UK Foreign Secretary Compared AI Risks to Hiroshima, Called for Global Rules

Britain's Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper on July 6, 2026 published an essay for the Chatham House think tank with a warning: AI could become "the main security challenge of the next decade". Cooper called on the global community to develop global regulation rules in advance — not wait for a technological catastrophe, which she compares to the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima.

What does the Hiroshima analogy mean?

The nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945 claimed between 130,000 and 220,000 lives. International treaties on nuclear weapons control appeared only years later — after the catastrophe had already occurred, and the Cold War intensified the arms race. Cooper is convinced: with AI, we cannot allow a similar scenario. International control mechanisms must emerge in advance, not as an emergency response to what has already happened.

The minister laid out her warning in an essay for Chatham House — one of the most authoritative international think tanks in the field of global security. Publication in this format is a standard tool of British diplomacy for launching a broad discussion in expert and government communities.

• Author: Yvette Cooper, UK Foreign Secretary
• Platform: Chatham House think tank, London
• Date: July 6, 2026
• Key thesis: AI — potentially "the main security challenge of the next decade"
• Call: global rules before AI catastrophe, not after

Why Britain is taking on AI diplomacy

In November 2023, Britain held the first AI Safety Summit in Bletchley Park with participation from the USA, China, the EU, and leading AI companies — OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic. The meeting concluded with the Bletchley Declaration on risks from advanced AI, but no legally binding treaty was adopted. Since then, London has consistently positioned itself as a neutral negotiating platform.

Meanwhile, the regulatory approaches of key powers have diverged even further. The European Union adopted the AI Act — the world's first comprehensive AI law. The USA acts through presidential executive orders and industry standards. China is building its own system of regulations for generative models. A single international agreement — an analogue of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty — still does not exist. It is precisely this gap that Cooper calls strategically dangerous.

"Do not wait for an AI version of

Hiroshima to write the rules," — the essence of the minister's warning.

The statement comes against the backdrop of growing real threats: autonomous combat systems, AI-enhanced cyberattacks on critical infrastructure and state-level disinformation operations of a new scale have long ceased to be hypothetical scenarios.

What this means

Cooper's essay is a diplomatic signal, not an academic exercise. Foreign secretaries typically publish such materials as a prelude to specific initiatives at the G7 or UN level. If the Hiroshima analogy becomes embedded in official diplomatic discourse, it could become a catalyst for negotiations on a global AI treaty — before the power of technology completely outpaces the world community's ability to control it.