{"id":136330,"date":"2024-03-07T18:38:00","date_gmt":"2024-03-07T19:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=136330"},"modified":"2024-03-08T01:30:54","modified_gmt":"2024-03-08T01:30:54","slug":"commentary-oppenheimers-best-performance-reminding-us-that-we-live-in-dangerous-times-los-angeles-times-bc-oppenheimer-commentaryla","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/?p=136330","title":{"rendered":"Commentary:\u00a0\u2018Oppenheimer\u2019s\u2019 best performance \u2014 reminding us that we live in dangerous times [Los Angeles Times :: BC-OPPENHEIMER-COMMENTARY:LA]"},"content":{"rendered":"

On Oscar night, millions will tune in to see whether the captivating story about the race to create the world\u2019s first nuclear weapon will take home an armload of Academy Awards. As we watch, we must remember this: No matter who lands a golden statuette on March 10, we will all<\/em> wake up on March 11 just one terrible miscalculation, accident or deliberate act of madness away from civilization-ending nuclear destruction.<\/p>\n

We deeply appreciate that \u201cOppenheimer\u201d has brought the atomic bomb origin story to the big screen. Movies have the power to educate and inspire, and Christopher Nolan\u2019s blockbuster is raising awareness that today\u2019s nuclear danger is all too real, as horrific wars rage in two nuclear-armed regions of the world, a new arms race accelerates and global nuclear arsenals become ever more vulnerable to risks associated with cyber- and emerging technologies. Just last week, Vladimir Putin issued a chilling warning to countries considering aid for Ukraine. They must understand, he said, that \u201call this truly threatens a conflict with the use of nuclear weapons, and therefore the destruction of civilization.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not since the height of the Cold War has the threat of nuclear weapons been so ominous. How did we get here \u2014 and how can we step back from the brink of catastrophe?<\/p>\n

Nolan\u2019s film takes viewers back to World War II, when J. Robert Oppenheimer led a secret project to build the world\u2019s first nuclear bomb. But \u201cOppenheimer\u201d isn\u2019t just history \u2014 it also is a devastating cautionary tale. Oppenheimer himself warned the world about the spread of nuclear weapons and the development of even more powerful weapons than the two that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.<\/p>\n

In the aftermath of those bombings, we learned the gut-wrenching stories of those who experienced atomic devastation. For decades, schoolchildren participated in duck-and-cover drills as the United States and the Soviet Union raced to build the biggest nuclear arsenals. In 1962, the world watched as Americans coped with suffocating fear for 13 days during the Cuban Missile Crisis.<\/p>\n

Eventually, almost 70,000 nuclear weapons<\/a> threatened the world. Geopolitics and social action helped change that. With the dismantling of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Russia reduced their nuclear stockpiles; ultimately 80% of global nuclear arsenals were eliminated. The glaring nuclear weapons threat seemed to fade. But there are still 13,000 nuclear weapons in the world and now the trend line is heading in the wrong direction.<\/p>\n

Iran has demonstrated the technological capability to join the \u201cnuclear club\u201d \u2014 Russia, China, North Korea, Israel, India, Pakistan, the United Kingdom, France and the United States. Leaders in other countries, from South Korea to Saudi Arabia, have suggested that they too could develop nuclear weapons in response to regional nuclear threats.<\/p>\n

Some of the weapons that now exist are up to 80 times more powerful than the ones Oppenheimer built. Some are held by volatile dictators and in unstable regions; some could fall into the hands of nonstate actors. And with cyberthreats and the integration of artificial intelligence in military systems, the danger looms of nuclear war by accident or blunder.<\/p>\n

Just the mere possession<\/em> of thousands of nuclear weapons, spread among nine countries, presents unprecedented danger, and the implications are not widely understood. A small number of fallible human beings and a complex set of technical controls \u2014 by no means fail-safe \u2014 are all that stand between now and a nuclear apocalypse.<\/p>\n

By showing moviegoers the detonation of just one nuclear weapon, \u201cOppenheimer\u201d serves as a powerful reminder of the nuclear threat at a particularly dangerous moment.<\/p>\n

Of course, this isn\u2019t the first time nuclear threats have been a focus in movies and theaters.<\/p>\n

In the 1960s, Stanley Kubrick captured people\u2019s attention with his black comedy \u201cDr. Strangelove,\u201d and Peter Sellars more recently brought the contemporary opera \u201cDoctor Atomic\u201d to life, telling, as \u201cOppenheimer\u201d does, the story of the Manhattan Project. In the 1980s, \u201cTerminator\u201d envisioned an AI network launching a nuclear war.<\/p>\n

The fact is, we are living at the mercy of weapons that could destroy civilization many times over.<\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t have to be this way.<\/p>\n

We must wake up to the reality of today\u2019s nuclear threats, raise our voices and seize the opportunity to build a more peaceful world. Politicians must question the assumption that nuclear arsenals keep us safe. Leaders around the world must reenvision and strengthen treaties and nonproliferation agreements. With speed and deliberation, we should take steps toward a world without nuclear weapons. We have done it before. We can do it again.<\/p>\n

It is time to heed Oppenheimer\u2019s warnings.<\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

Jerry Brown is executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and former governor of California. Ernest Moniz is co-chair and CEO of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and former U.S. secretary of Energy.<\/em><\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

\u00a92024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com<\/a>. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC. <\/p>\n

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On Oscar night, millions will tune in to see whether the captivating story about the race to create the world\u2019s first nuclear weapon will take home an armload of Academy Awards. As we watch, we must remember this: No matter who lands a golden statuette on March 10, we will all wake up on March […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136330","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136330","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=136330"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136330\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136331,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136330\/revisions\/136331"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=136330"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=136330"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adn.monetizemail.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=136330"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}