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What Questions Should Humans Be Asking about Nuclear Weapons?

In June 2023, we asked ChatGPT this question. Here is its exact response — unedited, uncorrected, uncanny

Question : What questions should humans be asking about nuclear weapons?

ChatGPT Answer:  Nuclear weapons are one of the most destructive and deadly weapons ever created, and their existence poses a significant threat to global security. Here are some questions that humans should be asking about nuclear weapons:

• How can we prevent the use of nuclear weapons? This includes preventing nuclear war, accidental detonations, and unauthorized access to nuclear weapons.
• What are the risks associated with nuclear weapons? This includes the potential for nuclear accidents, the environmental and health impacts of nuclear testing and use, and the geopolitical risks associated with nuclear proliferation.
• What role should nuclear weapons play in national security strategies? Is it ethical to possess and potentially use such destructive weapons, and what are the potential consequences of doing so?
• How can we reduce the global nuclear weapons stockpile? This includes arms control agreements, disarmament efforts, and the safe and secure storage and disposal of nuclear materials.
• How can we address the challenges posed by emerging technologies, such as hypersonic missiles, in the context of nuclear weapons?
• How can we improve international cooperation and dialogue on nuclear weapons? This includes diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions and increase transparency between nuclear-armed states.

These are just a few examples of the many questions that humans should be asking about nuclear weapons. It is important to have ongoing discussions and evaluations of nuclear weapons policies and strategies to ensure that we are reducing the risks associated with these weapons and moving towards a more peaceful and secure world.

ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence-powered language model developed by OpenAI.

A Carnegie Corporation of New York and Chicago Council on Global Affairs webinar provides insights on how to engage Americans on nuclear issues across generational lines

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Ending nuclear weapons before they end us: current challenges and paths to avoiding a public health catastrophe

Tilman a. ruff.

School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, PO Box 2285, Brighton North, VIC 3186 Australia

The United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)—an important planetary health good—entered into legal force in January 2021. Evidence of the consequences of nuclear war, particularly the global climatic and nutritional effects of the abrupt ice age conditions from even a relatively small regional nuclear war, indicates that these are more severe than previously thought. None of the nine nuclear-armed states is disarming; instead, all invest enormously in new and more hazardous nuclear weapons. Nor has any of the 32 states claiming reliance on another state's nuclear weapons yet ended such reliance. These factors, abrogation of existing nuclear arms control agreements, policies of first nuclear use and war fighting, growing armed conflicts worldwide, and increasing use of information and cyberwarfare, exacerbate dangers of nuclear war. Evidence-based advocacy by health professionals on the planetary health imperative to eliminate nuclear weapons has never been more urgent.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) is now in legal force

This article reviews current evidence, challenges, and opportunities towards controlling the most acute existential threat facing humankind and the biosphere: growing danger of nuclear war. During the years 2020 and 2021, dramatic explosion of the COVID-19 pandemic and rapidly accelerating severity and frequency of extreme weather and disasters caused by global heating have painfully underscored the necessity for public policies to be firmly grounded in evidence, especially those related to catastrophic and existential risks. Sadly, in many jurisdictions this is inadequately the case, exacerbating adverse health effects and risks. For nuclear weapons, the gap between government policy and the evidence on consequences and risks is a gaping chasm in 41 nations that claim some unique right to threaten people worldwide with indiscriminate nuclear violence; or to assist others to do so. While the climate emergency from global heating is finally receiving substantial government, professional, and public attention worldwide, the more acute existential risk to the stable and hospitable climate needed for human and planetary health posed by nuclear weapons is not. Both demand urgent attention.

An article in these pages in 2018 titled: "The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: a planetary health good of the highest order" [ 1 ] described this new United Nations treaty, adopted in 2017 [ 2 ], the first to comprehensively and categorically prohibit the worst weapons of mass destruction. It discussed the role of public health evidence-based advocacy in its development. When Honduras ratified the treaty (hereinafter, TPNW) on 24 October 2020, the world achieved a milestone of 50 state ratifications, signalling their readiness to be legally bound by its provisions. This triggered the treaty's formal legal entry into force 90 days later, on 22 January 2021. From this date, nations are required to fulfil their obligations under the treaty, starting 90 days after each completed its procedure for joining the treaty, thereby becoming a "State Party" to it.

By 14 December 2021, 86 countries had signed the treaty and 57 had ratified it [ 3 ]. From 2014, 127 states joined the Austrian-initiated Humanitarian Pledge [ 4 ], committing to work collaboratively to fill a legal gap: nuclear weapons as the last and only weapon of mass destruction not prohibited by an international treaty. In 2016, more than 120 states supported the development and negotiation of the treaty at each step in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) that required voting, and adoption of the treaty in 2017, then again for subsequent UNGA resolutions supporting the treaty [ 5 ]. Despite many competing priorities and fierce opposition to the TPNW from states deploying nuclear weapons, many of the supportive but not yet signatory states are likely to sign. The 31 signatory states which have not yet ratified the treaty are very likely to do so. Thus, the number of States Parties will continue to grow, and with them the legal, political, and moral force of the treaty.

The regularly scheduled at least biennial meetings of States Parties, including review conferences at least every 6 years, to further implementation, promotion, and development of the treaty will begin with the first meeting currently planned for 22–24 March 2022 in Vienna, Austria. A one-day intergovernmental humanitarian conference will precede it to review research updates on the impacts of nuclear weapons and the risks of nuclear war.

Current evidence on the consequences of nuclear war

First who assessment, 1983.

In 1983, the World Health Assembly considered the first report of an international committee of experts on the effects of nuclear war on health and health services. It endorsed the committee's conclusion: "that it is impossible to prepare health services to deal in any systematic way with the catastrophe resulting from nuclear warfare, and that nuclear weapons constitute the greatest immediate threat to the health and welfare of mankind" [ 6 ]. The committee's report states: “It is obvious that no health service in any area of the world would be capable of dealing adequately with the hundreds of thousands of people seriously injured by blast, heat or radiation from even a single 1-megaton bomb.” The committee concluded: “… the only approach to the treatment of the health effects of nuclear explosions is primary prevention of such explosions, that is, the primary prevention of atomic war” [ 7 ].

New evidence of climate impacts

In the decades since 1983 we have learned much about the multiplicity of impacts of nuclear explosions and war. The evidence grows ever clearer as to the catastrophic effects. The most important new evidence relates to climate impacts. Nuclear weapons are extremely efficient at igniting vast numbers of simultaneous fires over large areas. These would consume all flammable materials and coalesce into massive confluent fires within which no one could survive the > 800 °C heat, intense smoke, and oxygen depletion. Atmospheric scientists estimated that even the relatively small tactical size nuclear weapon exploded on Hiroshima (15 kilotonnes of high explosive equivalent) released about 1000 times as much energy in the fires it ignited as in the explosion itself [ 8 ]. In Hiroshima approximately 13 km 2 of the city burned completely. Detonation of the largest currently deployed nuclear weapons, up to five megatonnes in size, would result in a confluent megafire more than 45 km in diameter, 1600 km 2 in area [ 9 ].

Atmosphere and climate effects of regional nuclear war: the example of India–Pakistan

The scenario for regional nuclear war most often studied by atmospheric scientists is a war between India and Pakistan. This possibility is all too realistic, as the two nations have waged war four times since their independence in 1949, and mobilised up to 1,000,000 troops on two other occasions. They possess two of the world's three most rapidly growing nuclear arsenals. Both have policies which create high risks of nuclear escalation in a war between them. Violence erupts across their disputed border in Kashmir almost daily. The most recently updated scenario involves use of 250 nuclear weapons of 15, 50, or 100 kt in size [ 10 ]. These constitute less than 2% of the number of nuclear weapons worldwide; and amount to less than 1% of their explosive yield, because the average size of the 13,150 nuclear weapons is 200 kt [ 11 ].

Such a war would produce between 83 and 183 million acute casualties in cities across both nations, including 52 to 127 million deaths (depending on the size of the weapons used) [ 10 ]. Radioactive contamination, severe social and economic disruption, and people attempting to flee on an unprecedented scale would extend across South Asia and beyond. Such a war would also produce between 16 and 36 million tonnes of black carbon in sooty smoke from burning cities [ 10 ]. This smoke would loft quickly into the upper stratosphere and mesosphere, beyond the reach of clouds and precipitation in the lower atmosphere (troposphere). The sun would heat the rising smoke by 50 to 80 °C. The carbon would blanket the Earth for over a decade. It would also reduce global average surface temperatures by 3 to 6 °C, well within the range of minimum temperatures during the peak of the last ice age 20,000 years ago, 3 to 8 °C colder than present. Unevenly distributed temperature declines of 8 to 15 °C would cover much of the large North American and Eurasian land masses.

Global precipitation would also decline by up to 35%, with particular disruption of the South Asian monsoon on which food production for 1.5 billion people critically depends. Scientists expect these drier conditions and colder temperatures to be associated with cold spells and shortened frost-free growing seasons in temperate regions. An unprecedented increase in ultraviolet flux (30–100% increases during summer outside the tropics) would exacerbate these changes [ 12 ]. Stratospheric ozone would be extensively depleted, with harmful effects on plant and animal development and health in both aquatic and terrestrial environments. Even a smaller India-Pakistan nuclear war releasing 5 million tonnes of soot would produce peak global ozone loss of 25%, and up to 55% loss at higher latitudes, with recovery taking 12 years and peak increase of 40% in the ultraviolet B wavelengths associated with DNA damage [ 13 ]. Most agricultural production would cease in higher latitude regions including Canada, northern areas of Europe, Russia, China, Korea, and Japan [ 14 ].

Radioactive fallout and toxic chemical contamination from destroyed pipelines and industrial and storage sites would affect large areas of agricultural land. Social, economic, transport and trade turmoil would disrupt global distribution of fertiliser, fuel, machinery and equipment, seeds, pesticides, food storage facilities, and transport on which modern agriculture, food stocks, and distribution depend. And the consequence? The climatic changes alone would cause a decline in net primary productivity (NPP) of between 10 and 20% in the oceans and between 15 and 40% on land over multiple years [ 10 ]. NPP is the net amount of carbon per square metre per year converted into plant matter after accounting for what plants use for their own respiration. This loss would be comparable to the total current annual human use of food and fibre. Scientists continue to discover new effects that would exacerbate the harm. Recent findings indicate that various nuclear war scenarios could induce an El Niño-like pattern of unprecedented magnitude across the Pacific, with associated reductions in equatorial Pacific phytoplankton productivity of about 40% [ 15 ]. Researchers recently identified large and abrupt exacerbations in global ocean acidification as consequences of nuclear conflict including potential inability for marine calcifying organisms like shellfish and corals to maintain their shells or skeletons in a corrosive environment [ 16 ].

Devastation of food production

The world is not well prepared to withstand sustained decline in food production of such magnitude. In July 2021, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations estimated between 720 and 811 million people to be chronically malnourished in 2020, 118 million more than in 2019 [ 17 ]. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, FAO estimated the number of people experiencing moderate or severe food insecurity in 2020 at 2.37 billion, 318 million more than the previous year. Their November 2021 forecast for the 2021–22 year for global cereal stocks is equivalent to 104 days of consumption [ 18 ]. We expect more detailed country specific estimates of impacts on food production to be published in coming months. Sustained declines in global food production of such magnitude threaten over 2 billion people with starvation [ 19 ]. Epidemics of various infectious diseases would inevitably accompany famine of such unprecedented magnitude, as well as conflict within and between nations over inadequate and diminishing food reserves. The combination would likely exacerbate the human toll substantially.

Human health effects and implications

Immediate localised destruction would cause catastrophic local health impacts. Widespread health impacts would be caused by dispersed radioactive fallout and potentially an electromagnetic pulse from a high-altitude nuclear explosion that would incapacitate all civilian electrical and electronic infrastructure on a continental scale. But the major cause of casualties worldwide from a nuclear war would be from an abrupt onset of a nuclear ice age and resultant mass starvation. The ice age induced starvation findings from even a localised regional nuclear war do not support the commonly claimed theoretical basis for nuclear deterrence of mutually assured destruction . Instead, they characterise nuclear weapons as risking self-assured destruction from what amount to global suicide bombs. Nuclear weapons overwhelmingly endanger the security of all peoples and render meaningless any concept of winning a nuclear war [ 20 ]. They have no legitimate or legal military purpose.

The current risk of nuclear war

Risks of a nuclear war are growing [ 21 , 22 ]. No nuclear-armed state is currently disarming, nor engaged in nuclear disarmament negotiations. First the US, followed by Russia, abrogated hard-won treaties negotiated between them which were fruits of the end of the first Cold War, and which constrained nuclear weapons numbers and types. Together these two countries hold 90% of all nuclear weapons [ 11 ]. The treaties include the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (eliminated short and medium-range nuclear missiles from the Soviet, then from Russian and US arsenals), the Open Skies Treaty (increased nuclear transparency), and the more recent Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (Iran nuclear deal that provided effective constraints on Iran's nuclear program until the Trump administration abrogated it). Were it not for the incoming Biden administration's quick agreement to extend the New START treaty just two days before it would otherwise have expired, there would be no treaty restraints in force in 2021 on US and Russian nuclear weapons despite an effectively resurgent Cold War.

Modernising and expanding nuclear arsenals at enormous and escalating cost

All nine nuclear-armed states are investing massively in modernising and expanding their nuclear arsenals. Modernisation means new, faster, stealthier, more flexible and accurate capacities. A number can be armed with either conventional or nuclear warheads, indistinguishable until point of impact. These changes lower the overall threshold for use of nuclear weapons [ 23 ]. Both Russia and the USA, owning between them 90% of all nuclear weapons, are comprehensively replacing and modernising their warheads, missiles and launch platforms. They are also increasing the role of nuclear weapons in their military policies, and the range of circumstances in which they might be used, including against conventional and cyber attacks [ 24 , 25 ]. Russia is testing and deploying entirely new types of nuclear weapons including nuclear-powered cruise missiles, hypersonic delivery vehicles atop ballistic missiles, and long-range nuclear torpedoes designed to explode in waters close to cities [ 25 ]. The US is producing new nuclear warheads for the first time in three decades, modernising all types of nuclear weapons—ballistic and cruise missiles, bombs delivered by aircraft, and the submarines, ships and aircraft that carry them [ 24 ]. It is also upgrading the nuclear weapons it provides to the UK and the nuclear bombs it stations in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Netherlands and Turkey [ 24 ].

Current estimates of global spending on development and production of nuclear weapons reached US$72.6 billion in 2020, an increase of $1.4 billion from 2019, even given constraints of the pandemic [ 26 ]. The total cost of nuclear weapons programs, including environmental clean-up and legacy costs, is far greater. The US spends the most on military and nuclear weapons: in FY 2021 its nuclear weapons-related costs reached US$74.75 billion [ 27 ]. Military spending consumes half of all discretionary US government spending. In the US, nuclear warhead spending is currently at an all-time record high, with projected expenditures over the next three decades of over US$2 trillion to comprehensively refurbish the nuclear arsenal and the facilities that produce nuclear weapons [ 23 ]. While Russia's military spending in 2020 ($61.7 billion) was estimated to be only 8% of that of the US ($778 billion) [ 26 ], the proportion it spends on nuclear weapons is more than 2.5 times as great as the US [ 28 ].

Opportunity costs: weapons versus United Nations and related programs

Such vast expenditures on weapons that create a hazardous legacy even in their production have enormous social, environmental, and public health opportunity costs. Estimates by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network place average total annual investment required between 2019 and 2030 to fully finance achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) agreed by all nations at US$1011 billion [ 29 ]. That amounts to about half of annual military expenditures, US$1981 billion in 2020—2.6% higher than in 2019 [ 26 ]. That increase occurred despite the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated severe economic downturn, increase in poverty and food insecurity. The combined annual budgets of the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF, the United Nations itself, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and the UN Office of Disarmament Affairs amount to less than 30% of direct spending on nuclear weapons [ 30 ]. Operating an F-35 nuclear-capable combat aircraft for one-hour costs as much as a nurse earns in a year (OECD average); the cost of one Virginia Class nuclear submarine could fund 9180 fully equipped ambulances; the cost of one Trident II nuclear missile could buy 17 million facemasks [ 30 ]. By September 2021, at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine had reached fewer than 3% of people in low-income countries and the WHO fell short by US$900 million in funds they needed to cover the period till March 2022 for their essential role in ending the acute phase of the pandemic—1.2% of annual direct nuclear weapons spending [ 31 ].

Doomsday clock reflects growing insecurity

Leaders of all nuclear-armed states have, in recent years, issued specific nuclear threats, with military leaders confirming their active planning to fight nuclear war [ 32 ]. In 2020, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its authoritative Doomsday Clock to 100 s to midnight, further forward than it has ever been before, explaining that: "the international security situation is now more dangerous than it has ever been, even at the height of the Cold War." [ 33 ] In 2021 the clock hands remained in the same position, as: "the potential to stumble into nuclear war—ever present—has grown." [ 22 ] In 2019, the United States intelligence community's annual assessment to Congress of worldwide threats warned that the effects of climate change and environmental degradation increase stress on communities around the world and intensify global instability and the likelihood of conflict, increasing the danger of nuclear war [ 34 ]. Over the last decade, the number of armed conflicts has steadily grown, particularly the number of "internationalised intrastate" conflicts—within a state but involving at least one nation (disproportionately nuclear-armed nations) outside the state in conflict [ 35 ].

Cyberwarfare increases vulnerability of nuclear arms systems

Another major area of increasing risk of use of nuclear weapons is growing use of cyberwarfare by both states and non-state actors. Attacks on civilian and military nuclear facilities included extensive hacking in December 2020 of the US National Nuclear Security Administration which maintains US nuclear weapons [ 36 ]. Complex global systems of early warning, command, control, communications, and intelligence are related to nuclear weapons. They are complex, dispersed, and interlinked—and vulnerable to cyberattack. As General James Cartwright, former head of US Strategic Command stated, it: "might be possible for terrorists to hack into Russian or American command and control systems and launch nuclear missiles, with a high probability of triggering a wider nuclear conflict."[ 37 ]

British, French, Russian, and US authorities keep 2000 nuclear warheads on high alert, all mounted on delivery vehicles and ready for use within minutes of a launch order [ 11 ]. These warheads are particularly vulnerable to digital sabotage and inadvertent or unauthorised launch. Many states, including China, Iran, Israel, North Korea, Russia, and the US, engage in offensive cyber operations [ 38 ]. Buyers may include governments, government proxies, and terrorist organisations. Frequently buyers find tools in a lucrative global black and grey market offering hacking tools, especially 'Zero-day exploits'. These tools exploit software or hardware flaws and vulnerabilities for which no corrective patch yet exists [ 38 ]. Government staff, as part of their work, or moonlighting staff, or government contractors can develop offensive digital tools. Individual or organised hackers and cybercriminals, or private for-profit companies can also produce them almost anywhere. Targets of hacking and digital sabotage to date include banking and health systems, Sony Corporation, electricity grids, water treatment facilities, airports, electoral systems, oil company computer systems, uranium enrichment centrifuges, and nuclear power plants. Increasing digital sophistication of nuclear weapons and delivery systems may increase their vulnerability to digital sabotage [ 38 ].

Source materials for nuclear weapons are not under adequate control

Vast stocks of fissile materials, the highly enriched uranium and plutonium from which nuclear weapons can be built, persist in civilian and military stockpiles in tens of countries. There are no effective international constraints on the production of these materials. Every state with a civilian nuclear industry is also capable of producing fissile materials; and any state that can enrich uranium to reactor grade can enrich it to weapons grade. Nuclear reactors inevitably convert some of the uranium in the fuel into plutonium. The average modern nuclear weapon contains around 4 kg of plutonium and/or 15 kg of highly enriched uranium (HEU) [ 39 ]. With the global fissile material stockpile at the start of 2020 estimated by the International Panel on Fissile Materials to contain 1330 tonnes of HEU and 540 tonnes of separated plutonium, [ 40 ] this equates to more than 225,000 nuclear weapon equivalents of material [ 39 ]. Apart from removal of relatively modest quantities of highly enriched uranium from civilian stockpiles in 34 countries plus Taiwan [ 41 ], the challenges of ceasing production of these materials, eliminating them where possible, and keeping the remaining quantities in consolidated storage in the safest possible form at the highest possible levels of security, remain largely unaddressed.

The TPNW provides our best path to control our worst weapons

The importance and urgency to eliminate nuclear weapons and to reduce the constant risk of their deliberate, inadvertent, or accidental use has never been greater. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons provides the most substantial positive development. It is firmly rooted in evidence of real consequences, costs, and dangers of nuclear weapons; it categorically and comprehensively prohibits these weapons; it contains the first treaty-based obligations for states to assist victims of nuclear weapons use and testing; and it obligates them to assist in remediation of environments so contaminated. This treaty is helping to drive divestment by responsible financial institutions from companies that profit from manufacturing the worst, and now illegal, weapons of mass destruction [ 42 ].

The treaty also contains the only internationally agreed and codified framework for the elimination of nuclear weapons. The treaty provides flexible pathways for nuclear-armed states to disarm before or after joining the treaty. It specifies plans for time-bound dismantlement of the weapons and the facilities that produce and maintain them. It is subject to verification by a competent international authority. Thus, the treaty provides the most promising pathway for all states to fulfil their obligations to negotiate in good faith to achieve nuclear disarmament. Many health and humanitarian organisations, including the World Federation of Public Health Associations, the Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, the World Medical Association, the International Council of Nurses, and the International Federation of Medical Student Associations have joined with International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) to welcome the entry into force of the treaty. These organisations urge all nations to join and faithfully implement it [ 43 ].

The role of scientists and health professionals

Escalating urgency to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Fundamental questions shadow everyone alive in our nuclear era: Will humanity eradicate weapons that pose the most acute existential threat to human and biosphere health and survival? And will we do so in time—before anyone uses them again, setting off indiscriminate nuclear violence that will bring about the end of us? Too few citizens and leaders worldwide realise and act on this recognition: the stable and hospitable climate needed for our living world requires protection from rampant global heating and from an abrupt nuclear ice age. Planetary health depends on both.

Health evidence and advocacy can be powerful

Effective evidence-based advocacy by expert custodians of scientific and health evidence has enabled much of the progress towards constraining the nuclear arms race. Prominent, respected figures including Dr. Albert Schweitzer and paediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock drew attention to evidence of markedly increasing levels of strontium-90 in children's deciduous teeth from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 60s. Their efforts played an important role in the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963 that ended Soviet and US atmospheric nuclear testing [ 19 ]. Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev and US president Ronald Reagan understood the catastrophic effects of nuclear war. Their attention to growing evidence of the cataclysmic consequences of a nuclear winter led them to declare jointly in 1985 that "A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought". In 1986 they came tantalisingly close to agreeing to eliminate their nuclear arsenals entirely over 15 years [ 44 ].

Partnerships and coalitions are vital

What played the decisive role in the Humanitarian Initiative on nuclear weapons? It was evidence of the catastrophic consequences of any use of nuclear weapons, the impossibility of any effective health or humanitarian response, growing dangers of nuclear war, and severe global impacts likely from even a relatively small scale regional nuclear war—coupled with the powerful testimony of the hibakusha and nuclear test survivors who experienced ongoing devastation of nuclear weapons firsthand [ 1 , 45 ]. This project of governments and global civil society, from 2010, led to adoption of the TPNW. It was an organisation of health professionals, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, that established the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). This campaign coalition became the major civil society partner with governments in development of the TPNW, a role resulting in award of the Nobel Peace Prize to ICAN in 2017.

Scientific and health evidence-based communication and advocacy on impacts and risks of nuclear war continue to play vital roles for citizens, leaders, and governments. Key factors that have prevented nuclear war to date include informed understanding of nuclear weapons dangers by key leaders, widespread revulsion by citizens worldwide of indiscriminate radioactive violence that nuclear war would unleash, and pressure from mobilised citizens [ 46 ]. Policies that justify nuclear weapons flow from primitive thinking, not facts and evidence. Evidence shows that nuclear weapons cannot make anyone more secure; instead, they pose an existential threat to the security of all people. If not eliminated before being used again, a nuclear war with catastrophic consequences will be inevitable. As growth in divestment from nuclear weapons producers encouraged by the TPNW demonstrates, powerful military, government, and corporate inertia and vested interests that drive the massive nuclear weapons enterprise are formidable, but not immovable [ 42 ].

Treaties work

Experience with treaties prohibiting other types of inhumane and indiscriminate weapons shows that they often influence even states that oppose and have not signed on to the treaty. Biological and chemical weapons, landmines and cluster munitions are now less often justified, produced, sold, deployed, and used after their prohibition—even by states not having joined the respective bans [ 45 ].

Lessons from COVID

The worst global pandemic in a century challenged leaders to learn and effectively apply lessons of this pandemic. We must find the silver linings in a dark cloud and build on them. COVID-19 should puncture any delusions of mastery of the natural world or complacent omnipotence about pathogens. COVID-19 has caught even the wealthiest nations inadequately prepared. Some that invest obscene sums in nuclear weapons that must never be used proved unable to provide the most basic of protective equipment for many frontline health professionals. COVID-19 is a timely reminder of threats to security for the world's people for which massive military arsenals and the worst weapons of mass destruction offer only a useless distraction.

COVID-19 highlights our highly interconnected vulnerabilities, ones requiring cooperative solutions. The pandemic has shown how quickly ideology, exceptionalist hubris, and arrogant leaders cause monumental failures of leadership and vast numbers of readily preventable deaths. The pandemic has laid bare a vital lesson: effective policy and governance depend on respect for truth and evidence and deference to its expert custodians. Measures previously deemed unthinkable, including rapid vaccine development and large-scale social support, can rapidly come to fruition. And the pandemic has confirmed that female leaders are generally more sensible and reliable in a crisis; we need more of such leadership.

Enormous investments by many countries in economic stimulus and support during the pandemic provide a tremendous if still poorly used opportunity to achieve greater social equity and capital with more equitable access to renewable energy. All of these can promote healthier and less polluting cities and infrastructure and prepare us much better for the next pandemic. COVID-19 should motivate leaders and citizens to take an evidence-based, preventive approach and work assiduously to eliminate the global health threats that are within our control, foremost among them nuclear weapons. An increasingly climate-stressed world is even more dangerous and unsustainable for arsenals of doomsday weapons. Effective and coordinated evidence-based advocacy by scientists and public health professionals on the planetary health imperative to eliminate nuclear weapons has never been more urgent.

AO, MB, BS (Hons), FRACP is Co-President, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; Founding Chair and Australian Board member for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons; Honorary Principal Fellow of the School of Population and Global Health, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia.

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• 04 August 2020

Researchers: help free the world of nuclear weapons

You have full access to this article via your institution.

Hiroshima survivor Setsuko Thurlow (pictured, centre, receiving the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons) has written to world leaders this week urging them to step up disarmament efforts. Credit: Lise Aserud/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

The start of August marks an inauspicious anniversary for science, that of the first — and, so far, only — use of nuclear weapons in war.

Seventy-five years have passed since the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, on 6 and 9 August 1945, which killed in the region of 200,000 people. The risk of nuclear conflict remains, and nuclear weapons exist in alarmingly large quantities. At present, the world’s nuclear arsenal — 90% of which is in the United States and Russia — includes an estimated 1,335 tonnes of highly enriched uranium and 13,410 warheads.

The generation of scientists that created nuclear weapons carried with them a heavy burden of responsibility.Some would go on to become committed disarmament campaigners. Others helped to shape a series of important conferences and agreements, starting with the 1970 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), whose aims include preventing non-nuclear-armed countries from developing or acquiring weapons technology.

But 50 years of nuclear diplomacy has made one thing clear: the nuclear nations are not ready to give up their weapons just yet. Progress has been made in reducing stockpiles, but these countries are simultaneously investing in updating their arsenals to last well into this century.

So what could persuade the United States, Russia, France, the United Kingdom, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea to begin fully dismantling their stocks, and to agree never again to develop nuclear weapons?

One idea, which has been in gestation for some years, could be about to have its break-out moment. A new agreement, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), is expected to become international law next year — and scientists have a chance to play a part in helping it to succeed.

Nuclear weapons: arms-control efforts need China

An urgent task will be to establish a new global network of researchers with knowledge on different aspects of nuclear science and technology. The treaty has yet to establish a formal scientific advisory mechanism. Some research groups, notably the Program on Science and Global Security at Princeton University in New Jersey, have been advising the treaty’s founders on various facets of nuclear science, such as how to accurately verify that stockpiles have been permanently dismantled 1 . But a more-permanent arrangement, whereby researchers from different countries can offer — and respond to requests for — advice will be needed. Because relations between Russia and the United States have worsened, the many formal and informal networks of nuclear scientists that once existed between these countries are now “practically non-existent”, says former US energy secretary Ernest Moniz, co-chair of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a think tank based in Washington DC. A new global network will be essential to ensuring the safety of nuclear arsenals, because a lack of communication increases the chance of accidents and misunderstandings, heightening the risk of nuclear weapons being used.

Breakneck progress

The TPNW was agreed in 2017 by 122 non-nuclear countries, mostly in the global south, but also including two European Union member states. The strategy in creating this treaty was conceived a decade earlier by researchers and campaigners at the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy in London; the Australian affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, based in Geneva, Switzerland, and New York City; and Japan’s Hibakusha, the survivors of the 1945 nuclear attacks.

Together, they built a larger coalition called the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), and worked with scientists, United Nations diplomats and humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross 2 . Some 40 countries have already incorporated the treaty into their national laws, and processes are under way for this to happen in more national parliaments.

Once 50 countries have signed it into law, the TPNW will have the status of an international law. At that point, it will become difficult for individuals (including scientists), as well as companies (including banks), from the treaty’s member countries to play any part in the development and deployment of nuclear-weapons technologies, says Rebecca Johnson at the Acronym Institute, who is one of the architects of the new treaty. But scientists who work on disarmament technologies will not be affected — they are much needed.

The treaty came about for a number of reasons. To begin with, the non-nuclear nations realized that they had to find a way to influence nuclear policy from beyond the shadow of the nuclear states. There seemed to be little justice in countries with nuclear weapons being the ones to decide the rules for the majority who wish for a nuclear-free world.

How a small nuclear war would transform the entire planet

Representatives of the bigger nuclear powers have often argued that they have earnt the right to be the world’s nuclear guardians, because they are stable countries with the most advanced nuclear science and technology — both essential ingredients in ensuring that stockpiles are safe and secure. But, in recent years, the argument that these countries can be trusted to look after the security interests of the rest of the world has become less credible.

Non-nuclear countries have grown increasingly alarmed as, in 2018, the United States withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, also known as the Iran nuclear deal, and, in 2019, the United States and Russia suspended the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty .

And so, in addition to working with the existing nuclear agreements — in which the nuclear states have a veto — non-nuclear countries negotiated the new treaty through the United Nations General Assembly, under which every country has one vote.

At the same time, the non-nuclear states were able to boost their cause by drawing on some of the latest findings from researchers studying a potential ‘nuclear winter’ — the severe global cooling predicted to follow a nuclear war . Recent research has shown that a relatively small nuclear war between India and Pakistan could cause crops to fail in dozens of countries, devastating food supplies for more than one billion people 3 . Other research reveals that a nuclear winter would drastically alter ocean chemistry and cause serious harm to reefs and other marine ecosystems 4 .

Crucially, the treaty’s designers deliberately organized the preparatory process so that female researchers and diplomats were present in significant numbers — which is not usually the case in existing nuclear agreements. As a result of this commitment to knowledge, equality and diplomacy, ICAN was awarded the 2017 Nobel Peace Prize.

A new centre of gravity

The big question is to what extent the TPNW will make a difference to the actions of nuclear states. None has signed, but they will all be affected, in part because the treaty prohibits companies and individuals from signatory countries from assisting in weapons development. And because the TPNW is an intergovernmental agreement, nuclear-weapons countries will need to send delegates to its meetings, whether or not they agree with it.

The TPNW is a historic achievement with a lot riding on its young shoulders. It will still take decades to achieve a weapons-free world, but every journey needs to begin somewhere. Altering the balance of decision-making so that it is shared more equally between the nuclear states and the international community is that necessary first step.

Nature 584 , 7 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-02274-9

Philippe, S., Goldston, R. J., Glaser, A. & d’Errico, F. Nature Commun. 7 , 12890 (2016).

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Johnson, R. in Nuclear Disarmament: A Critical Assessment (eds Nikolas, B., Steen, V. & Njølstad, O.) 75–93 (Routledge, 2019).

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Jägermeyr, J. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 117 , 7071–7081 (2020).

Lovenduski, N. S. et al. Geophys. Res. Lett. 47 , 3 (2020).

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Nuclear weapons: Why reducing the risk of nuclear war should be a key concern of our generation

The consequences of nuclear war would be devastating. much more should – and can – be done to reduce the risk that humanity will ever fight such a war..

The shockwave and heat that the detonation of a single nuclear weapon creates can end the lives of millions of people immediately.

But even larger is the devastation that would follow a nuclear war.

The first reason for this is nuclear fallout. Radioactive dust from the detonating bombs rises up into the atmosphere and spreads out over large areas of the world from where it falls down and causes deadly levels of radiation.

The second reason is less widely known. But this consequence – 'nuclear winter' and the worldwide famine that would follow – is now believed to be the most serious consequence of nuclear war.

Cities that are attacked by nuclear missiles burn at such an intensity that they create their own wind system, a firestorm: hot air above the burning city ascends and is replaced by air that rushes in from all directions. The storm-force winds fan the flames and create immense heat.

From this firestorm, large columns of smoke and soot rise up above the burning cities and travel all the way up to the stratosphere. There it spreads around the planet and blocks the sun’s light. At that great height – far above the clouds – it cannot be rained out, meaning that it will remain there for years, darkening the sky and thereby drying and chilling the planet.

The nuclear winter that would follow a large-scale nuclear war is expected to lead to temperature declines of 20 or even 30 degrees Celsius (60–86° F) in many of the world’s agricultural regions – including much of Eurasia and North America. Nuclear winter would cause a 'nuclear famine'. The world’s food production would fail and billions of people would starve. 1

These consequences – nuclear fallout and nuclear winter leading to famine – mean that the destruction caused by nuclear weapons is not contained to the battlefield. It would not just harm the attacked country. Nuclear war would devastate all countries, including the attacker.

The possibility of global devastation is what makes the prospect of nuclear war so very terrifying. And it is also why nuclear weapons are so unattractive for warfare. A weapon that can lead to self-destruction is not a weapon that can be used strategically.

US President Reagan put it in clear words at the height of the Cold War: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?” 2

Nuclear stockpiles have been reduced, but the risk remains high

40 years after Reagan’s words, the Cold War is over and nuclear stockpiles have been reduced considerably, as the chart shows.

The world has learned that nuclear armament is not the one-way street that it was once believed to be. Disarmament is possible.

But the chart also shows that there are still almost ten thousand nuclear weapons distributed among nine countries on our planet, at least. 3 Each of these weapons can cause enormous destruction; many are much larger than the ones that the US dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. 4

Collectively these weapons are immensely destructive. The nuclear winter scenario outlined above would kill billions of people— billions— in the years that follow a large-scale nuclear war, even if it was fought “only” with today’s reduced stockpiles. 5

It is unclear whether humanity as a species could possibly survive a full-scale nuclear war with the current stockpiles. 6 A nuclear war might well be humanity’s final war.

Close Calls: Instances that threatened to push the ‘balance of terror’ out of balance and into war

The ‘balance of terror’ is the idea that all involved political leaders are so scared of nuclear war that they never launch a nuclear attack.

If this is achievable at all, it can only be achieved if all nuclear powers keep their weapons in check. This is because the balance is vulnerable to accidents: a nuclear bomb that detonates accidentally – or even just a false alarm, with no weapons even involved – can trigger nuclear retaliation because several countries keep their nuclear weapons on ‘launch on warning’; in response to a warning, their leaders can decide within minutes whether they want to launch a retaliatory strike.

For the balance of terror to be a balance, all parties need to be in control at all times. This however is not the case.

In the timeline, you can read through some of the close calls during the past decades.

The risk of nuclear war might well be low – because neither side would want to fight such a war that would have such awful consequences for everyone on the planet. But there is a risk that the kinds of technical errors and accidents listed here could lead accidentally to the use of nuclear weapons, as a nuclear power can incorrectly come to believe that they are under attack.

This is why false alarms, errors, and close calls are so crucial to monitor: they are the incidents that can push the ‘balance of terror’ out of balance and into war.

Accidents and errors are of course not the only possible path that could lead to the use of nuclear weapons. There is the risk of a terribly irresponsible person leading a country possessing nuclear weapons. There is the risk of nuclear terrorism, possibly after a terrorist organization steals weapons. There is the possibility that hackers can take control of the nuclear chain of command. And there is the possibility that several of these factors play a role at the same time.

A timeline of nuclear weapons ‘close calls’ 7

Below this post, you find additional lists of close calls, where you find much more information on each of these incidents.

How to reduce the risk of nuclear war?

An escalating conflict between nuclear powers – but also an accident, a hacker, a terrorist, or an irresponsible leader – could lead to the detonation of nuclear weapons.

Those risks only go to zero if all nuclear weapons are removed from the world. I believe this is what humanity should work towards, but it is exceedingly hard to achieve, at least in the short term. It is therefore important to see that there are additional ways that can reduce the chance of the world suffering the horrors of nuclear war. 8

A more peaceful world : Many world regions in which our ancestors fought merciless wars over countless generations are extraordinarily peaceful in our times. The rise of democracy, international trade, diplomacy, and a cultural attitude shift against the glorification of war are some of the drivers credited for this development. 9

Making the world a more peaceful place will reduce the risk of nuclear confrontation. Efforts that reduce the chance of any war reduce the chance of nuclear war.

Nuclear treaties : Several non-proliferation treaties have been key in achieving the large reduction of nuclear stockpiles. However, key treaties – like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty between the US and Russia – have been suspended and additional agreements could be reached.

The UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which became effective in 2021, is a recent development in this direction.

Smaller nuclear stockpiles : Reducing the stockpiles further is seen as an important and achievable goal by experts.

It is considered achievable because smaller stockpiles would still provide the deterrence benefits from nuclear weapons. And it is important as it reduces the risk of accidents and the chance that a possible nuclear war would end civilization.

Better monitoring, better control: The risk can be further reduced by efforts to better control nuclear weapons – so that close calls occur less frequently. Similarly better monitoring systems would reduce the chance of false alarms.

Taking nuclear weapons off ‘hair-trigger alert’ would reduce the risk that any accident that does occur can rapidly spiral out of control. And a well-resourced International Atomic Energy Agency can verify that the agreements in the treaties are met.

Better public understanding, global relations, and culture : Finally I also believe that it will help to see clearly that billions of us share the same goal. None of us wants to live through a nuclear war, none of us wants to die in one. As Reagan said, a nuclear war cannot be won and it would be better to do away with these weapons entirely.

A generation ago a broad and highly visible societal movement pursued the goal of nuclear disarmament. These efforts were to a good extent successful. But since then, this goal has unfortunately lost much of the attention it once received – and this is despite the fact that things have not fundamentally changed: the world still possesses weapons that could kill billions. 10 I wish it was a more prominent concern in our generation so that more young people would set themselves the goal to make the world safe from nuclear weapons.

Below this post you find resources on where you can get engaged or donate, to help reduce the danger from nuclear weapons.

I believe some dangers are exaggerated – for example, I believe that the fear of terrorist attacks is often wildly out of proportion with the actual risk. But when it comes to nuclear weapons I believe the opposite is true.

There are many today who hardly give nuclear conflict a thought and I think this is a big mistake.

For eight decades, people have been producing nuclear weapons. Several countries have dedicated vast sums of money to their construction. And now we live in a world in which these weapons endanger our entire civilization and our future.

These destructive weapons are perhaps the clearest example that technology and innovation are not only forces for good, they can also enable catastrophic destruction.

Without the Second World War and the Cold War, the world might have never developed these weapons and we might find the idea that anyone could possibly build such weapons unimaginable. But this is not the world we live in. We live in a world with weapons of enormous destructiveness and we have to see the risks that they pose to all of us and find ways to reduce them.

I hope that there are many in the world today who take on the challenge to make the world more peaceful and to reduce the risk from nuclear weapons. The goal has to be that humanity never ends up using this most destructive technology that we ever developed.

Resources to continue reading and finding ways to reduce the risk of nuclear weapons

• Hiroshima : John Hersey’s report for the New Yorker about the bombing of Hiroshima, published in August 1946.
• ’80,000 Hours’ profile on Nuclear Security : an article focusing on the question of how to choose a career that makes the world safer from nuclear weapons.
• The ‘Future of Life Institute’ on Nuclear Weapons : this page includes an extensive list of additional references – including videos, research papers, and many organizations that are dedicated to reducing the risk from nuclear weapons.

Acknowledgments: I would like to thank Charlie Giattino, Hannah Ritchie, and Edouard Mathieu for reading drafts of this and for their very helpful comments and ideas.

Additional lists of close calls with nuclear weapons

* Future of Life Institute – Accidental nuclear war: A timeline of close calls .

* Alan F. Philips, M.D. – 20 Mishaps That Might Have Started Accidental Nuclear War , published on Nuclear Files

* Josh Harkinson (2014) – That Time We Almost Nuked North Carolina

* Union of Concerned Scientists (2015) – Close Calls with Nuclear Weapons

* Chatham House Report (2014) – Too Close for Comfort: Cases of Near Nuclear Use and Options for Policy authored by Patricia Lewis, Heather Williams, Benoît Pelopidas, and Sasan Aghlani

* Wikipedia – List of Nuclear Close Calls

On Nuclear Winter see:

* Jägermeyr, Jonas, Alan Robock, Joshua Elliott, Christoph Müller, Lili Xia, Nikolay Khabarov, Christian Folberth, et al. (2020) – ‘ A Regional Nuclear Conflict Would Compromise Global Food Security’ . Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 117, no. 13 (31 March 2020): 7071–81.

* Robock, A., L. Oman, and G. L. Stenchikov (2007) – Nuclear winter revisited with a modern climate model and current nuclear arsenals: Still catastrophic consequences , J. Geophys. Res., 112, D13107, doi:10.1029/2006JD008235.

* Alan Robock & Owen Brian Toon (2012) – Self-assured destruction: The climate impacts of nuclear war . In Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 68, 66–74.

* Alan Robock & Owen Brian Toon (2016) – Let’s End the Peril of a Nuclear Winter , In the New York Times, Feb. 11, 2016.

Some additional points:

* The risk of nuclear winter (initially termed ‘nuclear twilight’) was only discovered in the early 1980s, more than 3 decades after the bombs were first used.

* The main mechanism by which a nuclear winter is expected to cause a decline in global food production is by reducing the growing season, the days in a row without frost. See Robock, Oman, and Stenchikov (2007).

* Robock estimates that the smoke and soot would rise as high as 40 kilometers (25 miles) into the atmosphere. See Robock and Toon (2016).

* Before the nuclear famine kills people from hunger, many will die from hypothermia.

* In addition to the impact on the climate, the ozone layer is expected to get depleted in such a scenario. This would allow more ultraviolet radiation to reach our planet’s surface, harming plant and animal life.

* In general there is only relatively little scientific work that focuses on nuclear winter and additional, good research could be useful to provide a better understanding. Due to the lack of research there remains uncertainty about how devastating a nuclear winter would be. In particular there is disagreement on how likely it is that all of humanity would die in a nuclear winter.

* The paper by Jägermeyr et al (2020) shows that among the countries with the largest food production losses would be the US and Russia, those countries that have the largest stockpiles of nuclear weapons.

For anyone who interested in the impact of nuclear winter on food production and famine, Ord (2020) cites the following:

* Cropper, W. P., and Harwell, M. A. (1986) – “Food Availability after Nuclear War,” in M. A. Harwell and T. C. Hutchinson (eds.), The Environmental Consequences of Nuclear War (SCOPE 28), vol. 2: Ecological, Agricultural, and Human Effects. John Wiley and Sons.

* Helfand, I. (2013) – Nuclear Famine: Two Billion People at Risk? Physicians for Social Responsibility.

* Xia, L., Robock, A., Mills, M., Stenke, A., and Helfand, I. (2015) – Decadal Reduction of Chinese Agriculture after a Regional Nuclear War . Earth’s Future, 3(2), 37–48.

Reagan in his State of the Union address in 1984, quoted in the New York Times: Bernard Gwertzman (1984) – Reagan reassures Russians on war . In the New York Times January 26, 1984.

There are nine countries that are known to possess nuclear weapons: Russia, United States, France, China, United Kingdom, Israel, Pakistan, India, and North Korea. South Africa once possessed nuclear weapons and is the first state to voluntarily give up nuclear weapons.

The explosive power of a nuclear weapon is called the yield of a nuclear weapon. It is the amount of energy released when that weapon is detonated. It is usually measured in ‘TNT equivalents’.

The bomb that the US dropped on Hiroshima had a yield of 13–18 kilotons of TNT. (one kiloton are 1000 tonnes)

The largest bomb that was ever detonated is the ‘Tsar Bomba’ built by the USSR and detonated in October 1961. Its yield was about 50 megatons of TNT. That’s 50,000 kilotons of TNT or about 3,333-times the yield of the bomb in Hiroshima.

The scenario in Robock, Oman, and Stenchikov (2007) is based on the nuclear stockpiles after the large reduction that was achieved after the end of the Cold War. It shows that the world still retains enough weapons to produce “a large, long-lasting, unprecedented global climate change,” as the authors put it. Since the publication of this study, the stockpiles have been reduced further, as the chart shows, but not very strongly so.

For a recent discussion of this question see Ord (2020) – The Precipice.

This list is largely based on Toby Ord’s 2020 book The Precipice . His list can be found in Chapter 4 and Appendix C of his book.

Ord in turn relies mostly on a document from the US Department of Defense from 1981: Narrative Summaries of Accidents Involving US Nuclear Weapons (1950–1980) .

This list is mostly based on the ’80,000 Hours’ profile on Nuclear Security and Toby Ord (2020) – The Precipice.

For big overviews of this literature see the forthcoming book Christopher Blattman (2022) – Why We Fight: The Roots of War and the Paths to Peace and Steven Pinker (2011) – The Better Angels of our Nature for a big overview

Lawrence S. Wittner – Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement . Stanford University Press.

One indication for the declining interest in the last generation: Mentions of “nuclear war” in books and newspapers peaked in 1985 and declined strongly since then (see Google Ngram for ‘nuclear war’ ).

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New Research Program Analyzes Public Perceptions of Nuclear Weapons

November 10, 2021 Neil Narang

Nuclear weapons have fallen through the cracks of public consciousness in recent decades. But as geo-political tensions mount between nuclear-armed powers, questions about nonproliferation and the future of the U.S. nuclear arsenal have gained relevance among policymakers and the public alike.

A new project from the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) aims to reevaluate what the public knows and thinks about nuclear weapons in order to help U.S. policymakers craft strategies to combat public indifference.

Led by  Neil Narang —a UC Santa Barbara associate professor and IGCC research director for U.S. and Global Security Initiatives—and sponsored by the University of Virginia and the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the  Nuclear Weapons and Public Perceptions  project aims to tackle three questions related to public attitudes about nuclear weapons in the United States. Here, Narang shares his plans for the project.

What does the public know about nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons policy?

This is a really good question, and the short answer is: we don’t really know, but probably less than would be ideal. Our aim is to fill several major gaps in our understanding of public attitudes toward nuclear weapons.

In many ways, public fascination and knowledge of nuclear weapons peaked during the Cold War. After Fat Man and Little Boy were dropped on Japan at the end of World War II, public revulsion towards the horrific effects of the atomic bombings fueled a widespread belief that nuclear weapons were not merely larger bombs; they constituted a new and entirely different class of weapon. Indeed, American leaders famously lamented this perception in the early 1950s, when Dwight Eisenhower complained that a “public taboo” in the United States and Europe prevented him from using nuclear weapons against Chinese forces in the Korean War. Some scholars have argued that this distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons is a key reason why nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945.

However, several trends are converging to weaken this distinction, including technological advances to make nuclear weapons more useable and increasingly hawkish rhetoric from leaders in Russia, North Korea, and also the United States. Meanwhile, we are now many decades from the days when students would perform civilian defense drills like hiding under their desk, so there is also less collective memory of nuclear risks.

Recent survey research suggests that the U.S. public may be growing increasingly indifferent to the idea of nuclear war. For example, one  study  showed that the U.S. public is quite willing to support the use of nuclear weapons,  especially  if doing so might save American lives. If the public comes to believe that nuclear weapons can be used “just exactly as you would use a bullet or anything else,” as Eisenhower once suggested, then the use of these weapons may become dramatically more likely.

I know many foundations and policymakers that are very worried about public indifference to nuclear weapons growing at a dangerous time. To this end, several foundations—like the Carnegie Coporation of New York, the Stanton Foundation, the McArthur Foundation, and others—are funding educational initiatives on this topic, and I know a recent Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security that toured college campuses just to raise interest in nuclear security among future generations.

How strong are the public’s views about the use of nuclear issues, and under what conditions can they change?

This is a good question, and it is one we’re hoping to help answer. What perceptions—and misperceptions—about nuclear weapons exist in the public mind? Although recent survey research suggests that the public can be quite willing to support the use of nuclear weapons, especially if doing so might save American lives, it is not clear that this trend yet extends to military or civilian officials who most immediately control the use of nuclear weapons. It’s also unclear how strong and stable these preferences are. A recent study by Sechser and Post 2018 suggested that the public’s support of nuclear weapons is driven largely by its ignorance of nuclear issues, and that they were easily swayed by small amounts of new information. Understanding the factors that shape public opinion on nuclear weapons may help to identify and combat public indifference. If we think the public can play an important role in nuclear restraint during crises and in countering the proliferation of nuclear weapons, it is critical to understand the kinds of information and arguments that shape and sway public opinion in this area.

How do views in the United States compare to attitudes in other nuclear countries and among U.S. allies?

This is also a good question, and it is an important long-term ambition for us to explore this. Strategic stability depends not only on U.S. nuclear attitudes, but also attitudes in other nuclear states and U.S. allies—countries like China, India, Japan, and South Korea. Previous survey research has shown that public attitudes towards nuclear weapons acquisition and use vary considerably across these societies, but also over time within them. South Korea is a particularly well-documented example of this, where public support for nuclear weapons acquisition has risen and fallen dramatically over time in public opinion polls.

We’re interested in what kinds of information and messaging is most likely to shape nuclear attitudes in these countries. Messages that reshape nuclear attitudes among American voters may not necessarily succeed abroad.

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Nuclear proliferation and non-proliferation.

• Jacques E.C. Hymans Jacques E.C. Hymans School of International Relations, University of Southern California
• https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190846626.013.271
• Published in print: 01 March 2010
• Published online: 22 December 2017

Nuclear proliferation became an increasingly major concern after France and then China joined the nuclear “club” in the 1960s. However, it was not until India’s “peaceful nuclear explosive” test of 1974 that a real sense of potential worldwide crisis emerged, which also spawned a substantial amount of serious writing on the issue. The basic puzzle facing the study of nuclear proliferation is why there is a considerable and persistent disparity between the number of nuclear weapons-capable states and the number of actual nuclear weapons states. Three early works that represented crucial conceptual breakthroughs in the struggle toward a proper descriptive inference of the dynamics of proliferation are William Epstein’s The Last Chance (1976), Stephen M. Meyer’s The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation (1984), and Opaque Nuclear Proliferation (1991), edited by Benjamin Frankel. More contemporary political science work features attempts by each of the major international relations paradigms to tackle the proliferation puzzle: realism, psychological constructivism, neoliberal institutionalism, liberalism, and sociological constructivism. While scholars disagree over a host of issues, a consensus on the dynamics of nuclear proliferation may be discerned. In particular, there are five points on which most recent works converge: that proliferation has been historically rare; that we cannot take the demand for nuclear weapons for granted; that domestic politics and identity considerations play a crucial role in shaping proliferation choices; and that theory-guided, in-depth comparative case studies are the most appropriate means of advancing the state of our knowledge at this point in time.

• nuclear proliferation
• nuclear weapons states
• William Epstein
• psychological constructivism
• neoliberal institutionalism
• sociological constructivism
• nuclear non-proliferation
• nuclear weapons

Introduction

The basic puzzle facing the study of nuclear proliferation is why we observe such a wide and persistent gap between the large number of nuclear weapons-capable states, now generally estimated to be around 50, and the small number of actual nuclear weapons states – eight or nine, depending on how one counts North Korea. This stability has endured despite multiple and major shocks to the non-proliferation norm. Figure 1 (from Hymans 2006 ) presents the basic picture. Note that the top line represents states that are estimated to have the basic indigenous technical capacity to launch a successful nuclear weapons drive. The line would be much higher if one assumed an active black market in nuclear materials.

Figure 1 Potential vs. Actual Nuclear Proliferation

The slow pace of proliferation has been a major surprise for IR scholars and policy makers alike (Mueller 1998 ). Why have many states with the technical wherewithal to acquire the so-called “absolute weapon” been so slow to do so? In addition, what explains the determination of the few states that have gone against the general non-proliferation tide? And under what conditions can we expect the general pattern of abstention to reverse or continue? These are the fundamental questions being tackled in this field. Of course, the field tackles other questions as well, including: proliferation’s potential consequences for strategic stability (Lavoy 1995 ; Sagan and Waltz 1995 ; Lavoy, Sagan, and Wirtz, 2000 ); what policy tools may be most useful for promoting non-proliferation (Sokolski 2001 ; Busch and Joyner 2009 ); and the possibility of nuclear terrorism (Stern 1999 ; Allison 2005 ; Mueller 2006 ). Without denying the importance of such matters, this essay focuses on the evolution of thinking about the basic proliferation puzzle.

It was not easy for the proliferation field to home in on the basic proliferation puzzle. There were four principal reasons for this: (1) its strong predilection, due to its dominant policy orientation, for focusing on predicting the future rather than on explaining the past; (2) its standard realist bias, which led to disbelief that proliferation could long remain rare; (3) its vaguely defined typical dependent variable of “going nuclear,” which allowed analysts to see what they wanted to see; and (4) the secrecy with which many states conduct their nuclear affairs, which also gave analysts great freedom of interpretation. Since the mid-1990s the literature has made major strides toward surmounting these problems, but old habits die hard.

The first section of this essay focuses closely on a handful of early works that represented crucial conceptual breakthroughs in the struggle toward a proper descriptive inference of the dynamics of proliferation: Epstein ( 1976 ), Meyer ( 1984 ), and Frankel ( 1991 ). Although not necessarily the most cited contributions to the proliferation literature even in their own day, they are nonetheless milestones in the history of proliferation studies, harbingers of important turns in the basic assumptions and descriptive inferences made by most of the scholars and many of the analysts working in the area. (See Potter 2003 for a review of greater breadth.)

The second section of the essay shifts to more contemporary political science work on the by now widely acknowledged central proliferation puzzle of the small number of nuclear weapons states. In particular, it reviews attempts by each of the major IR paradigms to tackle this puzzle: realism (Paul 2000 ), psychological constructivism (Hymans 2006 ), neoliberal institutionalism (Dai 2007 ), liberalism (Solingen 2007 ), and sociological constructivism (Rublee 2009 ). The essay focuses on these books as strong representatives of each of the major IR paradigms, but it must be added that many other works have made valuable contributions as well. Having conducted this tour d’horizon , the essay concludes that there are signs of an emerging scholarly consensus on five fundamental points: (1) that proliferation has been historically rare, (2) that we cannot take the demand for nuclear weapons for granted, (3 and 4) that domestic politics and identity considerations play a crucial role in shaping proliferation choices, and (5) that theory-guided, in-depth comparative case studies are the most appropriate means of advancing the state of our knowledge at this time.

Early Milestones in the Study of Proliferation

William epstein’s the last chance (1976): the unbearable lightness of the npt.

Concern about proliferation began rising steeply after France and then China joined the nuclear “club” in the 1960s (Beaton and Maddox 1962 ; Quester 1973 ). But it was only with the Indian “peaceful nuclear explosive” test of 1974 that a real sense of potential worldwide crisis emerged, and, with it, a critical mass of serious writing on the issue. Epstein ( 1976 ) was one of the most original contributions to the post- 1974 proliferation literature (for an appreciation, see Potter 2005 ; other notable works from the period include Wohlstetter et al. 1979 ; Goldschmidt 1980 ; Kegley 1980 ; Quester 1981 ; Dunn 1982 ; Poneman 1982 ; Potter 1982 ; and Spector 1984 ). Epstein’s first sentence set the tone: “For the first time in a quarter of a century of working with the problems of the arms race and arms control, I am beginning to get scared” (p. xiii). The superpower arms race was bad enough, Epstein wrote, but India’s test threatened to open up a catastrophic series of mini-nuclear arms races the world over. The rise of nuclear terrorism also was plainly foreseeable. However, Epstein contended, all was not lost. The NPT represented a good basis for non-proliferation efforts to take hold, and it was still alive – barely. The superpowers had essentially neglected the treaty ever since its signing in 1968 ; but if they were to reinvest themselves in it, the world might still have one “last chance” to save itself from nuclear bedlam.

According to Epstein, the NPT was negotiated within the following broad parameters. There were three points on which essentially all states agreed: first, the spread of nuclear weapons – both “horizontally” to new countries, and “vertically” among the existing nuclear weapons states (NWS) – was a bad thing; second, the spread of civilian uses of nuclear energy was a good thing; and third, it was devilishly difficult to separate civilian and military uses of the atom. In addition, there were two more points on which at least most states could agree: first, codifying the existence of two different classes of states was extremely problematic under international law, but second, realistically the members of the “nuclear club” were unlikely to give up their weapons anytime soon. These basic parameters provided enough room for a broad, multilateral agreement on how to tackle the proliferation issue.

At its heart, Epstein wrote, the NPT was an exchange of promises: on the one hand, a promise by the non-nuclear weapons states (NNWS) not to acquire nuclear arms, and on the other hand, a promise by the NWS to minimize the negative security, political, and economic consequences of that nuclear abstention. Thus, while Article II forbade NNWS from getting the bomb, in Article VI the NWS promised to work toward nuclear and general disarmament. Moreover, while Article III commanded the NNWS to accept technical safeguards against proliferation instituted by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Article IV commanded the NWS to assist NNWS’s legitimate desires to acquire civilian nuclear technology and materials. Indeed, Article IV protected the right of the NNWS to conduct scientific research on any subject in the nuclear field – even sensitive, “dual-use” research on the nuclear fuel cycle. Only “peaceful nuclear explosions” (PNEs) for engineering and mining purposes were deemed off limits for NNWS to dabble in, but in Article V the NWS even agreed to conduct PNEs on behalf of NNWS who expressed an interest. Finally, there were two escape clauses: Article X allowed any state to unilaterally withdraw from the treaty on just three months’ notice, and it also limited the treaty to 25 years in duration, unless a majority of NPT parties voted at that time to extend it.

Epstein argued that because the NNWS were generally satisfied by this bargain, they agreed to join the treaty in relatively large numbers. Already by the time of the first NPT Review Conference in 1975 , the treaty boasted 96 signatories, including West Germany, the state whose non-proliferation commitment the two superpowers had been most anxious to lock in. But Epstein also argued that since the negotiation of the treaty, the NWS had not lived up to their side of the bargain. Their provision of aid and technical assistance for civilian nuclear energy in developing countries was “pitifully small” (p. 166); they quickly took off the table any notion of actually conducting a PNE on behalf of a NNWS; the security guarantees they were willing to extend to non-allied NNWS were paper-thin; and, worst of all, soon after the NPT was signed the superpower arms race truly kicked into high gear. In short, quoting one of the American negotiators, the NWS treated the NPT as “one of the greatest con games of modern times” (p. 118). The NNWS’s only consolation was that the NWS (along with the advanced NNWS like West Germany and Switzerland) were still too interested in promoting the commercial possibilities of nuclear power to impose an onerous system of export controls, technical safeguards, and international inspections on their customers. This was cause for even more lamentation by Epstein, as paradoxically, having first provided the NNWS substantial motive for breaking out of the NPT, the NWS were also proving more than willing to sell them the means to do so. Such was the international context of India’s 1974 test, the spark that could ignite a global proliferation wildfire.

With the benefit of hindsight, we now know that the Indian test did not ignite a proliferation wildfire. Why not? Some authors have argued that the major states responded to the Indian test just enough to head off a proliferation catastrophe. While they still failed to provide the NNWS with the carrots promised in the NPT, at least their newly formed “nuclear suppliers’ club” did start wielding real sticks (Davis 1993 ; Paul 1996 ; Sokolski 2001 ). For instance, in 1978 the US started to demand adherence to country-wide (“full-scope”) safeguards in exchange for provisioning NNWS reactors with highly enriched uranium fuel, and it convinced fellow nuclear suppliers to abandon sales of fuel reprocessing facilities to Pakistan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

Clearly, the 1970s did witness some supply-side non-proliferation successes. But on the other hand, some nuclear suppliers strenuously resisted abandoning prized clients; for instance, West Germany was willing to endure the worst turn in its relations with the US since 1945 to follow through on providing a complete nuclear fuel cycle to non-NPT member Brazil. And even as formal rules tightened over the late 1970s and 1980s, there was still much nuclear exporting even to states that were actively seeking the bomb, such as Iraq and Pakistan. The persistence of this trade reflected not only commercial interests on the part of individual companies, but also a willful negligence on the part of numerous Western states (Langewiesche 2007 ). Thus, traditional supply-side explanations for the slow pace of proliferation after 1974 seem at best incomplete.

Epstein himself actually did not place the emphasis on the supply-side issue. Rather, his principal claim was that the NWS’s continuing failure to deal with the real political gripes of the NNWS would inexorably lead to the regime’s breakdown. As he put it, “The credibility and viability of such a system of safeguards depends on the moral climate and on the strength of the entire non-proliferation regime” (p. 153). It was impossible to completely prevent cheating; what was necessary was to remove the incentives to cheat. The lack of respect the NWS showed for their NPT commitments hardly removed those incentives; indeed, “the developing NNWS, on the whole, felt that they had been cheated” (p. 230, emphasis added).

In subsequent years the NNWS did not stop feeling cheated, yet the general pattern of nuclear abstinence remained. Indeed, as Stephen M. Meyer showed, nuclear abstinence was even more widespread than people like Epstein believed.

Stephen M. Meyer’s The Dynamics of Nuclear Proliferation (1984): The Primacy Of Politics

Meyer ( 1984 ) was the first sustained effort to apply modern political science analysis to the subject of proliferation. As he wrote in the preface, “The objective of this book is to take one step back – ignoring the policy disputes – and undertake a rigorous and systematic examination of the assumptions and contending hypotheses that constitute contemporary thinking on nuclear proliferation” (p. xiv). The result was a giant leap forward, although the non-academic policy analysts who still dominated the field generally did not recognize the full import of Meyer’s contribution.

Meyer’s argument began with some careful distinctions between possible dependent variables in the proliferation field. He argued (p. 5) that we should analytically separate four such variables: (1) the development of a latent nuclear weapons capacity, whether this happened on purpose or as an unintended byproduct of other choices; (2) the conscious “capability decision” to generate a certain level of nuclear weapons capacity; (3) the “proliferation decision” to try to get a functional nuclear arsenal; (4) the actual acquisition of a functional arsenal. He further argued that variable (3) generally represented the most important bottleneck on proliferation.

To explain proliferation decisions, Meyer developed an explicit test of “technological imperative” hypotheses versus “motivational” hypotheses. “Technological imperative” hypotheses, which underlay the single-minded post- 1974 efforts to tighten the supply-side controls on proliferation, contend that “governments ‘decide’ to go nuclear because the technology is available, thereby making the technical/financial costs manageable and the opportunity irresistible” (p. 9). By contrast, “motivational” hypotheses counter that “nuclear weapons do not generate spontaneously from stockpiles of fissile material” (p. 6). To go nuclear requires making a tough political decision ; and that decision will reflect the top leadership’s assessment of its likely costs and benefits. What is more, there is no reason to suppose a priori , as “technological imperative” analyses do, that the benefits of nuclear armament outweigh the costs.

Meyer’s empirical test of the “technological imperative” hypotheses was groundbreaking. Previous work on proliferation had focused largely on “near-nuclear” states like Germany, Israel, or India, whose advanced nuclear infrastructures placed them on the cusp of a nuclear weapons arsenal if they desired one. But Meyer pointed out that such analyses unfairly tipped the scales in favor of “technological imperative” hypotheses, because many states developed their nuclear infrastructures precisely in order to have that nuclear weapons capability. Instead, Meyer tested the “technological imperative” hypothesis using a new model of “latent capacity” to build the bomb within six years or less, which did not rely primarily on estimating a state’s present level of nuclear technology . Rather, Meyer’s “latent capacity” model placed most emphasis on broad indicators of scientific and industrial accomplishment – things that could be placed at the service of a nuclear program, if the state so chose (see Table 1 ). Meyer’s solution to the endogeneity problem that had dogged the literature up to that point is now the standard starting point for analyses of proliferation capacity.

Not surprisingly, Meyer’s broader approach to the technical capacity question added several new states to the list of potential proliferants, and it also generally advanced the dates upon which states were estimated to have attained that capacity. Thus, according to Meyer’s calculations, by 1963 , the year of President Kennedy’s ominous warning that 15 to 25 nuclear weapons states could emerge within the next 10 to 12 years, actually 18 states had already achieved the ability to build the bomb within six! The “technological imperative” camp might be frightened by this news, but Meyer argued that it paradoxically should make us more sanguine about the likelihood of a proliferation wildfire. For if so many states had been capable of going nuclear for such a long time, and yet so few had done so, the proper conclusion to draw was that the “technological imperative” was no imperative at all.

Table 1 Meyer’s nuclear latent capacity indicators

Source : Meyer ( 1984 :192, Table 26).

Meyer’s careful study of the relationship between technology and proliferation thus pointed to the primacy of politics, or, as he called it, the “motivational hypothesis.” The question then became, what specific factors might produce motivations for or against going nuclear? Few had attempted to think the question through systematically. Meyer combed the existing case study literature to produce a list of general factors that should be either “motive” or “dissuasive” for most states when confronting the question of whether or not to get the bomb. He came up with a long list of potential independent variables (see Table 2 ).

Meyer’s list has two particularly interesting features, which are particularly striking in light of the fact that he wrote his book at a time of overwhelming neorealist dominance in the IR field. First, Meyer found no clear theoretical valence for the hard-core “realist” variables that are still the most commonly cited reasons for proliferation. Actual or latent nuclear threats or overwhelming conventional threats might give states reason to respond with a nuclear drive of their own, or they might give states reason to lie low. Moreover, the existence of a nuclear ally might calm states down about needing to deter others themselves, or it might cause states to feel the need to get the bomb to escape sinking into the status of a semi-independent protectorate. For Meyer, neorealist variables were theoretically indeterminate. The second interesting feature of this list is that most of the variables Meyer listed as theoretically clear motive factors for proliferation – regional and great power status or pretensions, pariah status, and the need to save face after loss in war – relate more to what we would today term constructivist, “identity” variables than they do to the materialist calculus still favored by most analysts. Meyer did not make as much of this fact as he could have.

Table 2 Meyer’s nuclear predictor variables

Source : Adapted from Meyer ( 1984 :74, Table 8)

Meyer’s empirical testing suggested the importance of all of the hypothesized motivational factors. From the perspective of 2009 , however, it must be said that the book’s statistical methodology leaves much to be desired. In recent years, other quantitative analysts with vastly enhanced computing power at their disposal have done analyses similar in spirit to Meyer’s. For instance, Jo and Gartzke ( 2007 ) largely seconded Meyer’s conclusions. But Singh and Way ( 2004 ) found overwhelming support for the variable of “enduring rivalries,” which neither Meyer nor Jo and Gartzke had tested, as the key motive factor. These very sophisticated quantitative analyses are a clear step beyond Meyer’s initial forays. But the differences in their results reflect a more basic problem for quantitative attacks on this question: the lack of a reliable data set on which to base worldwide statistical tests. For instance, Jo and Gartzke do not code Libya as ever having had a nuclear weapons program, whereas Singh and Way code it as having had one consistently since 1970 , and Meyer codes it as definitely having had one only from 1970–5 . The disagreements over the Libya case reflect a more general uncertainty about the historical record. Indeed, the coded start or end dates of most country programs are different across the data sets (Montgomery 2006 ). In light of this confusion about the basic historical facts, it may be premature to attempt large-N analyses of the proliferation phenomenon (Müller and Schmidt 2008 ).

Meyer’s clear identification of the basic proliferation puzzle was an essential contribution to the field. The next step for the literature might logically have been to dig deeper into the question of motivations to go nuclear, in order to develop a genuine explanatory theory of nuclear proliferation (Ogilvie-White 1996 ). But before that could happen, there was a theoretically sophisticated assault on the relevance of the basic proliferation puzzle that Meyer had identified.

Benjamin Frankel (ed.) Opaque Nuclear Proliferation (1991): More Proliferation than Meets the Eye?

Contrary to Meyer’s generally positive story of general proliferation restraint, Frankel ( 1991 ) painted a much darker picture. It argued that the Israeli case of “opaque proliferation” was ideal-typical of an ongoing second generation of nuclear proliferation, whose magnitude was being sorely underestimated due to its opacity. The implication was that, like Hegel’s Owl of Minerva, scholars of proliferation had arrived at the basic puzzle of why there were so few nuclear weapons states at the very moment that the historical pattern was ceasing to replicate itself.

The lead piece in the volume, by Cohen and Frankel ( 1991 ), argued that opaque proliferation was a response to the NPT’s success in delegitimating nuclear weapons desires. Quite surprisingly given their neorealist moorings, they accepted that the non-proliferation norm existed, and that it was powerful. But, they argued, it would be overly optimistic to think that states’ recognition of the norm meant real respect for it. As Cohen and Frankel wrote, “This does not mean that nations have lost interest in the acquisition of nuclear weapons, but rather that nations cannot voice this interest publicly in the international arena” (p. 16). The norm had simply pushed nuclear weapons activities underground. (Cohen and Frankel did not specify exactly when or how the international non-proliferation norm had become entrenched, and therefore it is difficult to evaluate whether the norm caused Israeli nuclear opacity, the center of their empirical concerns. The book’s chapters specifically focusing on Israel actually largely dropped this international norms hypothesis in favor of an explanation focusing on Israeli domestic political culture and US diplomatic pressure.)

The most notable implication of the logic of “opaque proliferation” was the demise of the testing of nuclear explosive devices as “a clear-cut and visible criterion for recognizing when and how the nuclear threshold had been crossed” (p. 18). In addition to the rule of “no tests,” Cohen and Frankel argued that opaque proliferation also involved denial of possession, no direct threats, no military doctrine, no military deployment, no open debate, and organizational insulation (pp. 21–2). In short, opaque proliferation was proliferation that dared not speak its name.

Cohen and Frankel argued that this behavioral change had important epistemological implications. The international community thought it “knew” that thanks to the NPT, proliferation was under control: there were the 5 NWS on the one hand, and 175+ NNWS on the other. But in fact, this “knowledge” was based on who had or hadn’t tested; yet, in the new world of opaque proliferation, testing was an unnecessary luxury that most proliferants would simply bypass. True, there were still not many “opaque” cases – Israel, Pakistan, India, South Africa, and perhaps a handful of even more secret programs – but, Frankel argued, this was because of the superpower nuclear arms race, not despite it as NPT advocates believed (p. 6). Now that the superpower arms race was over, a new era of horizontal proliferation was beginning. In this new era, while not directly challenging the NPT, states would simply submerge it in a sea of new de facto nuclear arsenals.

The opaque proliferation idea wormed its way into US policy after the shocking 1991 discovery of Iraq’s gigantic and formerly unknown effort to enrich uranium. In response to the Iraq revelations Washington did not merely devote more resources to proliferation intelligence and diplomacy; it also changed its methodology of proliferation assessment. Traditional proliferation assessment had used inductive techniques like visual identification to judge the progress of nuclear weapons efforts. But over the course of the 1990s, the intelligence community gradually developed a “capabilities-based” approach. The “capabilities-based” approach, evident in extreme form in the influential Rumsfeld Commission report on ballistic missile threats (Rumsfeld et al. 1998 ), took for granted that proliferation would remain opaque; therefore, to compensate for this, it extrapolated estimates of states’ progress toward strategic weapons from Meyer-type latent capacities. The result of this methodological shift was a “technological imperative” hypothesis on steroids. Worse yet, “capabilities-based” assessments were unfalsifiable – or at least, unfalsifiable until after a country had been invaded and occupied.

Washington’s deadly mistakes notwithstanding, the opaque proliferation concept could still be a valid one. To evaluate this, we need to answer the following question: is the Israeli experience indeed the ideal-type of a much broader category of cases, or is it in fact still an outlier? Actually the past 15 years have witnessed Cohen and Frankel’s other signal cases of opacity falling by the wayside. Almost as soon as their book was published, South Africa destroyed its nuclear devices and went openly non-nuclear. A few years later, both India and Pakistan tested bombs and declared their nuclear weapons status. Meanwhile, some of the other suspected cases of “opaque proliferation,” such as Libya and Iraq, turned out to have simply failed to reach the finish line; while others, such as Argentina, turned out never to have made the crucial “proliferation decision” in the first place (Hymans 2006 ). Moreover, after the breakdown of the US–DPRK Agreed Framework North Korea used precisely the opposite strategy, loudly proclaiming its nuclear capability several years before it finally conducted a first test in 2006 , whose paltry results hardly justified official US claims that the country had become a nuclear power already in the early 1990s (Sigal 1998 ). In sum, although we cannot say for sure what various states may be doing behind the back of the IAEA, it would seem that Israel’s path to the bomb remains a sui generis one, a point increasingly recognized even by Cohen himself (see Cohen 2008 ). Thus the NPT’s traditional bright-line distinction between NWS and NNWS appears still relevant to today’s world (Kier and Mercer 1996 ).

With Cohen and Frankel’s challenge blunted, Meyer’s fundamental puzzle of the gap between the nuclear-capable and the nuclear-armed returns to the fore. And not surprisingly, over the past decade a number of works have taken up Meyer’s question.

Recent Studies of Nuclear Proliferation: Bringing the Demand Side Back In

It was Scott Sagan who did the most to launch a new debate on why some states decide to go nuclear, while others do not. His now classic article (Sagan 1996/7 ; see also Sagan 2000 ) outlined three basic “models” of proliferation intentions that could be discerned from a close reading of the idiographic case study literature. Sagan’s “security model” followed the typical “defensive realist” point of view that nuclear proliferation occurs in response to significant external threats; his “domestic politics” model saw proliferation as a political payoff to powerful domestic electoral or bureaucratic constituencies; and his “norms model” explained it as the product of a state’s quest for acceptance as a “legitimate, modern” member of international society. Sagan’s article was a halfway house: beyond the old-style literature’s lists of potentially motive or dissuasive variables, but not yet a genuine theory of proliferation with clear microfoundations linking cause to effect and with multiple, testable hypotheses. Still, Sagan (in addition to other sophisticated efforts such as Reiss 1988 , Davis and Frankel 1993 , Flank 1993 , Lavoy 1993 , and Solingen 1994 ) had pointed the way forward, and other scholars took up the challenge and strove to build and test genuine theories of proliferation.

The new literature on proliferation reflects the diversity of theoretical paradigms available to scholars working in IR today. By now we have strong examples of realist, neoliberal institutionalist, liberal, psychological-constructivist, and sociological-constructivist theories of proliferation to choose from. While these works diverge on many points, actually in many respects they dovetail quite nicely together. This section of the essay summarizes and critiques recent contributions from each of the five paradigms, in chronological order: Paul ( 2000 ), Hymans ( 2006 ), Dai ( 2007 ), Solingen ( 2007 ), and Rublee ( 2009 ).

The Realist Take: T.V. Paul, Power Versus Prudence (2000)

Breaking with standard realist perspectives on proliferation (e.g. Waltz in Sagan and Waltz 1995 ; Gray 1999 ), Paul ( 2000 ) depicts the question of going nuclear as a great dilemma for states. On the one hand, Paul accepts the standard realist point of view that acquisition of nuclear weapons provides a state with more military and political power; but on the other hand, he points out that it also threatens to destabilize relations with the state’s neighbors (pp. 14–16). Therefore, Paul contends that the cardinal realist value of prudence actually generally commands nuclear abstinence. However, some states can be expected not to act “prudently” (pp. 22–4): (1) great powers or aspiring great powers, for such states simply cannot forfeit the chance to own a weapon with such a fundamental impact on the structure of international polarity; and (2) non-great powers engaged in “enduring rivalries” and not protected by a superpower guarantee or by the knowledge that their enemy is incapable of going nuclear, because such states cannot assume that any nuclear restraint they show will be reciprocated. Having developed these hypotheses on proliferation choices, Paul then tests them on a wide range of fourteen historical cases of both nuclear and non-nuclear weapons states, with cases selected to ensure variation on their placement within the international power structure and the Cold War alliance system. He claims that the test overwhelmingly confirms the model.

Paul’s work represents a major step forward for realist approaches to proliferation. Some of its most important contributions are: first, the frank acknowledgment that proliferation has been rare, and that this is a puzzle with which realism needs to come to grips; second, the refusal to fall back on the typical realist defense that although proliferation has been rare in the past, it is about to explode tomorrow; and third, the clear exposition of why, even within the confines of realist theory, going nuclear may be a very unattractive option for most states. Although the book’s explanation of non -proliferation thus has considerable punch, its explanation of why some states actually do decide to acquire the bomb could be further developed.

First, Paul emphasizes the importance of “enduring rivalries” in sparking proliferation drives. But the mechanisms via which “enduring rivals” turn into nuclear rivals are not precisely specified. Although “enduring rivalries” often exhibit high tendencies toward conflict spirals, it is not clear why such tendencies would also extend to the nuclear level. Indeed, from a “prudential realist” perspective, the fact that such rivals know that their relationship has this tendency might be expected to make them even more prudent than normal states before launching a nuclear program. In short, although “enduring rivalry” probably does contribute to proliferation intentions, recognizing this fact should point us away from realism, not toward it.

Second, Paul’s expectation that “states with intense aspirations to become great powers” will seek the bomb strains his realist framework to the breaking point. This exception to the rule of prudence does not emerge out of the logic of a well-specified theory, but rather seems tacked on to explain some of the unexplained variance. Moreover, Paul neither explains nor measures these “intense aspirations.” Therefore, although in his book Paul applies this exception only to the case of India, one wonders why many other states that have apparently chosen not to go nuclear, including today’s Brazil or even South Korea, could not be categorized similarly.

In sum, Paul’s “prudential realism” is a good start for understanding why many states have abstained from going nuclear, and the variables he points to as causing exceptions to the general rule of prudence seem plausible. A fully developed theory of proliferation, however, would have to genuinely integrate Paul’s basic rule of prudence with the empirical exceptions he notes to that rule. And because of the complex sources of the “enduring rivalry” and “great power aspiration” variables in domestic as well as international political dynamics, it seems hard to imagine that such a theoretical integration could be carried out while remaining within the confines of realism.

The Psychological-Constructivist Take: Jacques E.C. Hymans, The Psychology of Nuclear Proliferation (2006)

Hymans ( 2006 ) begins with the contention that the decision to go nuclear is even harder to make than Paul ( 2000 ) suggests. It is, he writes, a leap in the dark, a revolutionary decision with consequences that are wildly uncertain (pp. 10–11). It is the tremendous uncertainty about what might follow from the creation of a new nuclear arsenal, Hymans contends, that explains the general historical pattern of nuclear restraint. Moreover, the existence of such a high level of uncertainty undermines the standard notion that the choice to go nuclear even could be made on the basis of a typical cost–benefit calculation. Instead, to understand the decision to go nuclear, we must look beyond typical international, or even domestic, structural variables, to the identity-driven perceptions and emotions that guide leaders to make a choice in the absence of more solid indicators. In short, Hymans offers a psychological constructivist (Lebow 2008 ) approach to the proliferation puzzle.

In particular, Hymans argues that leaders who hold a “national identity conception” of “oppositional nationalism” – i.e., who define their nation as being both naturally at odds with, and naturally equal (if not superior) to, a particular external “key comparison other” – have a strong emotional tendency to decide to go for an actual operational nuclear arsenal. By contrast, leaders holding other types of national identity conception will tend to shy away from taking that ultimate step, preferring instead to engage in some level of nuclear hedging (pp. 12–13). Hymans argues that oppositional nationalists’ opposition-induced fear and nationalism-induced pride combine to produce a very strong tendency to reach for the bomb. Therefore, the arrival in power of such a leader is almost sufficient to spark a clear proliferation decision, assuming that the state is engaged in reasonably intense interactions with the key comparison other, has at least some measure of experience in the nuclear field, and has placed centralized control of its nuclear establishment into the hands of the top leader (p. 36). Moreover, once the nuclear choice has been made, powerful bureaucratic and psychological forces come into play to make it very hard for the state to turn back on that original commitment (pp. 44–5).

Hymans tests his theory against four country cases: France, Australia, Argentina, and India. The first step in the test is a qualitative and quantitative measurement of the national identity conceptions of dozens of top leaders from the four country cases. On the basis of these measurements, Hymans offers a set of hypotheses on these leaders’ likely nuclear preferences. He then tests these hypotheses with detailed process tracing using primary-source documentation. The case studies sometimes demonstrate the inadequacy of received historical wisdom about these states’ basic nuclear trajectories. For instance, the book’s analysis of Argentina utilizes archival materials to show that, contrary to popular belief, that state never had a nuclear weapons program. Hymans claims that all four cases highlight the importance of different individual leaders’ conceptions of the national identity. When oppositional nationalist leaders came to power, they hastened to seek nuclear weapons; by contrast, leaders holding other national identity conceptions avoided making that decision. The importance of the individual level of analysis is underscored by the radically different positions on nuclear armament that were held by different political elites, sometimes even from within the same political party, at a given point in time.

Hymans’s book has some clear limitations. First, it takes state leaders’ identities as given and therefore does not tackle the important further questions of how people become oppositional nationalists in the first place, and why they may rise to power at certain moments in history. The decision to bracket these questions may be legitimate from the perspective of theory-testing – after all, there is no “independent variable” in social science that cannot also be viewed as a “dependent variable” if one so chooses – but nonetheless it seems to short-circuit consideration of some of the deeper forces that may be at play here. (A valiant effort to seek out those deeper forces in the Indian case is Abraham 1998 ; see also Abraham 2006 .)

Second and more problematically, although Hymans (following Meyer 1984 ) may be right to focus on the leader’s “proliferation decision” as the key proliferation bottleneck, it surely is not the only bottleneck. Indeed, it is an established historical fact that not all states have seen such decisions through to the end. Moreover, in his discussion of the Australian case for instance, Hymans admits that in some cases non-proliferation attitudes and commitments may become entrenched in state institutions, making the mere arrival in power of a new leader insufficient to turn policy around. Clearly, more analysis is needed not only of proliferation decisions themselves, but also of the institutional settings with which leaders must deal (Liberman 2001 ; Walsh 2001 ; Hymans 2008 ).

The Neoliberal Institutionalist Take: Xinyuan Dai, International Institutions and National Policies (2007)

It is quite surprising that the renowned NPT regime has not been subjected to close scrutiny by the neoliberal institutionalist literature that has become so dominant in the IR field over the last two decades. Dai ( 2007 ) makes a small step toward filling that gap, although in her work the NPT is introduced only as a shadow case to contrast with the weaker international institutions whose success is explored much more fully (see also Mistry 2003 ).

Dai begins her analysis with the assumption that the NPT, like many treaties, is a response to a “Prisoner’s Dilemma” (PD)-type situation (p. 19). In the PD, while neither party wants to defect – meaning, here, to go nuclear – each fears that the other may well do so, and in that case it would have to defect as well. The well-known solution to this dilemma is an institution that permits each side to have confidence that the other is not defecting. However, as Dai notes, such an institution is only as good as its system for monitoring compliance; yet the neoliberal institutionalist literature has strangely shown little curiosity about how such monitoring is actually done (pp. 20–3). Dai’s book tries to answer this question.

Dai’s general answer to this question focuses, first, on states’ basic level of interest in ensuring compliance by their peers; and second, on their desire to do so in a cost-effective manner (pp. 38–42). For the case of non-proliferation, she contends that states view potential proliferation as a top concern and therefore want high-quality information on it; moreover, given the secrecy that enshrouds the issue they know they are unlikely to get the information they seek from a low-cost, decentralized process. Therefore, in this case they have built a very strong, centralized information system centered on the IAEA safeguards and inspections process. This system, Dai implies, has reassured states sufficiently of others’ intentions to be willing to keep their own nuclear powder dry (pp. 50–3).

Dai’s book is a model of clarity and precision, and the brief application of her model to the non-proliferation monitoring system has a great deal of plausibility. At least in the post-Cold War era there have been considerable efforts to strengthen the IAEA safeguards and inspections regime. Indeed, in light of the Bush administration’s disregard for international institutions, the IAEA’s steady progress since the late 1990s is remarkable. But, at the same time, the non-proliferation regime is actually not an ideal-typical case of a centralized monitoring system. In fact, the environmental and peace movements have also played a crucial role in providing information on dangerous nuclear activities, particularly in Western countries but also in many developing countries, notably those that do business with Western nuclear companies (Kitschelt 1986 ). The IAEA has often found itself following up on leads developed by such “low-cost monitors,” in Dai’s parlance. Thus, rather than the pure case of monitoring by IGOs that Dai portrays it as, the non-proliferation regime would instead appear to be yet one more mixed case of monitoring by both IGOs and NGOs, not unlike the other regimes to which Dai devotes the bulk of her text.

Dai’s assessment of this mixed sort of monitoring system is very optimistic; her book strongly emphasizes “the power of weak international institutions” (p. 100). But her optimism can be questioned. Dai shares with most neoliberal institutionalists the basic assumption that more information availability automatically translates into more regime credibility. Yet what is important for regime credibility is actually not simply the raw amount of information available, but rather states’ confidence that the information is accurate and complete. Thus, by bringing to light facts missed by the centralized monitoring system, NGOs can actually undermine the overall credibility of the non-proliferation regime. Indeed, undermining that credibility is often the NGOs’ explicit purpose, since their ultimate goal in many cases is to demonstrate that the centralized monitoring system cannot be counted on, and therefore that the only solution to proliferation is to curtail the use of nuclear power altogether. So, these “low-cost” monitors, far from being complementary to the centralized monitoring system, may actually exact a very heavy price on the regime. And indeed, in spite of the vastly increased resources that states have poured into the centralized monitoring system since the early 1990s, due to the activities of such groups as well as the advent of globalized proliferation networks and the widespread acceptance of the Cohen–Frankel “opaque proliferation” concept, international confidence in the non-proliferation regime today is at an all-time low (Montgomery 2005 ).

One might retort that states nevertheless appear to have retained confidence in the NPT regime, because after all, they have not abandoned it. But this pattern of continued adhesion may in fact simply reveal the inadequacy of the most basic assumption upon which Dai rests her analysis: that the proliferation “game” is a PD in the first place. This point returns us to the domestic level, for nuclear choices inevitably reflect how particular state elites understand the value of the bomb.

The Liberal Take: Etel Solingen, Nuclear Logics (2007)

Solingen ( 2007 ) offers a liberal, i.e. domestic politics-driven, theory of proliferation and non-proliferation. The book, an elaboration of the argument originally made in Solingen ( 1994 ), has been rewarded with the prestigious Woodrow Wilson prize of the American Political Science Association. Solingen’s “political survival” model focuses on how ruling coalitions inside states have, since the institutionalization of the NPT regime, pursued their material self-interest via what she terms policies of “nuclearization” or “denuclearization.” Solingen argues, “Inward-looking models [of economic development] approximate necessary if not sufficient conditions for nuclear weapons programs. Internationalizing models are not necessary but likely to be sufficient for denuclearization except under two circumstances: (a) when neighboring inward-looking regimes seek nuclear weapons (or other WMD); and (b) when nuclear weapons were acquired prior to the inception of internationalizing models” (p. 46). Solingen also notes the possibility of “compromise coalitions” between inward-oriented and internationalizing forces, which try to have it both ways, outwardly respecting NPT commitments while building up their potential for a nuclear breakout that only some coalition members truly want (pp. 43–4).

The bulk of Solingen’s book contains nine thoroughly researched country case studies from two regions, East Asia and the Middle East. The case studies strongly undermine the notion that proliferation (or non-proliferation) is the product of unitary, rational states pursuing objective national interests. Rather, they show that different groups within states can actually have very different opinions on the value of “nuclearization.” The case studies also clearly demonstrate that when deciding where they stand on the question of nuclear weapons, political actors consider a much wider array of values than simply the state’s international security and power position. Along these lines, Solingen argues that although alliance relationships with the US may have solidified key East Asian states’ nuclear abstention, the fact of alliance should be seen as endogenous to their other political choices. In other words, East Asian states such as Japan did not stand down from nuclear weapons ambitions because the US placated them with a credible nuclear guarantee, as most accounts suggest; rather, they actively sought that guarantee because they wanted to avoid an indigenous nuclear weapons program that would be terribly damaging to their broader political interests (pp. 79–81). This is a fine example of intellectual judo.

There is much to praise in Solingen’s work, but also room for improvement. First, more attention could have been given to the conceptualization, operationalization, and measurement of the book’s key dependent variables. In a footnote, “nuclearization” is defined as “movement toward nuclear weapons acquisition, even if it does not result in actual acquisition” (p. 301, n. 1). This definition is a start, but it is rather general, for instance not clearly distinguishing, as Meyer ( 1984 ) did, between the two types of movement “toward” the bomb – political and technological. Reflecting this definitional ambiguity, in Solingen’s book the relative weight assigned to these two types of indicators appears to vary from chapter to chapter. Meanwhile, “denuclearization” is defined simply as “renunciation,” without further elaboration (p. 301, n. 1). The word “renunciation” suggests a very strong, indeed irreversible commitment to remaining non-nuclear, but elsewhere in the book “denuclearization” seems to be simply the decision not to get nuclear weapons for the time being. It is certainly true that operationalization and measurement are very difficult issues in the study of proliferation, and it would be impossible to resolve them to everyone’s satisfaction (see also Levite 2002 /03). Nevertheless, without more precision on these issues it is difficult to determine whether or not the empirical record actually confirms Solingen’s theory as strongly as she contends.

Second, Solingen makes rather modest claims about the power of her basic theoretical model for explaining movement in the direction of “nuclearization.” The asymmetrical nature of the book’s theoretical contribution can be seen in the title of the theory chapter: “Alternative Logics on Denuclearization.” In that chapter, as noted above, the presence of an inward-oriented coalition in power is merely said to be one “necessary” condition for nuclearization (p. 46); though we are not provided with a clear list of the additional conditions that are required to fully explain nuclearization, the case study chapters imply that they may be numerous. The implication that inward-oriented coalitions may, depending on other variables, adopt a wide variety of nuclear postures ranging from denuclearization to nuclearization starkly contrasts with the book’s seemingly much stronger claim about the causal link between internationalizing coalitions and denuclearization. There is absolutely nothing wrong with such theoretical modesty; indeed, one of the real strengths of Solingen’s work is how carefully she points out her own theory’s limits. But of course the field as a whole needs to overcome those limits.

Third, Solingen does not problematize the relationship between import-substitution industrialization and nationalism. Therefore, she tends to take the fact that nationalist sentiments in countries like North Korea led to “nuclearization” as further indication of the fundamental impact of inward-looking economic models on states’ nuclear choices. But actually nationalism and inward economic orientations are clearly separable analytically. And this leads to the question: what if they were also separated empirically? Would it turn out that tendencies toward “nuclearization” and “denuclearization” more strongly followed the pull of economic interests, or the tug of identity? Indeed, in some historical periods internationalizing economic models have gone hand in glove with nationalism (Greenfeld 2001 ). The case of late-1990s India, in which a strongly nationalist and economically internationalizing coalition chose to risk its economic and political survival for an overt, sustained nuclear breakout, suggests that when push comes to shove, nationalist urges may at least sometimes get the better of material self-interest. Solingen properly acknowledges that the Indian case demonstrates her theory’s “refutability” (p. 348 n. 40). But in fact the 1998 Indian decision may well be more than a mere anomaly to be brushed off in a footnote. Given the reality of globalization, it has been hard to be anything but an economic internationalizer in recent years – Solingen suggests that even Kim Jong Il may be one (pp. 133–8) – yet we know that despite this trend, nationalism and “nuclearization” are still very much with us. We must therefore follow Max Weber ( 1958 ) and attempt to identify the fundamental ideas that give rise to perceptions of material interests.

The Sociological-Constructivist Take: Maria Rost Rublee, Nonproliferation Norms (2009)

Rublee ( 2009 ) begins her work with the by now classic question of the proliferation field: “Why have so many states abstained from nuclear weapons, while a few continue to pursue them against all odds?” (p. 1). She finds her answer in the sociological constructivist literature on identity and norms complemented with social psychology, as exemplified by the work of Johnston ( 2001 ; 2008 ). In particular, Rublee contends that “the international social environment, supported by first an emergent and then a full-fledged nuclear nonproliferation regime, has helped to provide that systemic impetus toward nuclear nonproliferation […]. Over time, nuclear proliferation became more costly – economically, technically, and diplomatically – whereas nuclear nonproliferation became more rewarding” (p. 202). Rublee emphasizes that the “cost–benefit” calculation that she claims states make about the bomb is not a strictly material one, but includes a wide variety of nonmaterial considerations as well (p. 28). For instance, in line with much sociological constructivism, she places great emphasis on most states’ desire for recognition as normal states, whereas “those outside the NPT are also outside the international community” (p. 51).

Rublee tests her rigorously derived hypotheses against competing theories with in-depth historical case studies of Japan and Egypt, and briefer looks at Germany, Sweden, and Libya. Unlike some of the other books considered here, Rublee’s is quite winningly modest about the power of her theory. She does not claim that the international non-proliferation norm by itself caused any state to choose nuclear forbearance, but rather that in most cases the norm interacted with other variables to produce this outcome (p. 202). For instance, in the case of Japan, Rublee argues that the international norm reinforced a pre-existing domestic revulsion from nuclear weapons born of Hiroshima, and that the continuing strength of the Japanese public’s nuclear allergy was important because it kept the ruling conservative elites from allowing themselves to grow unsatisfied with the nuclear umbrella provided by the US. In other words, Rublee’s argument in the Japanese case rests on a combination of domestic identity politics, the international social environment, and alliance politics. Rublee makes similarly nuanced arguments in the other cases she studies. This is fine historical scholarship.

On the other hand, Rublee’s claims for the effects of the NPT are so modest that one starts to wonder whether it might be right to characterize the regime as simply an extra layer of protection against the possibility of proliferation. Indeed, in four of her five cases, the fundamental decision to abstain from nuclear weapons was taken before the creation of the NPT. This fact pushes Rublee’s argument into some difficult contortions. For instance, on Egypt Rublee writes, “One potential explanation for Nasser’s reluctance to pursue a nuclear weapons program seriously after 1960 is the influence of the international norm against non-proliferation. At first glance this may seem implausible, given that the NPT was not open for signature until 1968 and did not come into force until 1970 . But closer analysis shows otherwise” (p. 114). Rublee’s “closer analysis” is that Egypt saw international disarmament negotiations at the UN as a means of exercising leadership of the Arab cause against Israel. But such diplomatic posturing is hardly incompatible with the continuation of a secret nuclear weapons drive. The main reasons for Egyptian non-proliferation are thus to be sought elsewhere (perhaps in Walsh 2001 ).

Second, Rublee’s attempt to highlight the impact on states’ nuclear choices of not just the NPT but also the broader “non-proliferation norm” highlights the need for much more rigorous measurement. Rublee devotes only four pages to assessing the existence and strength of the overall international non-proliferation norm, which she sees as part of a broader normative revulsion against nuclear weapons dating at least from 1945 (pp. 35–9). Yet a serious assessment of the overall strength of the norm is particularly important in the case of proliferation, for as Sagan ( 1996/7 ) emphasized in his discussion of the “norms model,” in addition to the non-proliferation norm there is also a proliferation norm – an implicit injunction that states seeking great power status need to get the bomb. This ambiguous normative environment is reinforced by the frankly discriminatory character of the NPT, which Epstein ( 1976 ) and many subsequent authors have argued may doom the regime to failure. Rublee greatly understates these structural problems (p. 39).

Indeed, due to what Abraham ( 2006 ) calls the “ambivalence of nuclear histories,” standard IR constructivist hypotheses are much less readily applicable to the case of non-proliferation than they are to, say, the proliferation of conventional weapon systems or the abolition of slavery. From another angle, however, the unique normative features of the proliferation issue present an opportunity for the further development of the sociological-constructivist research program in the discipline.

Toward the Future of Proliferation Studies: An Emerging Consensus?

The state of the proliferation literature is strong today. In the past decade or so, the topic has come to the forefront of the IR debate, and the result has been a great deal of productive scholarship from all of the major paradigms in the literature. The different authors reviewed here of course have many disagreements – for instance, over the proper weight to assign to individual, domestic political, or international systemic variables. However, one can also perceive the faint outlines of a consensus on the dynamics of nuclear proliferation up to this point in history. In particular, there are five points on which most recent works converge.

The first point of agreement is that proliferation has historically been a rare phenomenon, and moreover that this is not a fluke or an aberration but rather a battle-tested empirical reality that needs to be explained. Despite acknowledging that opaque proliferation can happen, the overwhelming majority of academic analyses today accept the basic fact that non-proliferation has been the norm. This is one of the most important contributions that the literature can make to the often hysterical proliferation debate that is taking place in the policy world.

The second point of agreement is that while the supply side of the proliferation equation is undoubtedly important (Montgomery 2005 ; Gartzke and Kroenig 2009 ), the most significant bottleneck has consistently been on the demand side. To explain why the bomb has proven less attractive to states than people like President Kennedy once feared, Paul and Dai primarily stress states’ anticipation of a proliferation domino effect; Solingen primarily stresses their desire to advance their economic interests in a globalized world; Rublee primarily stresses the international normative delegitimation of the pursuit of nuclear weapons; and Hymans stresses the paralyzing degree of uncertainty that is produced by all of these potential downsides and by the potential upsides as well. While the literature’s disagreements over what disincentives are more important need to be resolved, all the authors agree on the basic fact that to go nuclear is potentially extremely costly for states.

The third point of agreement is that the analysis of states’ nuclear choices cannot bypass the domestic level of analysis. Domestic factors are of course central to the work of Solingen and Hymans, but the other strands in the literature are generally not antagonistic to this point of view. For instance, Dai’s overall theoretical framework demonstrates a strong commitment to analyzing the interaction between international institutions and domestic-level variables, so reconsidering the NPT along those lines could be a “friendly amendment” to her book.

The fourth point of agreement is the close connection that most of the authors see between national identity and the desire for nuclear weapons. Hymans’s “oppositional nationalist” leaders, Rublee’s “social” states, Paul’s “enduring rivals” and “great power aspirants,” and even Solingen’s “inward-oriented coalitions” are all doing more than simply developing a military response to a material security threat. They are reaching for a powerful symbol whose meaning goes far beyond its likely practical consequences.

The fifth point of agreement is that the way forward for the proliferation literature is to further develop theory and to rigorously test any new theoretical developments through in-depth process-tracing analysis of an ever more complete historical record. Most proliferation scholars today are not content simply to add to the old laundry lists of proliferation incentives and disincentives. They also show a strong commitment to going beyond simply developing plausible hypotheses and noting interesting correlations. The cutting edge of the proliferation literature today tries to explicate in detail the political processes that generate specific kinds of nuclear choices. This commitment to understanding processes also inevitably means conducting careful, systematic historical case studies. The literature’s traditional reliance on declassified American intelligence (Richelson 2006 ) and the folk knowledge of the non-proliferation community is no longer enough. Most proliferation scholars have realized that the way forward is to investigate history much more closely. The proliferation field’s commitment to detailed analysis of specific historical cases has had the additional benefit of making this scholarly literature unusually comprehensible and instructive to our colleagues in the policy world.

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Links to Digital Materials

James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute for International Studies. At www.cns.miis.edu , accessed May 25, 2009. The temple of non-proliferation studies has the most complete website on the subject, including back issues of the essential Nonproliferation Review .

Nuclear Threat Initiative. At www.nti.org , accessed May 25, 2009. Contains thorough and carefully referenced country nuclear history chronologies, and provides daily e-mail updates via the Global Security Newswire.

Arms Control Association. At www.armscontrol.org , accessed May 25, 2009. Publishes the excellent policy journal Arms Control Today online, with no moving wall.

Federation of American Sciences. At www.fas.org , accessed May 25, 2009. Useful technical and intelligence resource, and also archives the reports of the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment, which was defunded by the Newt Gingrich regime in 1995.

Federation of American Scientists (FAS).

International Atomic Energy Agency. At www.iaea.org , accessed May 25, 2009. Drab but definitive.

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. At www.thebulletin.org , accessed May 25, 2009. The granddaddy of non-proliferation studies is gradually increasing its online presence.

Arms Control Wonk. At www.armscontrolwonk.com , accessed May 25, 2009. A blog written by Dr. Jeffrey Lewis and friends. Informative and great fun.

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Theo Farrell , Rieko Kage , Alexander Montgomery , William Potter , participants at a seminar at Keio University in Tokyo, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments on an earlier version of this essay.

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Toward a More Proliferated World?

Photo: Official U.S. Navy Page/Flickr ( United States government work )

Table of Contents

Report by Eric Brewer, Ilan Goldenberg , Joseph Rodgers , Maxwell Simon , and Kaleigh Thomas

Published September 2, 2020

Available Downloads

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The Geopolitical Forces that Will Shape the Spread of Nuclear Weapons

The United States has been remarkably successful at preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, but there are new reasons to question whether this track record will last into the future.

Working with partners, the United States has steadily built a framework of disincentives and barriers to prevent proliferation. These include: (1) international treaties and agreements that have erected legal, political, and normative barriers to the bomb; (2) U.S. security commitments to allies that dampen their own need for nuclear weapons; and (3) a set of tough penalties (e.g., sanctions) for those who get caught trying to build the bomb. In other words, the barriers to entry to the nuclear club are high, and those countries that want the ultimate weapon need to be willing to accept significant risks. This helps explain why, although many countries have explored or pursued nuclear weapons, only nine states have them today.

But several trends are eroding the foundation on which this formidable set of barriers rests. These trends are rooted in, and being shaped by, changes to the nature and structure of the international system: namely, the decline of U.S. influence and its gradual withdrawal from the international order that it helped create and lead for more than 70 years, and the concurrent rise of a more competitive security environment, particularly among great powers. These trends (detailed in the report) will have three broad implications for proliferation and U.S. policy. First, they stand to increase pressures on countries to seek nuclear weapons or related capabilities as a hedge. Second, they will almost certainly challenge the United States’ ability to effectively wield the traditional “carrots and sticks” of nonproliferation and counterproliferation policy and dilute the effectiveness of those tools. Finally, they could increasingly pit U.S. nonproliferation goals against other policy objectives, forcing harder tradeoffs.

U.S. policy must adapt unless the United States wants to be faced with a more nuclear-capable landscape in the future.

This research was made possible with the support of the MacArthur Foundation.

Eric Brewer

Ilan goldenberg, joseph rodgers, maxwell simon, kaleigh thomas, programs & projects.

Major milestone reached for key weapons component

Sandia National Laboratories and the Kansas City National Security Campus completed a crucial weapons component development milestone, prior to full rate production.

The Mark 21 Replacement Fuze interfaces with the W87-0 warhead for deployment onto the Minuteman III and, eventually, the Sentinel Intercontinental Ballistic Missile.

The first production unit of the replacement fuze was approved through the National Nuclear Security Administration's rigorous Quality Assurance Inspection Procedure in March.

The Mark 21 fuze, an integrated assembly of Sandia-designed logic and sensing devices, directs the warhead to initiate firing sequences at the correct point in targeting parameters. The Mark 21 Fuze Replacement Program is a Strategic Partnership Program effort between the NNSA and the U.S. Air Force.

"Sandia's role is to deliver a fuze that meets the Air Force's requirements. Completing the first production unit is a visible milestone in maintaining a credible deterrent," said Brad Boswell, a director in Sandia's nuclear deterrence modernization program. "It demonstrates that we are providing the necessary capability for the U.S. nuclear deterrent into the future."

Designing the fuze

As the lead design agency of the Mark 21 fuze, Sandia was responsible for incorporating Air Force requirements into a form, fit and functional package that interfaces with the Mk21 aeroshell, MMIII missile and W87-0 warhead. Work began in 2011.

"The early engineering work takes a lot of time. While some of it is done in parallel, much of the work must be sequential," said Bob Oetken, a former program manager for the fuze program. "We're doing a very specific job that requires, in many cases, custom parts."

Sandia worked closely with the Kansas City National Security Campus to ensure the design was producible and delivered on schedule. While the Kansas City National Security Campus is producing and assembling the fuze, Sandia is manufacturing some of the parts.

Fuze qualification

Before production of the fuze began, a significant amount of time was spent qualifying the design, which ensures the design meets Air Force specifications. It includes analysis through testing and other engineering tools to ensure the fuze will function as intended.

"Qualification involves significant resources and time. We are in a very rigorous business. Some of the qualification is used to verify that we are meeting requirements and took as long as three years from concept to delivery," Oetken said.

The program has conducted numerous tests, including environmental, ground and flight tests, to ensure the fuze withstands multiple difficult environments, such as acceleration, vibration and thermal environments expected during missile launch and ballistic reentry.

Stockpile assessment

Now that the fuze is in full rate production, Sandia's responsibilities shift.

"As the design agency, Sandia is responsible for the component until the weapon is retired. Sandia is accountable for ensuring that the weapon with the fuze attached is safe, secure and reliable," Boswell said.

As part of the stockpile assessment, Sandia will conduct surveillance through processes such as modeling and simulation and flight and ground testing to ensure the fuze continues to work as intended.

Partnering for great results

Completing the first production unit of the Mark 21 fuze is the culmination of more than a decade of work and collaboration, not just at Sandia, but by NNSA and the Department of Defense.

"This first production unit marks a significant milestone not just for Sandia but the broader nuclear security enterprise, particularly our partners at the Kansas City National Security Campus," Boswell said. "While we stop to recognize this achievement, we must also acknowledge this is the start of the next phase of our partnership as we work to meet key production milestones to deliver the quantity of fuzes needed to meet the needs of the stockpile."

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Should artificial intelligence be banned from nuclear weapons systems?

• Professor Steffan Puwal
• 12 April 2024

Against a backdrop of conflict and global security concerns, 2023 may prove to have also been a pivotal year for automated nuclear weapons systems.

A year that began with chatbots and Artificial Intelligence (AI) as the subjects of major news stories - some with particularly concerning headlines - ended with members of the United States Congress introducing legislation to ban AI systems from nuclear weapons and US President Biden signing an Executive Order on the subject. The issue was even raised in discussions between the United States and China at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, which met in San Francisco in November.

Allied aircraft exercise NATO’s nuclear deterrence capability in exercise Steadfast Noon, 16-26 October 2023. Pictured: a Dutch F-16 Fighting Falcon fighter during take-off. © NATO

We seem to be on a fast track to developing a diplomatic and regulatory framework that restrains AI in nuclear weapons systems. This is concerning for at least two reasons:

There is a utility in AI that will strengthen nuclear deterrence without necessarily expanding the nuclear arsenal.

The rush to ban AI from nuclear defenses seems to be rooted in a misunderstanding of the current state of AI—a misunderstanding that appears to be more informed by popular fiction than by popular science.

The policies of the United States – the NATO Ally with the largest nuclear arsenal - regarding the use of AI in nuclear defence systems will likely set the tone for the other nuclear capable NATO member states, France and the United Kingdom. This is why misunderstandings about AI, particularly in the US but across the entire Alliance more generally, must be addressed, and lawmakers should be urged to proceed more carefully with any proposed legislation. With potential geopolitical benefits to be realised, banning AI from nuclear defences is a bad idea.

Misunderstanding a new science

When people think of AI in the context of nuclear weapons, they may imagine something like the Skynet system from the 1991 film Terminator 2: Judgment Day . In the film, Skynet becomes self-aware and launches a massive global nuclear strike.

Perhaps they think of the 1983 film WarGames and its artificial intelligence system, known as WOPR, or even more niche cinema, like the 1970 film Colossus: The Forbin Project . These films, released in each of the last three decades of the Cold War, depict AI systems capable of independent thought — what is sometimes referred to as Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). The danger they portray is that systems capable of independent thought would be capable of independent objectives and ulterior motives. To be sure, it would be concerning if such systems existed. But they do not; and, while a skeptical consensus is not universal, there is serious doubt among at least some researchers as to whether such systems will ever exist.

Works of popular fiction are not always accurate representations of a new science. At its best, fiction can provide a starting point for debate and strategic thought. H.G. Wells’ The Last War , for example, was one of the first works of fiction about nuclear war; written while nuclear science was in its infancy, it is replete with misunderstandings about concepts like explosive yield and half-life. Nevertheless, Herman Kahn ’s later work of non-fiction, On Thermonuclear War , takes as its starting point scenarios that one immediately recognises from the plot of The Last War . Kahn demonstrated through his writing that serious academic thought could begin with a consideration of fictional scenarios, even those with scientific inaccuracies; but arguably his more important work, developed later, was based on empirical evidence—the now ubiquitously cited On Escalation . Scientific accuracy and empirical evidence must similarly be central to our discussions of AI.

The kind of artificial intelligence that is available today is not AGI. It may pass the Turing test — that is, it may be indistinguishable from a human as it answers questions posed by a user — but it is not capable of independent thought, and is certainly not self-aware.

History as precedent – the utility of improved targeting systems

There are myriad roles for AI in our nuclear defences, including AI-based targeting systems. If we assume that AI-based targeting will make nuclear weapons more accurate — that is, more likely to hit what they should hit and not hit what they should not — then what are the geopolitical benefits of its development and deployment? It is useful to revisit historical examples to illustrate how increasing the accuracy of nuclear weapons strengthened US and NATO defences during the Cold War.

In his March 1983 Oval Office address , President Ronald Reagan presented his case for the development of a ballistic missile defence system. One of his key points was that the Soviet Union possessed more nuclear weapons than did the US. In the late 1970s, the Soviet Union did indeed overtake the US in the number of nuclear weapons it possessed, but this was largely a result of the deployment of more accurate missile systems like Polaris, Titan II, and Pershing. It was no longer necessary to target a city or military installation with many missiles, and so the US could still effectively deter the Soviet Union and meet its strategic objectives with fewer warheads. The cost savings achieved by having a smaller number of more accurate nuclear weapons allowed the US to free up valuable defense dollars to develop new systems like the stealth bomber and the cruise missile.

Thanks to the deployment of more accurate missile systems like Polaris, Titan II, and Pershing by the United States in the late 1970s, it was no longer necessary to target a city or military installation with many missiles, and so the US could still effectively deter the Soviet Union and meet its strategic objectives with fewer warheads. Pictured: Pershing II weapon system tested in February 1983. © Wikipedia

The reduction in the overall number of US nuclear weapons in the concluding decades of the Cold War, at a time when defence spending was a substantially greater share of gross domestic product than it is today, is suggestive of the idea that more accurate weapons can mean fewer weapons.

One piece of evidence that suggests how the development of more accurate nuclear weapons potentially influenced US nuclear policy comes from the recently declassified Presidential Directive 59 , signed by President Jimmy Carter in 1980. Two salient points in this directive are a request for increased intelligence on targets and a push for what is referred to as a “look-shoot-look” capability — the ability to find a target, hit it, and then assess the strike. Implicit in this approach are the ideas that a nuclear strike should hit its intended target, the target should have strategic value, and that a form of nuclear carpet bombing that fails to hit an intended target is strategically pointless.

In parallel to these developments in nuclear weapons, conventional weapons also became increasingly more accurate. The Gulf War (1990-1991) was an important turning point for conventional weapons systems — accurate munitions that hit military targets and comparatively minimised civilian casualties were front and centre in the press briefings provided by US General Norman Schwarzkopf. The benefit of minimising civilian casualties has since led many NATO Allies to ban older and relatively indiscriminate weapons like cluster munitions.

The United States Army First Cavalry’s Multiple Launch Rocket System firing a rocket during the Gulf War. © Steve Elfers / The LIFE Picture Collection, via Getty Images

Future potential – a role for AI-based targeting systems

What form a more accurate, AI-based targeting system for nuclear weapons may take is difficult to estimate at this point, with much of the technology still in the development stage. One can imagine a hypothetical scenario in which a nuclear weapon targets a naval base, but an approach pattern recognition determines that the target submarines have already put to sea, and so the missile opts for a redirected underwater strike instead of an atmospheric detonation. This is but one of many possible scenarios to consider involving AI.

If past is prologue, and the use of more accurate AI-based targeting systems leads to a reduction in the overall number of nuclear weapons, where might such reductions be made? A strategic review will, of course, answer this question. One possibility may be land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). While it is not currently US policy, former officials, including US Secretary of Defense William Perry, have argued for precisely that.

Potential benefits can extend beyond nation state threats. A reduction in the number of nuclear weapons will make it easier to secure the remaining stockpile and prevent the nightmare scenarios of nuclear terrorism, where poorly secured weapons fall into the wrong hands.

There is, of course, the potential for an arms race in AI-based targeting systems for nuclear weapons. But it is also important to note the role that continued research and development can play in nuclear diplomacy and a reduction of arms. Returning to the historical precedent, by the time the US deployed intermediate range Pershing missiles to Europe, they were seen as a bargaining chip in the strategic arms reduction talks that would follow. President Reagan’s ballistic missile shield was similarly viewed by the Soviets as something that could be bargained over. At the 1986 Reykjavik Summit, President Reagan found Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev willing to negotiate away large numbers of nuclear weapons in exchange for an agreement by the US not to deploy a ballistic missile defence system. Instead, the summit was followed by negotiations for the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which led to the removal of the Pershing missiles.

US President Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, in which their two nations agree to eliminate their stocks of intermediate-range and shorter-range (or “medium-range”) land-based missiles, 8 December 1987. © The White House

There are currently serious issues related to nuclear diplomacy that must be addressed. Russia rejects nuclear inspections and continues to develop next generation hypersonic ballistic missiles. Meanwhile, China has historically preferred to self-limit its nuclear arsenal, rarely opting for formal agreements with the US. The hope of nuclear diplomats today is for a multilateral arms reduction treaty between the US, Russia, and China. With Russia’s brutal war in Ukraine and simmering tensions in the Indo-Pacific region, the challenges of developing such a treaty are immense. Should all parties eventually agree to talks, nuclear weapons systems with AI-based targeting can, if nothing else, provide the US and its NATO Allies with a bargaining chip in those negotiations. This function in future arms control negotiations is, in effect, “building up to build down” (a strategy well established in nuclear arms negotiations); but it creates an imperative to be the first to invest in the development of the most effective systems, not to restrain their development.

Testing of the ‘Peacekeeper’ reentry vehicles: all eight (of a possible ten) were fired from only one missile. Each line shows the path of an individual warhead captured on reentry via long-exposure photography. Photo © Wikipedia

And if, ultimately, it is decided that AI systems should be withheld from nuclear defenses, any proposed legislative language must carefully define artificial intelligence — a difficult task for a rapidly developing science. A proposed bill in the US Congress, for example, suggested that systems that “select or engage targets for the purposes of launching a nuclear weapon” should be banned, and defined “‘autonomous weapons system’ as a weapons system that, once activated, can select and engage targets without further intervention by an operator.” In this case, it should be pointed out that since the early 1970s, the US nuclear arsenal has used multiple independent targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs); a system that launches and then redirects to a new trajectory for each of the multiple warheads it carries without the further intervention of a human operator. Expert legal testimony should consider whether such legislative language is so broad that it could unintentionally ban MIRVs, a proven technology that has been at the core of US nuclear defence for decades.

With each new decade, fear of the bomb has been entwined with fear of the transistor, the microprocessor, and the silicon wafer, and this has been reflected in our popular culture. Those who developed the nuclear arsenal, its control systems, and deterrence theory were well aware of this and studiously considered the proper role automated systems should play. While it may seem like a more sophisticated problem today, any potential risk of combining automated systems with nuclear weapons is certainly not a new problem. Legitimate concerns over a rapidly developing technology are valid; but concerns over the capabilities of AI systems must be based on the actual science of these systems, not merely their depiction in popular fiction.

AI systems offer an opportunity to strengthen nuclear deterrence by providing a more accurate and capable defensive nuclear response. The purpose of making nuclear weapons more accurate and capable is not to promote their usage. Such capabilities, instead, provide a more credible deterrence to nuclear war and are consistent with classic nuclear doctrine. AI is simply a strategic tool, like nuclear weapons themselves.

Concern over AI should not preclude the use of AI in strengthening nuclear deterrence. Nor should AI be deployed in those systems simply for the sake of deployment. Employing AI should serve a strategic objective. Where to find the right balance will be difficult because the science is still in its infancy. Expert testimony from the defence and AI communities should be heard — not just the management of AI companies, but engineers, academics, military officers, and legal counsel. In a time of major global security concerns and rapidly developing nuclear and AI technologies, legislators and political leaders should proceed carefully with any proposed legislation.

An Israeli attack on Iran’s nuclear weapons programme is unlikely – here’s why

Professor of International Relations and Security, University of Bradford

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Christoph Bluth does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has vowed to retaliate against Iran for the unprecedented aerial assault on April 13. He has made it clear that “we will make our own decisions, and the state of Israel will do all that is needed to defend itself”.

Iran’s attack involved around 170 drones, over 30 cruise missiles and more than 120 ballistic missiles, all directed against Israel and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. The attack was launched in retaliation for Israel’s April 1 strike against the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, which killed two top military leaders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).

The timing, scale and nature of Israel’s response remain to be seen. But various options have been canvassed , including a strike of some sort against Iran’s nuclear weapons programme .

Israel has targeted Iran’s nuclear programme before. It has assassinated a number of nuclear scientists over the years, and launched a number of attacks on the country’s nuclear facilities. Physical attacks have taken the form of drone strikes and commando raids, including one in January 2018 on a facility in Tehran, in which Mossad agents stole large numbers of classified documents which Netanyahu said proved Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons programme.

In April 2021, Iran accused Israel of orchestrating an explosion at its primary uranium enrichment facility in Natanz, resulting in substantial damage to its centrifuges. This marked the second incident within a year involving a mysterious explosion at the site. Israel has neither confirmed nor denied its involvement in either attack.

Israel is also thought to have mounted a number of cyberattacks on Iran’s nuclear programme, most prominently in June 2010 with the introduction of Stuxnet computer malware into Iranian nuclear facilities. Believed to have been created through collaboration between US and Israeli intelligence, the Stuxnet malware was designed to severely disrupt centrifuge operations at Natanz and is thought to have set back Iran’s nuclear weapons programme by years.

Iran’s nuclear weapons history

The status of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme remains unclear. The country developed a civil nuclear programme under the late Shah, and in 1970 ratified the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty , committing the country not to possess nor develop nuclear weapons.

But in the late 1980s, Iran initiated a clandestine uranium enrichment programme , acquiring essential equipment and materials from Pakistan and China. During the late 1990s and early 2000s, Iran pursued a secret nuclear weapons development project, known as the Amad Plan .

Work on this plan was thought to have halted in 2003, following the US invasion of Iraq. But it is thought that by then, Iran had the capacility to build a small and fairly crude nuclear device .

A great deal of what we know about the development of Iran’s nuclear weapons programme stems from the 2018 Mossad raid. This revealed that work on weapons development was not entirely halted, and that Iran continued to work on improving its nuclear weapons capability.

The US has responded over the years by applying increasingly severe sanctions designed to deter Iran from continuing its programme. At the same time, backchannel negotiations continued, resulting in the joint comprehensive plan of action (JCPOA) signed by Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the UN security council – China, France, Russia, the US and UK – plus Germany).

In return for sanctions relief, Iran agreed to reduce its uranium enrichment programme to a level insufficient for building nuclear warheads. It was restricted to enriching uranium up to 3.67%, a level adequate for civilian nuclear energy and scientific research , and all facilities were subject to inspection by the International Atomic Energy agency. The restrictions would be in place for 15 years.

In May 2018, the Trump administration abandoned the JCPOA . Iran responded by re-energising its weapons programme. According to a research briefing held in the House of Commons Library, the country is now thought to have exceeded the agreed limit for its uranium stockpile by a factor of 18 times , and has elevated its enrichment operations to 60%.

It has resumed operations at nuclear facilities previously prohibited under the terms of the agreement and, since February 2021, has prevented the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) from effectively monitoring its nuclear sites.

Can an Iranian ‘bomb’ be prevented?

According to a report by the Arms Control Association in Washington, Iran’s nuclear programme is now too advanced and widely distributed to be effectively nullified by military action. There are several reasons for this.

First, Iran possesses the requisite expertise to develop nuclear weapons, which cannot be eradicated through bombing raids. While targeting Iranian facilities would temporarily hinder the programme, any setbacks would likely be short-lived.

Destroying Iran’s nuclear facilities in Natanz would be essential, but accessing these facilities would necessitate a significant number of airstrikes penetrating deep into Iranian territory, while circumventing or overpowering its air defence systems.

In recent years, Iran has fortified its Natanz facility, building deep tunnels to prevent airborne attack. Even if this facility was damaged, it is thought that Iran would be capable of reconstituting it quickly – especially as various elements, including the uranium centrifuges, may already have been moved to unknown sites .

So, an effort to destroy Iran’s nuclear programme would require a large-scale military assault. This would certainly prompt a military response from Tehran, and is likely to further persuade the Islamic Republic of the necessity of accelerating its efforts to acquire its own mature nuclear deterrent.

In such a scenario, Iran might also opt to withdraw from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, eliminating any obligation for inspections by the IAEA.

For all these reasons, the former Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert – a regular critic of Netanyahu – said recently : “Israel can do a lot to damage Iran’s infrastructure, but Israel has no means to be able to destroy the nuclear programme of Iran.”

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The U.S. Has Received a Rare Invitation From China. There Is Only One Right Answer.

By W.J. Hennigan

Mr. Hennigan writes about national security issues for Times Opinion.

In the middle of the last century, as the United States and Russia rapidly amassed thousands of nuclear weapons, China stayed out of the arms race, focusing its energy on growing its economy and broadening its regional influence.

Beijing did build hundreds of nuclear weapons during those years, but the nation’s leaders insisted their modest arsenal was merely for self-defense. Since China’s first nuclear weapons test, in 1964, the country has pledged loudly to never go first in a nuclear conflict — no matter what. That stance, coupled with a stated strategy of “minimum” deterrence, didn’t demand the level of American fear, loathing and attention that the Russian threat did.

Now there is increasing unease in Washington about China’s nuclear ambitions. The Pentagon says Beijing is on track to double the number of its nuclear warheads by the decade’s end, to 1,000 from 500 — a development that senior U.S. officials have publicly called “unprecedented” and “breathtaking.” China has drastically expanded its nuclear testing facility and continued work on three new missile fields in the country’s north, where more than 300 intercontinental ballistic missile silos have recently been constructed.

China’s transformation from a small nuclear power into an far larger one is a historic shift, upending the delicate two-peer balance of the world’s nuclear weapons for the entirety of the atomic age. The Russian and American arsenals — their growth, reduction and containment — have defined this era; maintaining an uneasy peace between the two countries hinged on open communication channels, agreement on nuclear norms and diplomacy.

Little of that nuclear scaffolding exists with China. In Washington, how exactly to interpret Beijing’s sharp nuclear buildup is still a matter of debate. At best, American officials say, their Chinese counterparts are trying to catch up with the United States and Russia, which still each have roughly a 10-to-1 nuclear advantage over China with their stockpiles. At worst, they say, this is Beijing’s boldfaced attempt to deter the United States from defending Taiwan against a Chinese invasion, the most likely flashpoint for an armed conflict between the competing superpowers.

In truth, no one knows what China is planning. President Xi Jinping’s government, as with much of its domestic policy, releases vanishingly little information about its nuclear intentions, strategies or goals, and it has been equally unwilling to engage on arms control.

That is, until now.

In February, in a rare offer for nuclear diplomacy, China openly invited the United States and other nuclear powers to negotiate a treaty in which all sides would pledge never to use nuclear weapons first against one another. “The policy is highly stable, consistent and predictable,” said Sun Xiaobo, director general of the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s department of arms control, in Geneva on Feb. 26. “It is, in itself, an important contribution to the international disarmament process.”

The invitation came as a surprise. While Beijing has long claimed moral superiority over other nuclear powers on this issue — China and India are the only nuclear-armed nations to declare a no-first-use policy — opening the possibility for talks in such a public way is something China hasn’t done in years.

It may seem like a no-brainer to take China up on the offer — wouldn’t it be better if everyone agreed not to be the first to use their nuclear weapons? — but it has been met with public silence from Washington. For American policymakers, committing to no-first-use is deeply divisive. The United States, the only nation to ever use nuclear weapons in conflict, when it dropped two atomic bombs on Japan in 1945, has never ruled out being first to use them again, nor has it detailed the circumstances under which it would consider doing so. This approach of calculated ambiguity is intended to prevent adversaries from taking military action against the United States — and the more than 30 allies it is bound by treaties to defend — out of fear for what could come their way in response.

It’s also a personal issue for President Biden. He supported a no-first-use policy as vice president amid deliberations inside the Obama administration, and as a presidential candidate on the campaign trail he said the “sole purpose” of the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be aimed at deterring or retaliating against an adversary’s nuclear attack. But when it came time for his own administration to adopt a declaratory nuclear policy, he decided not to break with America’s longstanding nuclear dogma and retained the first-use option.

Mr. Biden’s about-face was a sign of the times, a result of both internal deliberations and consultations with allies in Europe and Asia. According to current and former administration officials, these nations’ leaders feared a U.S. policy reversal would undermine confidence in America’s commitment to come to their defense and would potentially embolden China, Russia and North Korea.

The uneasiness surrounding a potential change to America’s first-use policy almost certainly played a role in China’s unusually public invitation to negotiate. China may simply be trying to stoke anxieties among American allies and partners — and particularly Taiwan, South Korea and Japan — by floating a public offer outside of private diplomatic channels.

It’s not the first time it has gone down this road. During the Cold War, China made offers for a mutual no-first-use pledge at the United Nations in 1971 and 1982, and presented a draft treaty in 1994 to the other nuclear weapons states. Four years later, China tried to persuade President Bill Clinton to change American nuclear policy when he visited Beijing, but Mr. Clinton decided against it, choosing instead to share a pledge to stop targeting each other with their nuclear weapons.

Such overtures have all but halted under the leadership of Mr. Xi, who has pursued a far more aggressive foreign policy. He has overseen a sweeping modernization of China’s military, including developing and fielding new nuclear-capable missiles, submarines and bombers. Meanwhile, the stockpile of warheads steadily climbs.

The White House believes that China’s recent offer is a distraction from its broader unwillingness to engage diplomatically on the nuclear portfolio, including its own aggressive buildup. The Biden administration is wrestling with how it can deter both China and Russia without touching off a destabilizing three-way arms race. Jake Sullivan, Mr. Biden’s national security adviser, publicly invited the two nations last summer to hold nuclear arms control deliberations without preconditions. Russia dismissed the offer outright, while China agreed to preliminary talks. At a follow-on meeting in November, the United States proposed possible measures to manage nuclear risks, such as an agreement to notify one another when their militaries test-launch ballistic missiles.

“The P.R.C. has yet to respond or show interest in engaging substantively on these proposals,” a National Security Council spokeswoman, using the abbreviation for the country’s formal name, the People’s Republic of China, said in a written response to questions about Beijing’s recent offer. “This P.R.C. behavior calls into question the aims behinds the P.R.C.’s call for discussions of a no-first-use treaty.”

Some argue the Biden administration should take Beijing’s offer at face value. “China genuinely believes that any serious nuclear arms control discussion needs to start with no-first-use,” said Tong Zhao, a nuclear expert focused on China at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “From Beijing’s view, that’s the most effective way to reduce the role of nuclear weapons.”

Even if it is a strategic gambit, engaging with China and other nuclear nations on first-use talks could be a crucial step in establishing critical guardrails for the new nuclear era. It would be a major breakthrough for Washington to get China to the table for arms control talks. It could also help jolt the stalled relations between the United States and Russia, which together control nearly 90 percent of the world’s nuclear warheads.

“U.S. administrations have not responded with great alacrity or interest to Chinese outreach on the question of no-first-use,” said Steve Andreasen, who served as Mr. Clinton’s director for defense policy and arms control on the National Security Council. “But as we look forward into … the increasing U.S. national interest in engaging China in all things nuclear, we’re going to have to cross the Rubicon on this issue.”

It’s true that it’s not an easy time for trust-building exercises; the current level of mistrust between Chinese and American military intentions is deep. Speaking to Congress in March, Gen. Anthony Cotton, commander of all U.S. nuclear forces, suggested that China’s rapid nuclear expansion indicated its no-first-use policy was no longer credible. The Pentagon wrote in an October report that, despite China’s rhetoric, Beijing might consider using nuclear weapons first anyway during a crisis if it came down to the survival of Mr. Xi’s regime, such as defeat in a war with Taiwan. It also remains unclear how exactly China would respond if its nuclear forces were hit during a conflict. Would that trigger Beijing’s nuclear use? “Unknown,” the Pentagon said in the report.

Talking through these points of contention may help Beijing and Washington understand and appreciate the factors that go into formulating the finer points of each other’s nuclear policy. The very process of dialogue and diplomacy can help the Chinese hear American concerns, and vice versa. Given the widening gulf of fear and suspicion between the two nations around Taiwan, there is no better moment for them to sit down and discuss what constitutes a credible no-first-use commitment.

It may be that an unequivocal no-first-use pledge ends up being impossible. The talks may not result in a deal anyone can agree upon, and even if a deal were to be reached, it would be impossible to verify, meaning it would be more symbolic than substantive. But that doesn’t mean Washington shouldn’t take up Beijing’s invitation. In the increasingly endangered world of nuclear diplomacy, discussions on one treaty can still set the table for another. New START, the only remaining major arms control agreement between the United States and Russia, was built on the foundation of the original START I, which was signed two decades earlier.

Under Mr. Xi, China appears to have left its policy of minimum deterrence behind. If the Biden administration is serious about arms control, it’s time to look for common ground with Beijing to build new agreements for a safer future.

This Times Opinion series is funded through philanthropic grants from the Carnegie Corporation of New York , the Outrider Foundation and the Prospect Hill Foundation . Funders have no control over the selection or focus of articles or the editing process and do not review articles before publication. The Times retains full editorial control.

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W.J. Hennigan writes about national security, foreign policy and conflict for the Opinion section.

ORNL research effort could define future of Navy's nuclear fleet, and some want it to end

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann is pushing to defund a nuclear nonproliferation research program that supports work at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in his district.

Since 2016, Congress has given $100 million to three national laboratories to develop a new kind of fuel for the U.S. Navy, which powers all its aircraft carriers and submarines with onboard nuclear reactors.

Fleischmann, chairman of the House subcommittee on energy and water projects, recommended the program to find a low-enriched uranium fuel for the Navy lose its $20 million budget.

Where other Navy vessels use gas and oil as fuel, much like a combustion engine in a car does, aircraft carriers and submarines use uranium from decommissioned nuclear weapons. The so-called " Nuclear Navy " was born in Oak Ridge after World War II, as scientists scrambled to find uses other than weapons for nuclear power.

Outside of a few research reactors transitioning to low-enriched uranium fuel, naval reactors are the only items other than weapons that use bomb-grade uranium in the U.S.

The powerful fuel is an advantage to the Navy since it doesn't require refueling and allows for compact reactor designs, but it concerns advocates of nuclear nonproliferation.

If a nation asserts it will produce bomb-grade uranium for naval reactors, as Iran has done , it can use a loophole in International Atomic Energy Agency guidelines to avoid normal safety inspections for decades, warned scientists and policy experts in a letter to President Biden in 2021.

The Navy's continued use of weapons-grade uranium could encourage other nations to make the dangerous material, experts say, and the U.S. may have to restart production when its supply runs out.

The U.S. has not produced uranium for weapons since 1964 and ended all production of bomb-grade uranium in 1992.

In reports to Congress in 2014 and 2016, the Navy said developing a new fuel would take at least 15 years and nearly $1 billion. It also said the fuels could make naval vessels less effective and more expensive.

The research program's budget, a fraction of a percent of all energy and water spending, was left out of the latest National Defense Authorization Act, which sets funding levels and priorities. 

Fleischmann did not offer an explanation for wanting to defund the search for a new naval fuel and his office did not respond to emails and calls requesting comment.

Funding for the program was extended through early 2024 in November, when Congress failed to reach a spending agreement. It is set to expire Jan. 19 , the deadline for Congress to pass new spending bills and avoid a potential government shutdown.

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said Jan. 14 they had introduced a stopgap bill that would extend funding , including for energy and water projects, to March 1.

The bill is set for a fight in the House, where a faction of the GOP opposes the measure, pushing for increased border control and less spending overall.

Fleischmann wants to defund research, despite nuclear record

Fleischmann has been a strong proponent of nuclear safety and advanced nuclear reactors such as the small modular reactors under development by the Tennessee Valley Authority in his district.

In a statement accompanying his $58 billion budget proposal for energy and water projects, Fleischmann said national defense and a strong nuclear deterrent against China and Russia are "the highest priority of the federal government."

Only three other navies — those of India, Russia and the United Kingdom — use highly enriched uranium fuel. The French Navy uses low-enriched uranium fuel and experts think the Chinese Navy uses low-enriched uranium fuel.

The uranium used by the U.S. Navy is potent, composed between 93% and 97% of an explosive isotope. It is stored at Y-12 National Security Complex in Oak Ridge and processed into naval reactor fuel by a private company in Erwin, Tennessee, called Nuclear Fuel Services .

Oak Ridge is instrumental not just in storing bomb-grade uranium, but in research that could push the Navy beyond it. In the last few years, samples of low-enriched uranium fuels have been tested for naval use at the High Flux Isotope Reactor at ORNL, according to a National Nuclear Security Administration report to Congress .

Fleischmann has supported a multibillion-dollar effort to spur domestic production of low-enriched uranium for advanced nuclear power reactors, which the U.S. relies on Russia to import.

Yet he recommended defunding the development of the same kind of fuel for the Navy in a separate report, troubling advocates of nonproliferation.

“Members of Congress usually fight in favor of programs in their district. They don’t usually fight to kill programs in their district, so it’s kind of like a man-bites-dog story,” Alan Kuperman, a professor of public affairs at the University of Texas at Austin, told Knox News. “In (Fleischmann's) big bill, this is a rounding error, so this is not about money. This is about principle.”

NNSA and Navy skeptical about new naval fuel

Fleischmann is not the only opponent of the research. The Navy declined to continue the program in 2017, passing it along to the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, where it has received a lukewarm response.

In December, the Nuclear Proliferation Prevention Project at UT Austin published a previously private progress report on the research to Congress .

The National Nuclear Security Administration report is the first time the agency has publicly acknowledged the program, said Kuperman, who leads the nonproliferation program.

In the report, Jill Hruby, the top National Nuclear Security Administration official, said she was "pleased with the progress" the agency had made towards developing a new naval fuel. In a sign of the agency's ambivalence, she also referenced Navy reports that suggested low-enriched uranium fuel would harm the effectiveness and cost of its vessels.

Kuperman said he wants hard evidence that the fuels would reduce the power and endurance of aircraft carriers and submarines.

“The premise has always been, we’ll only do this conversion if it doesn’t affect the performance," Kuperman said.

While the National Nuclear Security Administration declined to comment on pending legislation, a spokesperson for the agency said bomb-grade uranium provides the Navy "distinct advantages in naval warfare while upholding the highest nonproliferation standards."

New Navy fuel could achieve nuclear nonproliferation

Nuclear nonproliferation in the U.S. has long centered on transitioning away from bomb-grade uranium in research reactors and discouraging production of bomb-grade uranium.

For decades, advocates for nuclear nonproliferation have pushed the Navy to instead develop a low-enriched fuel, which cannot be easily used in weapons and powers most research reactors.

Calls for a safer naval fuel have intensified since the $245 billion AUKUS security agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the the U.S. in 2021. The centerpiece of the deal is the delivery of a nuclear-powered submarine fleet to Australia, scheduled to begin in the 2040s, to combat China's military power in the Indo-Pacific region.

In a letter to President Joe Biden shortly after the deal was reached, several members of the House and Senate urged him to support research into low-enriched uranium fuels for the new submarines. Australia is set to become the first state without nuclear weapons to maintain a stockpile of bomb-grade uranium.

"We are concerned that other nations with weaker nonproliferation records may point to the Australian precedent to develop nuclear weapons under the cover of a naval reactor program," the letter to the president said.

Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., signed the letter to Biden. In a statement to Knox News, he said Congress needs to fund the research to prevent bomb-grade uranium from being the Navy's only fuel option.

“High-enriched uranium means a higher risk of nuclear proliferation, and our country has a responsibility and a commitment to maintain to lead on nonproliferation - not lose interest in it," Markey said. "We need to keep funding this advanced (low-enriched uranium) fuel research so that high-enriched uranium doesn’t fall into the wrong hands.”

Another concern is the U.S.'s limited store of bomb-grade uranium for naval reactors. Set to run dry in the 2050s, the finite stockpile raises the specter that the U.S. would revive production of bomb-grade uranium.

In a 2020 report from the Government Accountability Office, National Nuclear Security Administration officials said the U.S. would need to restart production of highly enriched uranium or else run out of fuel for the Navy in the 2050s.

Time is running out for Navy to switch fuels

A report from the Navy in 2016 said it could take 15 years to develop a low-enriched uranium fuel for aircraft carriers and submarines.

That timeline will run up against the Navy's decision on how to fuel its next class of attack submarines, a decision which could be made by 2030, according to a declassified report from JASON, a group of scientists who advise the U.S. government on sensitive science and technology issues.

Dedicated to reactors that span the lifetime of a submarine, the Navy has been hesitant to develop fuels that would require refueling.

“Essentially, the Navy is giving zero priority to nonproliferation. They consider that’s not their department," Frank von Hippel, senior research physicist and professor emeritus at Princeton and a global leading expert on nuclear security, told Knox News.

Because its support has come from a handful of leaders in Congress, the research program could disappear if it’s defunded in the next energy and water appropriations bill, von Hippel said. That most of its supporters are Democrats and its detractors Republican may invoke a broader divergence in the two parties.

“I think there's a difference in view on the power of the U.S. example,” von Hippel said. “Democrats tend to believe that if we want other countries not to use (highly enriched uranium), in this case for naval reactors, then our example is important. I think the Republicans are skeptical of that kind of idealistic argument.”

Last March, three other House members wrote Fleischmann a letter asking that he consider supporting the research.

Reps. Bill Foster of Illinois, John Garamendi of California, and Rick Larsen of Washington, all Democrats, argued that research on low-enriched uranium fuel was an opportunity to advance aging technology and it needed to be done before the Navy designs new submarines.

"These design phases occur only every few decades, given the many years required to build a submarine and their decades of service-life," the letter said. "The design phase for the successor to the Virginia-class submarines will begin soon. The window for incorporating safer fuel will close shortly thereafter and will not reopen until the late 21st Century."

Daniel Dassow is a growth and development reporter focused on technology and energy. Phone 423-637-0878. Email  [email protected] .

Support strong local journalism by subscribing at  knoxnews.com/subscribe .   

Facility for Rare Isotope Beams

At michigan state university, frib researchers lead team to merge nuclear physics experiments and astronomical observations to advance equation-of-state research, world-class particle-accelerator facilities and recent advances in neutron-star observation give physicists a new toolkit for describing nuclear interactions at a wide range of densities..

For most stars, neutron stars and black holes are their final resting places. When a supergiant star runs out of fuel, it expands and then rapidly collapses on itself. This act creates a neutron star—an object denser than our sun crammed into a space 13 to  18 miles wide. In such a heavily condensed stellar environment, most electrons combine with protons to make neutrons, resulting in a dense ball of matter consisting mainly of neutrons. Researchers try to understand the forces that control this process by creating dense matter in the laboratory through colliding neutron-rich nuclei and taking detailed measurements.

A research team—led by William Lynch and Betty Tsang at FRIB—is focused on learning about neutrons in dense environments. Lynch, Tsang, and their collaborators used 20 years of experimental data from accelerator facilities and neutron-star observations to understand how particles interact in nuclear matter under a wide range of densities and pressures. The team wanted to determine how the ratio of neutrons to protons influences nuclear forces in a system. The team recently published its findings in Nature Astronomy .

“In nuclear physics, we are often confined to studying small systems, but we know exactly what particles are in our nuclear systems. Stars provide us an unbelievable opportunity, because they are large systems where nuclear physics plays a vital role, but we do not know for sure what particles are in their interiors,” said Lynch, professor of nuclear physics at FRIB and in the Michigan State University (MSU) Department of Physics and Astronomy. “They are interesting because the density varies greatly within such large systems.  Nuclear forces play a dominant role within them, yet we know comparatively little about that role.” 

When a star with a mass that is 20-30 times that of the sun exhausts its fuel, it cools, collapses, and explodes in a supernova. After this explosion, only the matter in the deepest part of the star’s interior coalesces to form a neutron star. This neutron star has no fuel to burn and over time, it radiates its remaining heat into the surrounding space. Scientists expect that matter in the outer core of a cold neutron star is roughly similar to the matter in atomic nuclei but with three differences: neutron stars are much larger, they are denser in their interiors, and a larger fraction of their nucleons are neutrons. Deep within the inner core of a neutron star, the composition of neutron star matter remains a mystery. 

  “If experiments could provide more guidance about the forces that act in their interiors, we could make better predictions of their interior composition and of phase transitions within them. Neutron stars present a great research opportunity to combine these disciplines,” said Lynch.

Accelerator facilities like FRIB help physicists study how subatomic particles interact under exotic conditions that are more common in neutron stars. When researchers compare these experiments to neutron-star observations, they can calculate the equation of state (EOS) of particles interacting in low-temperature, dense environments. The EOS describes matter in specific conditions, and how its properties change with density. Solving EOS for a wide range of settings helps researchers understand the strong nuclear force’s effects within dense objects, like neutron stars, in the cosmos. It also helps us learn more about neutron stars as they cool.

“This is the first time that we pulled together such a wealth of experimental data to explain the equation of state under these conditions, and this is important,” said Tsang, professor of nuclear science at FRIB. “Previous efforts have used theory to explain the low-density and low-energy end of nuclear matter. We wanted to use all the data we had available to us from our previous experiences with accelerators to obtain a comprehensive equation of state.”   

Researchers seeking the EOS often calculate it at higher temperatures or lower densities. They then draw conclusions for the system across a wider range of conditions. However, physicists have come to understand in recent years that an EOS obtained from an experiment is only relevant for a specific range of densities. As a result, the team needed to pull together data from a variety of accelerator experiments that used different measurements of colliding nuclei to replace those assumptions with data. “In this work, we asked two questions,” said Lynch. “For a given measurement, what density does that measurement probe? After that, we asked what that measurement tells us about the equation of state at that density.”   

In its recent paper, the team combined its own experiments from accelerator facilities in the United States and Japan. It pulled together data from 12 different experimental constraints and three neutron-star observations. The researchers focused on determining the EOS for nuclear matter ranging from half to three times a nuclei’s saturation density—the density found at the core of all stable nuclei. By producing this comprehensive EOS, the team provided new benchmarks for the larger nuclear physics and astrophysics communities to more accurately model interactions of nuclear matter.

The team improved its measurements at intermediate densities that neutron star observations do not provide through experiments at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Germany, the RIKEN Nishina Center for Accelerator-Based Science in Japan, and the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (FRIB’s predecessor). To enable key measurements discussed in this article, their experiments helped fund technical advances in data acquisition for active targets and time projection chambers that are being employed in many other experiments world-wide.   

In running these experiments at FRIB, Tsang and Lynch can continue to interact with MSU students who help advance the research with their own input and innovation. MSU operates FRIB as a scientific user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. FRIB is the only accelerator-based user facility on a university campus as one of 28 DOE-SC user facilities .  Chun Yen Tsang, the first author on the Nature Astronomy  paper, was a graduate student under Betty Tsang during this research and is now a researcher working jointly at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Kent State University. 

“Projects like this one are essential for attracting the brightest students, which ultimately makes these discoveries possible, and provides a steady pipeline to the U.S. workforce in nuclear science,” Tsang said.

The proposed FRIB energy upgrade ( FRIB400 ), supported by the scientific user community in the 2023 Nuclear Science Advisory Committee Long Range Plan , will allow the team to probe at even higher densities in the years to come. FRIB400 will double the reach of FRIB along the neutron dripline into a region relevant for neutron-star crusts and to allow study of extreme, neutron-rich nuclei such as calcium-68. 

Eric Gedenk is a freelance science writer.

Michigan State University operates the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) as a user facility for the U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science (DOE-SC), supporting the mission of the DOE-SC Office of Nuclear Physics. Hosting what is designed to be the most powerful heavy-ion accelerator, FRIB enables scientists to make discoveries about the properties of rare isotopes in order to better understand the physics of nuclei, nuclear astrophysics, fundamental interactions, and applications for society, including in medicine, homeland security, and industry.

The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States and is working to address some of today’s most pressing challenges. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.

United Liberty

Russia Has Over 2,000 Nuclear Weapons, and America Has Only 200. Here’s Why.

Posted: April 23, 2024 | Last updated: April 23, 2024

In recent years, the specter of nuclear warfare has once again loomed large over international relations, with Russia’s expansive arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons drawing particular concern. While the United States possesses its own nuclear capabilities, the stark disparity in numbers has raised questions about strategic balance and the potential consequences of such an imbalance.

Putin’s Arsenal: A Tactical Advantage?

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s aggressive stance on the international stage has been accompanied by a significant buildup of tactical nuclear weapons. With an estimated stockpile of over 2,000 such warheads, Russia dwarfs the United States in this regard, possessing roughly ten times the number of tactical nuclear weapons. 

Geopolitical Tensions

This substantial arsenal has become a focal point of geopolitical tensions, particularly in light of Russia’s actions in Ukraine and its recent plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus.

The Calculus of Nuclear Deterrence

The rationale behind Putin’s accumulation of tactical nuclear weapons is complex and multifaceted. Some analysts suggest that it serves as a deterrent against potential adversaries, signaling Russia’s readiness to escalate conflicts to a nuclear level if necessary. By leveraging the threat of nuclear warfare, Putin may seek to intimidate Western powers and undermine their support for Ukraine and other nations in the region.

Escalation and Rationality

Despite Russia’s saber-rattling and provocative actions, Putin is often portrayed as a rational actor motivated by self-preservation. While he has not hesitated to make nuclear threats, the prevailing view is that any actual use of nuclear weapons would likely result in catastrophic consequences for Russia itself. 

Balancing Coercion and Restraint

As such, Putin’s calculus may involve a delicate balance between coercion and restraint, leveraging the specter of nuclear warfare without crossing the threshold into actual conflict.

The Pentagon’s Response

In response to Russia’s nuclear buildup, the Pentagon has sought to bolster America’s nuclear deterrent capabilities. Initiatives such as the deployment of Abrams tanks and support for Eastern European F-16s reflect efforts to counterbalance Russia’s military assertiveness. However, the United States’ comparatively limited stockpile of around 200 tactical nuclear weapons underscores the challenges it faces in deterring Russian aggression effectively.

Strategic Uncertainties and Policy Debates

The presence of tactical nuclear weapons in Belarus and the broader geopolitical landscape raise pressing questions about nuclear deterrence and strategic stability. While some advocate for a proportional response to potential nuclear threats, others argue for a more unequivocal deterrent posture. The Biden administration’s stance on nuclear policy and its implications for U.S.-Russia relations remain subjects of debate and scrutiny.

Complex Nuclear Geopolitics

As Russia’s arsenal of tactical nuclear weapons continues to grow, the need for effective deterrence and strategic stability becomes ever more urgent. The asymmetry between Russian and American capabilities underscores the complexities of nuclear geopolitics and the challenges of maintaining peace in an increasingly volatile world. Ultimately, the path forward lies in careful diplomacy, prudent policymaking, and a steadfast commitment to preventing the horrors of nuclear warfare.

A Growing Disparity

What are your thoughts? How can the international community effectively address the growing disparity in tactical nuclear capabilities between Russia and the United States? What role should nuclear arms control agreements play in mitigating the risks associated with the proliferation of tactical nuclear weapons?

Nuclear Modernization

To what extent do geopolitical tensions and regional conflicts influence the decision-making processes of nuclear-armed states? Should the United States pursue a policy of nuclear modernization in response to Russia’s buildup of tactical nuclear weapons, or prioritize diplomatic efforts to reduce tensions? Source: 19FortyFive: Military, Defense and Politics News

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