WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The current threat of a nuclear war is greater than it was for most of the Cold War, former US Secretary of Defense William Perry said at a Bulletin of Atomic Scientists press conference.
"The danger of a nuclear catastrophe today, in my judgment, is greater than it was during the Cold War… and yet, our policies simply do not reflect those dangers," Perry stated on Tuesday.
Both the United States and Russia are modernizing their nuclear arsenals for the first time since the Cold War, with US upgrades estimated to cost $350 billion over the next ten years.
"The most dangerous aspect comes from the danger that it will provoke, somehow, an accidental nuclear war," Perry warned, citing the lack of cooperation and increased hostility between the United States and Russia.
Perry spoke at the unveiling of the 2016 "Doomsday Clock," a Bulletin of Atomic Scientists forecast published every year since 1947, assessing the existential danger of nuclear and similar technologies.
In 2016, the Doomsday Clock is set at three minutes to midnight — a more dire outlook than the 1962 period of the Cuban Missile Crisis and equivalent to the 1949 onset of the nuclear arms race.
