Ahead of the 2024 NPT Preparatory Committee (PrepCom), Michael Biontino writes that there is an urgent need for dialogue on nuclear doctrines, declaratory policies, and security assurances between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states.
Nuclear-weapon-free zones can help strengthen global nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament norms and are a key element underpinning the NPT. Despite this, new zones in Europe, the Middle East, and North-East Asia have not materialised so far. Tarja Cronberg writes that legally based negative security guarantees and other innovative approaches are needed.
Ahead of the German Federal Foreign Office’s Artificial Intelligence and Weapons of Mass Destruction Conference 2024, the ELN’s Policy and Research Director, Oliver Meier, argues that governments should build guardrails around the integration of AI in the WMD sphere, and slow down the incorporation of AI into research, development, production, and planning for nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
Most analyses of the effects of nuclear war focus on the impacts in terms of casualties and climate shocks. But there would be many second-order and third-order effects on political, social, and economic systems. Sir Adam Thomson and Paul Ingram write that it is imperative to avoid a nuclear war. If all such efforts fail, we need to understand what it would mean for global civilisation and what we could start to do to prepare.
Alexander Kmentt, Director for Disarmament, Arms Control, and Nonproliferation at the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and ELN Senior Network member, writes that opponents of the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) in nuclear-armed states should stop dismissing the treaty outright. Instead, they should begin addressing the legitimate security concerns surrounding deterrence that are raised by its supporters.
Last week, Russia announced it had started tactical nuclear weapons exercises near Ukraine. Pavel Podvig explores whether this move is an attempt to go beyond signalling and bring non-strategic nuclear weapons closer to the frontline and asks how the international community should respond.