By Kelsey Davenport in Arms Control Today
President Donald Trump’s April 7 threat that he might escalate U.S. attacks on Iran so that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” should profoundly alarm every U.S. and global citizen.
For Immediate Release: April 7, 2026
Media Contacts: Daryl G. Kimball and Thomas Countryman (202-463-8270 x107)
(Washington, D.C.) — President Donald Trump’s April 7 threat that he might escalate U.S. attacks on Iran so that “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again,” should profoundly alarm every U.S. and global citizen.
Whether Trump is threatening a massive conventional bombing campaign or making a veiled threat to use nuclear weapons to try to coerce Iran into submission, leaders of nuclear-armed states cannot, must not, threaten the end of "a whole civilization.”
Such threats are unacceptable and following through would be a massive war crime and humanitarian disaster. In addition, an attack on Iran's Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant would risk a radiological disaster in the region.
The only type of weapons in the U.S. arsenal that could destroy "a whole civilization" in a day would be nuclear weapons. Any use by the United States of nuclear weapons against Iran would permanently damage the United States' reputation, shred its alliances, and would constitute a war crime for which everyone in the chain of command could be prosecuted.
Even if Trump is not considering the use nuclear weapons, but “only” intends to launch a massive conventional bombing against civilian targets in Iran, the effect would be the opposite of Trump’s ostensible goal: preventing Iran’s leaders from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Rather, it would reinforce the belief that the only way a nation can deter attack from an aggressive nuclear-armed state is to possess one’s own nuclear weapons. A further escalation of this war would thus provide further incentive for Iran - and possibly other states - to develop nuclear weapons.
During the course of the nuclear age, past U.S. presidents have issued veiled nuclear threats against smaller, less powerful but very determined nations only to learn that such threats do not lead them to capitulate. U.S. nuclear threats during the Korean War and later against China and the Soviet Union, as well as Nixon’s “madman” strategy, which involved a nuclear threat against North Vietnam and a massive strategic bombing campaign, failed to bend adversaries to U.S. goals.
We call on rational voices inside Trump’s circle of formal advisors, informal confidants, members of Congress from both parties, and global leaders to remind Mr. Trump that responsible leaders do not threaten to commit war crimes, that a further escalation of his illegal war would undermine U.S. and global security and risk the lives of innocent people in Iran and the Middle East, and that the responsible path forward and out of this war is to immediately end the hostilities.
April 2026 Digital Magazine
By Daryl G. Kimball and Libby Flatoff in Arms Control Today
By Kelsey Davenport in Arms Control Today
The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home
William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman
Bold Type Books
November 2025
Eighty Years into the Nuclear Age: Where Are We and Where Are We Going? A Perspective from Mexico and Latin America
By María Antonieta Jáquez Huacuja and Abelardo Rodríguez Sumano (eds.)
The Mexican Association of International Studies (AMEI)
2025
April 2026
The Trillion Dollar War Machine: How Runaway Military Spending Drives America into Foreign Wars and Bankrupts Us at Home
William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman
Bold Type Books
November 2025
William D. Hartung and Ben Freeman uncover how the U.S. “war machine” has grown much larger than the “military industrial complex” that President Dwight Eisenhower once imagined. They present a framework to understand the war machine and offer a path toward shutting it down in order to reestablish U.S. security. This book reveals how politicians, lobbyists, Hollywood, universities, and others fuel the war machine to enrich a powerful elite at everyone else’s expense. From extensive costs to media promotion, this book exposes the real issues behind the war machine. The authors assert that relying on military spending to deliver “safety, security, and prosperity” is an outdated and misleading approach because the war machine weakens U.S. safety by pushing the country toward seemingly endless wars. They urge loosening the political grip of militarism to move toward reform. The authors highlight how the illusion of “military-fueled prosperity” stifles the ability to envision a livable world and say a new vision of U.S. foreign policy would abandon the supposed necessity of military domination. When Americans refuse to accept endless U.S. wars abroad, they take the first meaningful step toward breaking the war machine, the authors suggest. Arguing that public pressure is essential to reducing militarization, the book urges people across the political spectrum to oppose the war machine and pursue peace. They remind readers that the greatest cost of the machine is not the dollars spent, but the lives lost.—NAOMI SATOH
Eighty Years into the Nuclear Age: Where Are We and Where Are We Going? A Perspective from Mexico and Latin America
By María Antonieta Jáquez Huacuja and Abelardo Rodríguez Sumano (eds.)
The Mexican Association of International Studies (AMEI)
2025
The editors compiled viewpoints on nuclear weapons from Mexican and Latin American diplomats, academics, and civil society advocates in their book, A 80 años de la era nuclear, ¿dónde estamos y a dónde vamos? Una mirada desde México y América Latina, published in Spanish. Positing that past disarmament and security agreements were characterized by a unipolar international structure of the Cold War era that has limited development of a true balanced, multilateralist disarmament regime, Jáquez Huacuja and Rodríguez look for new, modern, multilateral solutions that include the Latin American and Caribbean regions. Throughout five sections, they make the case that the UN General Assembly should convene a new special session to “redefine guiding principles, revitalize multilateral commitment, give an effective voice to civil society, and address new strategic threats of the 21st century with a truly inclusive and transparent focus.” States in Latin America and the Caribbean “must assume leadership” to this end, they write. In an email exchange, Jáquez Huacuja told the Arms Control Association that “There are very few books on this issue in Spanish [and] with Latin American authors only, so we hope this can contribute to the reflection on nuclear disarmament issues in this very complicated time and age.”—LIBBY FLATOFF
