January 14 marked a date that, despite going almost unnoticed, tells a lot about the world we live in today. A nuclear weapon has not exploded on Earth for 8 years, 4 months and 29 days. It is the longest period without nuclear detonations since the beginning of the atomic age, an absolute record not seen since 1945.
A silence that weighs, but at the same time speaks. Of progress, of diplomacy, of fears that have never really subsided and of a fragile, but concrete, hope. To understand how significant this achievement is, we need to go back in time. It all begins in 1945, when the first nuclear test in history was carried out in the desert of the southwestern United States. From that moment on, the planet officially enters the atomic age.
Since then, the numbers are impressive: around 2,000 nuclear devices have been detonated by eight different countries. An enormity, if you think of the devastating environmental and health consequences that many of these tests have left as a legacy, often on populations that had no possibility of choice.
Especially during the first decades of the Cold War, explosions were commonplace. In some years, more than one hundred nuclear tests have been carried out, with a crazy acceleration of the arms race. An era in which the planet was treated like a giant open-air laboratory, without any regard for air, water, soil and people’s health.
From 2017 to today, an atomic silence that had never been seen before
The period of “calm” we are experiencing today has a precise start date: September 2017, when North Korea carried out its last nuclear test. Since then, no other country with atomic weapons has detonated any devices.
All other nuclear states had already stopped testing between 1990 and 1998, the year in which Pakistan also put an end to its tests. Since then, the world has slowly taken a different path.
The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), opened for signatures in 1996, played a key role. Today it has been signed by 187 countries and ratified by 178: an overwhelming majority that has contributed to creating one of the strongest taboos in contemporary international politics.
Anyone who violates this ban is immediately isolated, labeled a rogue state and excluded from most diplomatic relations. Even countries that have not formally ratified the treaty, such as the United States, continue to respect the ban on nuclear tests, aware that the image and political damage would far outweigh any technical or military advantage.
A record to be celebrated, without forgetting that the nuclear risk has not disappeared
Looking at this long period without detonations with enthusiasm is legitimate, but realism is also needed. The nuclear threat has not disappeared. During the Cold War the world was several times one step away from disaster, separated from an atomic war by a fault, a human error or a decision made in a few seconds by someone under enormous pressure.
We are not that far from those scenarios. Geopolitical tensions still exist, as do nuclear arsenals. Yet, this record also tells something else: it demonstrates that change is possible.
Every day without a detonation is one more day without new radioactive contamination, without territories sacrificed, without populations exposed to devastating health effects that drag on for generations. It is a small, silent step forward for the health of the planet and those who live on it.
And perhaps this is precisely the most important message: every new day without atomic explosions is one more reason to hope that, as has already happened in the past, common sense and responsibility will once again prevail. The record can continue to grow. It is also up to us, as a global community, not to break this fragile silence.
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