted in recent X posts and media like First Squawk, warns of potential growth to 20-25 nuclear states, heightening conflict risks.

Yet, outlets like the Guardian caution against hype in its August 12 piece, Don’t believe the hype about nuclear weapons, noting that while threats persist, climate concerns have overshadowed them without diminishing their gravity. Washington Morning’s June 20 outlook, Is a Nuclear War in 2025 Almost Guaranteed? A Critical Outlook, deems full-scale war unlikely but stresses vigilance amid escalating tensions.

For industry insiders in defense and policy, these developments demand recalibrating strategies. Forecasting tools from Carnegie suggest low but non-zero probabilities—under 1% for all-out war—yet the cumulative risks from AI integration and hypersonic tech could tip balances unpredictably. As DW reports in its June 16 article, Risk of nuclear war grows amid new arms race, radical redefinitions are underway, urging renewed diplomatic efforts to rebuild guardrails before it’s too late.