Harvard's Belfer Center’s Post

Looking back it is interesting that many military advisors to the NPR and New START had a different view than Ambassador Gottemoeller. Believing all along that Putin was pulling the strings they took his comments on follow treaties and nuclear de-escalation of conventional conflict were the threat of the future. There were plenty of indications and warning but political leadership was focused on a singular policy objective … Reducing U.S. Reliance on Nuclear Weapons (and reducing the U.S. arsenal with or without comparable Russian reductions) or the looming China Threat. Having learned a hard lesson from our failure of foresight, the question now is can we find the will to do the hard things to address the combined threats posed by not just Russia but Iran, China and NKorea.

🚢 Disruptive Discovery: Chinese Scientists Reveal Potential Weakness in US Nuclear Submarines' Stealth Technology 🌐 Chinese researchers have unveiled a potential chink in the armor of advanced nuclear submarines, challenging the long-standing supremacy of US submarine technology. 🛳️💥 Recent research highlights that the ultra-low frequency electromagnetic signals generated by rapidly moving submarines can be detected using currently available devices. This revelation could jeopardize the cloak of invisibility that has shrouded these cutting-edge submarines, thereby reshaping the balance of power in the world's oceans. ⚖️ 🔬 The Study's Key Findings: Scientists have uncovered a possible vulnerability by analyzing these submarines' almost imperceptible bubble trails. These disturbances could betray the whereabouts of even the most advanced vessels. However, the researchers emphasize that further investigations are required to comprehend this discovery's implications fully. 🔍 🌐 Implications for Global Dynamics: With the US Navy often touted to possess some of the most elusive submarines globally, leveraging sophisticated noise reduction systems to fade into the ocean's background, this revelation potentially disrupts the balance of naval supremacy. 🌍 💬 Expert Insight: Retired US Navy Captain and former director of operations at the Pacific Command’s Joint Intelligence Centre, Carl Schuster, previously asserted the United States unchallenged dominance in submarine technology. However, this study challenges that notion, reminding us that the tides of innovation are constantly shifting. ⚙️ #Submarines #NuclearSubmarines #SubmarineInnovation #Innovation #InnovationCircle #StealthTechnology #scienceandtechnology #science #reseach #china #NavalSecurityShift #GlobalMilitaryBalance INNOCONSULT https://lnkd.in/eC9t6iX7?

South Korea’s Nuclear Hedging Strategy - Dr. Lami Kim - MIT Lecture Conventional wisdom suggests that innovation consistently improves military power. Militaries that oppose it invite defeat, but those that innovate secure victory. Innovation is considered a sign of organizational health because the ever-changing character of war constantly threatens to render existing capabilities obsolete. Conversely, misfortune comes to those who allow the march of historical change to overtake them. The notion that innovation and better military performance go hand in hand is thus intuitive. My work challenges this intuition—innovation can indeed harm combat effectiveness—and identifies conditions under which such self-defeating outcomes are more likely to occur. Kendrick Kuo is an assistant professor at the U.S. Naval War College’s Strategic and Operational Research Department. His work examines military effectiveness, military innovation, and grand strategy. In…

40 years ago today, Soviet army officer Stanislav Petrov averted nuclear war. In 1983, a missile detection system alerted duty officer Petrov of five incoming U.S. missiles. Following instinct, Petrov decided to ignore the algorithm and reported the warnings as false alarms. Petrov was right - the incoming missile warnings were erroneous. Given geopolitical tensions at the time, if he had blindly trusted the warning system and reported the alerts to superiors as legitimate, it's almost certain a catastrophic nuclear exchange would have resulted. For likely saving the world, Petrov was posthumously honoured with the Future of Life Award in 2018. This near-disaster is just one of many examples highlighting why we must keep under human control decisions like Petrov had to make. On this #PetrovDay, let us celebrate his bravery and judgement, whilst taking necessary, urgent lessons from this and the many other nuclear close calls in recent history. 🔗 More on Stanislav Petrov, 2018 Future of Life Award recipient, can be found here: https://lnkd.in/gTdAFea3 📺 Our recent short film, "Artificial Escalation", explores what could happen if we entrust such consequential decisions to algorithms. Watch it here: https://lnkd.in/e9rrjz4b

In his acclaimed, short book, 𝑯𝒂𝒔 𝑴𝒂𝒏 𝒂 𝑭𝒖𝒕𝒖𝒓𝒆?, Bertrand Russell, a co-founder of the atom weapons disarmament movement -- which at its zenith saw civic opposition and success in having intercontinental ballistic nuclear weapons either removed and/or reduced in number from Western European soil -- presupposed that there is as yet an 'undiscovered formula' as a mathematical, physics calculation in the Universe, and -- regardless of human advances and growth in atomic/nuclear military technologies and conventional weapons of war as the obvious means either to completely or gradually destroy itself through "wars" as anthropogenic causation -- that, if discovered by primordial human nature and governments, would spell the complete extinguish of humankind and existence AS WE KNOW IT. There likely is such a higher math-physics calculus in the Universe, but perhaps, primordial human nature will bet on and beat humankind to the net sum-zero, zero-sum game conclusion sooner than the acclaimed logician, philosopher and civil activist had thought when his first published his renowned book at the high of the US-USSR Cold War and nuclear arms race. #History #Historymatters #societyandculture #geopolitics #EU #NATO #Russia #Belarus #Iran #Pakistan #China #India #France #UnitedKingdom #Israel #NorthKorea #EarthEthos #philosophy #math #science #Ukraine #RussiaWaronUkraine #nucleararmsrace Kjell Kristian Dørum Bill Tipton Richard Faint https://lnkd.in/eUZHwhgA https://lnkd.in/e6KPdnrm https://lnkd.in/e-Sf2jrX

Title: The Nuclear Revolution: Fact of Fiction? Author: Lt Col Elijah S. Porter, USAF URL: https://lnkd.in/gRz3SjmM Abstract: For nearly eight decades, nuclear weapons have played a vital role in achieving peace and security through deterrence policies. Simultaneously, they shielded aggressors from third-party intervention, contributing to conflict. This contradiction raises questions about nuclear weapons’ true impact on international affairs. Some scholars view nuclear weapons as transformative in statecraft, fostering optimism about security, while others remain skeptical. Thus, this article asks: How revolutionary were nuclear weapons? Further inquiries persist. To what extent does this revolution affect global competition? Can the nuclear revolution’s principles adapt to evolving security contexts, and to what extent? This article explores the nuclear revolution’s key aspects, examines the contemporary security landscape, and offers conclusions. It argues that the nuclear revolution has validity but acknowledges the complexity of the situation. The evolving security environment introduces more uncertainty than the nuclear revolution suggests. Keywords: #nuclearweapons #nuclearrevolution #statecraft #deterrence #mutualvulnerability #powerpolitics #competition #ColdWar #emergingnuclearstates #stability #modernization #armscontrol #China #IndoPacific Air University Press U.S. Indo-Pacific Command Pacific Air Forces Missouri State University

Working Paper # 02 2024 - LabGRIMA UFPEL Reflections on Two Years of Russia-Ukraine Conflict "With the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, some 3,000 Soviet nuclear weapons were left behind on Ukrainian territory, making Ukraine the third largest nuclear power on the planet. For a significant number of Ukrainian politicians and strategists, the way forward was to keep at least part of this arsenal in Ukraine to deter the expansionist ambitions of the heirs to the Russian empire once the crisis was over."(…) ⏹ Antonio Celso Ribeiro Brasiliano, PhD in International Security from Cambridge International University, President of Brasiliano INTERISK. ⏺ Décio Luís Schons, Army General (Retired), Vice President of Brasiliano INTERISK. It is with great satisfaction that LabGRIMA and GeoMercosur offer the academic community and the general public a reflection on the themes related to our lines of research. Using a geopolitical approach, the articles in this Working Papers Collection provide important reflections on the dynamic contemporary capitalist scenario and its impact on international relations, Latin America and the world economy. LabGRIMA and GeoMercosur act as promoters in the analysis of international reality at the present time, bringing together national and international researchers. wp.ufpel.edu.br/labgrima ⬇ English Editon/Edição em Português http://u.pc.cd/HXA

❗ PUBLICATION ALERT ❗ Delighted to see my article titled "Francis and the Bomb: On the Immorality of Nuclear Deterrence" published in the Journal of Military Ethics. An earlier version of this article was awarded the Royal United Services Institute's Trench Gascoigne Prize 2020. In this article, I reflect on Francis’s recent remarks on the ethics of nuclear weapons. Breaking with the position held by his predecessors, Francis not only condemns the use of nuclear weapons as immoral, but also denies the morality of possessing the atom bomb for deterrence purposes. Importantly, when Francis refers to the immorality of the use and possession of nuclear weapons, the question arises whether he condemns both aspects as intrinsically wrong acts. I argue that there is reason to doubt that he sees the possession of the Bomb as rising to the level of a mala in se. Interpreting a Holy See document that paved the way toward Francis’s original argument, I suggest that while the pope firmly believes that the possession of nuclear weapons is wrong, it does not constitute an evil of the same magnitude as detonating them. Naturally, the pope’s condemnation of the possessing of nuclear weapons is highly relevant with regard to Catholic soldiers. That is why at the end of this article I engage with the question of whether Catholic soldiers serving in the militaries of nuclear armed states will now have to claim conscientious objector status. Open Access Link: https://lnkd.in/ej2bjSuC King's College London Defence Studies Department

"Unknown to the broader public, the first U.S. Doomsday Blueprint of a nuclear attack directed against the Soviet Union was formulated by the US War Department on September 15, 1945 when the US and the Soviet Union were allies. There is an element of political delusion and paranoia in the formulation of US foreign policy. The Doomsday Scenario has been on the drawing board of the Pentagon for almost 78 years. Had it not been for the September 1945 plan to “wipe the Soviet Union of the map” (66 urban areas and more than 200 atomic bombs), neither Russia nor China would have developed nuclear weapons. There wouldn’t have been a Nuclear Arms Race. Numerous US nuclear war plans have been formulated from the outset, leading up to “The 1956 Strategic Air Command SAC Atomic Weapons Requirements Study” (Declassified in December 2015) which consisted in targeting 1200 urban areas in the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and China. The world is at a dangerous crossroads: it should be understood that the use of nuclear weapons in relation to the confrontation between US-NATO and Russia would inevitably lead to escalation and the end of humanity as we know it.  What is required is a worldwide peace movement coupled with the banning of nuclear weapons." [M. Ch., August 2, 2023] https://lnkd.in/dwG_6dZ7

Stanley Kubrick’s black comic masterpiece, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, opens in theaters to both critical and popular acclaim. The movie’s popularity was evidence of changing attitudes toward atomic weapons and the concept of nuclear deterrence. The movie focused on the actions of a rogue U.S. officer who believes that communists are threatening the “precious bodily fluids” of Americans. Without authorization, he issues orders to U.S. bombers to launch atomic attacks against the Soviet Union. When it becomes evident that some of the bombers may actually drop their atomic payloads, American President Merkin Muffley frantically calls his Soviet counterpart. The Russian leader informs Muffley that an atomic attack on the Soviet Union will automatically unleash the terrible “doomsday machine,” which will snuff out all life on the planet. Muffley’s chief foreign policy advisor, Dr. Strangelove, reassures the president and chief officials that all is not lost: they can, he posits, survive even the doomsday machine by retreating to deep mineshafts. Close scrutiny of the Dr. Strangelove character indicated that he was probably a composite of three people: Henry Kissinger, a political scientist who had written about nuclear deterrence strategy; Edward Teller, a key scientist in the development of the hydrogen bomb; and Wernher von Braun, the German scientist who was a leading figure in missile technology. Little scrutiny was needed, however, to grasp Kubrick’s satirical attacks on the American and Russian policies of nuclear stockpiling and massive retaliation. The film’s jabs at some of the sacred core beliefs of America’s defense strategy struck a chord with the American people. Particularly after the frightening Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962—when nuclear annihilation seemed a very real possibility—the American public was increasingly willing to question the nation’s reliance on nuclear weapons.