Preventing Nuclear Escalation: Multiregional Perspectives On The Twelve-Day War
By Anderson Peck and David Shi
On 31 July 2025, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) and the SESA chapter of its youth initiative, Reverse The Trend (RTT SESA), hosted a virtual event titled “Multiregional Perspectives on the Israel-Iran Conflict and Preventing Nuclear Escalation”, featuring an urgent discussion on avoiding nuclear escalation and the geopolitical implications of the Twelve-Day War. This event, moderated by RTT Youth Adviser Muhammad Ibraheem Waraich, highlighted expert and academic perspectives across the globe on this urgent issue. Speakers included Sharon Dolev, Executive Director of the Middle East Treaty Organization (METO); Dr. Emad Kiyaei, Director of METO; Commodore Uday Bhaskar, Director of the Society for Policy Studies (SPS); Dr. Salma Malik, Associate Professor at Quaid-i-Azam University; and Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and Senior Lecturer at Columbia University.
Sharon Dolev of METO began by recounting civil society involvement in Israel-Iran relations in 2012. She said,“It was civil society that kept pushing for talks—don’t bomb, talk.” Out of this push came the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), which Dolev described as an agreement that worked, putting Iran under “the most comprehensive safeguards that any state agreed to”.
Dolev critiqued the U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA in 2018 and further explained the consequences. She explained, “The biggest injury was diplomacy. When the U.S. breaks a working agreement, any future agreement will be harder to achieve and won’t be trusted. Dolev closed by reaffirming that “diplomacy is still the only way to secure our future. It is our job to push and continue to push diplomats and policymakers to sustain and respect these processes.”
Emad Kiyaei of METO opened his remarks by situating the Israel–Iran conflict within a broader “shadow Cold War,” one marked by ongoing cyberattacks, assassinations, sanctions, and diplomatic isolation, despite the formal end of hostilities. Kiyaei warned that this erosion of diplomacy and conventions meant to contain conflict has created a “Wild, Wild West,” where power is concentrated in the hands of a few leaders making “life-and-death decisions for millions and millions”.
In this context, Kiyaei stressed that the danger of nuclear weapon use is not confined to states like the US and Russia. Even a conflict between other nuclear-armed states, such as India and Pakistan, could trigger a humanitarian and climate catastrophe that kills billions due to the sheer destructive force of nuclear weapons. Kiyaei emphasized that humanity has the power to stop this “mass hostage-taking by the nine governments who possess nuclear weapons”, before calling for civil society to act and “provide policy, advice, and solutions.”
Commodore Uday Bhaskar followed, stating that “there has been a steady erosion of what was once seen as the nuclear taboo”. Citing Russia’s veiled nuclear threats in the Ukraine conflict and the continuation of North Korean missile tests, Bhaskar warned that international norms are weakening and that nuclear weapons have entered mainstream strategy. “There are no guard rails just now, as far as the nuclear capability is concerned,” said Bhaskar.
To meet the challenges of nuclear escalation, Bhaskar stressed, “Civil society must be galvanized. And how we do it, of course, is the matter of detail”. Concluding, Bhaskar expressed hope in the ability of younger generations to meet this rising challenge, reemphasizing, “as I said, our generation failed.”
Similarly, Salma Malik warned that the normalization of nuclear weapons usage has created a dangerous situation for all countries, citing India and Pakistan as an example where states flirt with tactical nuclear thresholds. Malik cautioned, “This is not how you play in the nuclear playbook. You must maintain a deterrence.” Malik criticized the shift from deterrence to compellence, where states force adversaries to comply through coercion. Malik characterized this as “changing the entire norms and provoking our adversaries into taking up new actions”.
Malik continued by warning that Israeli and US strikes on Iranian nuclear sites set a dangerous precedent: “Any country that wants to carry out similar strikes. Would find an endorsement from the bigger countries of the world,” Malik explained. She rejected the growing trend of surgical strikes on strategic assets, instead calling for a greater embrace of diplomacy. Malik concluded, “We really need to look for the common good of the people. We don’t need to endorse people who are willfully condemning the world to genocide.”
Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes of NAPF stressed the devastating nature of nuclear weapons and warned that the idea of a "limited" nuclear war is misleading. Citing scientific modeling of nuclear winter, Hughes emphasized that even a regional nuclear conflict would lead to catastrophic drops in global temperatures. “A regional conflict between India and Pakistan,” Hughes warned, “could trigger global agricultural collapse.
Hughes continued by criticizing the prevailing myth of safety created by deterrence frameworks, saying, “We’ve gotten lucky. We can’t get lucky forever”. She emphasized that the continued existence of these weapons is not a sign of strength but a deep moral failing: “Nuclear weapons need to become a symbol of shame. Governments should be ashamed of their professed commitment to use these weapons.” Concluding, Hughes called for greater diplomatic investment and public activism, noting that “civil society needs to continue to push for diplomacy, both for peace and disarmament. They go hand in hand, and they can be mutually reinforcing.”
Together, the speakers underscored that the erosion of nuclear norms, the collapse of key diplomatic agreements, and the growing normalization of nuclear threats have pushed the world into a far more dangerous and unstable era. They stressed that preventing further escalation requires rejecting coercion and military shortcuts and reinvesting in diplomacy, dialogue, and trust-building. The discussion closed with a clear call to action for civil society, youth activists, and governments, framing disarmament as an urgent necessity for human survival.