2025 Retrospective
2025 was the year that made DoomTicker necessary. The gap between legacy single-metric risk models and the actual multi-domain threat landscape became undeniable. Here's what happened.
☢ Nuclear
SIPRI Yearbook 2025 confirmed all nine nuclear-armed states simultaneously expanding or modernising arsenals. China's build-up accelerated beyond projections. No new arms control framework emerged to replace expired treaties.
🌍 Climate
Sakschewski & Caesar (2025) documented 7 of 9 planetary boundaries breached. The 1.5°C threshold was temporarily exceeded. Extreme weather events accelerated beyond IPCC AR6 projections.
⚡ AI
AI capabilities surged: autonomous drone swarms deployed in conflict, AI-generated deepfakes triggered market crashes, and multiple countries deployed AI for judicial and benefits adjudication with minimal human oversight.
🧬 Biosecurity
WHO pandemic treaty negotiations stalled. Mirror-life research and AI protein design tools created new biosecurity vectors. US public health infrastructure was further dismantled.
🏛 Governance
Global defence spending reached $2.7T. Treaty architecture continued to erode. UNSC remained paralysed. The governance gap between technological capability and institutional oversight widened.
Why DoomTicker Was Built
The events of 2025 demonstrated that a single clock hand cannot represent the distinct trajectories of nuclear risk, AI sovereignty, climate collapse, and social manipulation simultaneously. DoomTicker launched in 2026 with a 10-domain, triple-lens model to provide the decomposition that modern risk assessment requires.
View Current 2026 Assessment →