The Third Nuclear Age: Will our luck finally run out?

Alexandra Bell from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists will give a presentation at the MIT Security Studies Program's Wednesday Seminar.

Summary: For this seminar, Alexandra Bell will discuss recent developments in nuclear proliferation, arms control, and strategy. Many in the nuclear policy community now say we are at the start of a third nuclear age. What this age will look like is a matter of debate. What is clear is that academics, experts, and policy makers thinking about the future of nonproliferation, arms control, deterrence, and disarmament policy will face new and unprecedented challenges. They will need to understand how other existential risks—climate change and emerging disruptive technologies that include synthetic biology and artificial intelligence, among others—will affect their work, for good and for bad. Further, given that a common long-term consensus about the future of nuclear weapons will take time and effort to forge, the short-term common goal should be the prevention of nuclear war. The question that then follows is whether the system of controls we have created to prevent nuclear war is fit for purpose or whether our luck will finally run out.