Nuclearism and Middle East
By Steve Overman, MD MPH
What we are witnessing in the Middle East can easily be seen as the result of militarism, involving all sides in the war. But there is another, perhaps less obvious way to look at the root problem: nuclearism.
Dr. Carlos Umaña, who has served as a co-president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), identifies “nuclearism” as a behavior that is a pathological, collective addiction to a nuclear suicide strategy.
As possessors of nuclear weapons, the United States and Israel certainly are prime candidates for succumbing to this addiction. However one judges Iran’s ultimate intentions, the country’s decades of work on nuclear development suggest an obsession on its part as well with the ultimate weapons of indiscriminate mass destruction.
The problem of nuclearism will remain with us and need to be addressed no matter what course the war launched by the United States and Israel takes, So, let's take a quick look at the elements of the nuclearism addiction.
The Psychology of the Addiction
Nuclear weapons serve as the “substance of abuse” while the craving for them manifests as a symptom of a deep-seated psychological condition. This addiction distorts the perception of leaders who profit in the billions of dollars from the myth of deterrence while creating annihilation plans that target millions of civilians.
In The Denial of Death (1973), Ernest Becker argued that human behavior is driven by a terror of mortality. We build symbols of power—nations and weapons—to quiet the anxiety of impermanence. Nuclear weapons are the ultimate “death-denial technology,” claiming to protect us by threatening everyone with extinction. Modern Terror Management Theory supports this, showing that reminders of death intensify tribalism, attraction to authoritarian leaders, and addictive behaviors.
The Dopamine of Deterrence
Any form of addiction hijacks the brain’s reward pathways, producing short-term comfort at the cost of long-term harm. Nuclearism operates similarly at a societal level and involves classic elements of addiction:
The High: The feeling of safety through deterrence, the prestige of great power status, and the pride of technological supremacy.
Escalating Doses: In 2025, U.S. taxpayers funded $110 billion dollars toward a nuclear program that can never be used without risking the destruction of all humanity, more than doubling in the past decade.
Relapse: While the end of the Cold War saw global stockpiles drop from 73,000 to 12,100, a worsening relapse is underway. China is adding roughly 100 new warheads per year, and global warhead counts are rising for the first time since 1985.
The Military-Industrial Supply Chain
Like the illicit drug trade, nuclearism sustains a destructive supply chain. It enriches defense contractors and weapons laboratories while outsourcing the damage to the public.
Northrop Grumman’s initial $13.3 billion contract for the Sentinel ICBM program has ballooned to $140.9 billion.
Combined with an $80 billion contract for the B-21 bomber, corporate leadership oversees the transfer of tens of millions in taxpayer dollars into personal wealth, while the citizens footing the bill remain the primary targets of nuclear war plans.
As Daniel Ellsberg revealed in The Doomsday Machine (2017), the longstanding “ethic” of nuclear planning centers on targeting families, schools, and hospitals—not just military assets. (Of course, as the threats to Iran’s entire civilian infrastructure underline, modern militarism operates with a similarly perverted concept of ethics.)
The Risk of a Terminal Overdose
Nuclearism is an addiction that threatens to end civilization itself. A “limited” regional conflict (e.g., between India and Pakistan) involving 100 nuclear weapons would:
Launch 6 million metric tons of black carbon into the upper atmosphere.
Trigger the coldest global temperatures in 1,000 years.
Cause catastrophic crop loss, threatening the lives of billions through famine.
Even without such a “terminal overdose” or the ultimate indulgence in all-out nuclear war, the mere production of these weapons creates severe “comorbidities”: nuclear colonialism (uranium poisoning of indigenous lands), environmental degradation (20,000 inactive uranium mines in the U.S.), and the massive diversion of public wealth away from health care, education and social services.
The Path to Recovery: The TPNW
Recovery requires social intervention and truth-telling. While international treaties successfully made biological weapons (1975), chemical weapons (1997), and landmines (1997) taboo, nuclear weapons have been harder to relinquish, in part due to the massive financial windfalls they provide to the “addicted” institutions.
However, a breakthrough has emerged: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW). It was negotiated over five years, adopted at a United Nations conference in 2017, and entered into force in 2021 for the states that have adopted it.
The treaty has global support. Currently 99 U.N. members have signed and 74 states have fully adopted it. The nine countries with nuclear weapons are not among them.
The TPNW is a mandate for change: It is the first global agreement to name nuclear weapons as incompatible with life and dignity. It prohibits possession, development, testing, and the threat of use.
Conclusion: Choosing Life
The TPNW reframes strength. It centers the lived realities of bombing survivors and indigenous communities over the abstractions of deterrence. Like any recovery process, it does not pretend that fear isn’t real; instead, it refuses to allow the addiction compulsion to mask that fear by endangering the entire planet.
Nuclearism thrives in drugged silence and the inevitability of compulsion. By breaking that silence, the TPNW offers an intervention path to regain control. As the cognitive distortions of addiction lift, the desire to live returns and the necessity of eliminating the nuclear weapons becomes clear.
Dr. Steve Overman, MD, MPH is a member of the Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility’s board of directors. You can follow him on Substack at Rheum to Improve.