As part of the ELN’s New European Voices on Existential Risk (NEVER) network’s podcast, “Ok, Doomer!”, ELN Policy and Impact Director Jane Kinninmont spoke with Historian, Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor, and Director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, Professor Francis Gavin, on the history of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

In the Turn Back the Clock section of the final episode of “Ok, Doomer!”‘s first series, Professor Gavin spoke to Jane about how even in the midst of the intense geopolitical competition that marked the Cold War, nuclear weapons states were able to nonetheless come together and agree on a plan of action to limit the spread of nuclear weapons via the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). He also cites further examples of how states can work together to combat existential risk in turbulent times, such as the international cooperation needed for the global eradication of smallpox and modern examples such as the UK’s AI Summit and the UN’s Summit for the Future.

Read more about the ELN’s Protecting the Non-Proliferation Treaty project here.

Explore the NEVER homepage here.

Buy Professor Gavin’s new book, “The Taming of Scarcity and the Problems of Plenty: Rethinking International Relations and American Grand Strategy in a New Era”, here.

The European Leadership Network itself as an institution holds no formal policy positions. The opinions articulated above represent the views of the authors rather than the European Leadership Network or its members. The ELN aims to encourage debates that will help develop Europe’s capacity to address the pressing foreign, defence, and security policy challenges of our time, to further its charitable purposes.

Image credit: The ELN