View in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists
This article discusses the risk of violent conflict as it relates to international policy debates about nuclear deterrence and nuclear disarmament.
The article begins as follows:
In the international debate over nuclear disarmament, one long-running bone of contention is the effectiveness of nuclear deterrence—that is, using the threat of nuclear retaliation to prevent another state from going to war. Nuclear-armed states claim that maintaining (or only gradually reducing) the large arsenals required for deterrence is the safer path. Many non-nuclear states claim that nuclear deterrents make the world less safe, and that therefore rapid disarmament is required.
Nuclear arsenals do clearly have some deterrent effect, but how do we know whether disarmament or nuclear deterrence will make the world safer? It’s difficult to precisely calculate the risk of any kind of war, under any circumstances. In fact, though, it is possible to apply a rough risk analysis to the question without knowing exact probabilities or potential severity. And doing so strongly suggests that disarmament is far preferable to continued nuclear deterrence as a means of protecting humanity.
On the surface, the disagreement between nuclear and non-nuclear weapon states may look intractable. People even speak of a crisis in the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, with its “grand bargain” unraveling due to different views on disarmament. The non-nuclear weapon states have held up their end of the bargain by not building atomic weapons. But many believe that the nuclear weapon states have not done their part, which is to shrink their nuclear arsenals. Frustration about the glacial pace of disarmament has fueled the rise of the humanitarian initiative in recent years, a coalition of non-nuclear-weapon states (such as Austria) and civil society groups (such as ICAN) that are pushing for arms reduction by drawing attention to nuclear weapons’ potential humanitarian impact. The initiative offers a counter-narrative to nuclear weapon states’ claims that the weapons play a positive role as deterrents.
The remainder of the article is available in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists.
Image credit: US National Nuclear Security Administration
This blog post was published on 28 July 2020 as part of a website overhaul and backdated to reflect the time of the publication of the work referenced here.
