Nuclear Threat Initiative paper provides analysis, contemplates shape of nuclear planning

In a far-ranging paper on the past, present, and future of nuclear policy and conflict released this week, the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) called for a renewed investigation into the effects of nuclear conflict.

Faced with conflicts currently ranging from Ukraine to Israel and threats of others in the offing, the “Global Effects of Nuclear Conflict: Implications for Nuclear Policymaking, Then and Now” put the world in context, ranging forty years and calling for more attention than ever to the details of catastrophic nuclear conflict. NTI’s goal remains, as ever, the reduction of nuclear risks and the dangers of nuclear winter. 

The authors proposed several questions for experts and policymakers: 

• How does the recognition of global nuclear effects change the role and perceived utility of nuclear weapons in national security strategies?
• How should the cascading effects of nuclear war shape nuclear planning?
• Why has research into cascading nuclear effects been neglected in nuclear policy discussions?

“Without answers to these important questions, nuclear weapons policy will continue to be premised on an incomplete understanding of the consequences of nuclear use, risking catastrophic miscalculations and endangering national and global security,” the NTI said in a statement.

Analysis in the paper stretched back to the 1980s when the concept of nuclear winter was first received by the defense community. At the time, debates focused on how – or if – the United States should account for the global impacts of nuclear use. Now, that question has only become more important, the authors said, given globalization and the increasingly interconnected nature of the world. 

The report added that the world is more vulnerable, and the risks greater in societal, economic, industrial, and political terms than ever, as countries are dangerously unprepared to address them.