2021 Carnegie International Nuclear Policy Conference

Career Panel

Breakout Groups included:

• Denuclearization or Risk Reduction? Priorities on the Korean Peninsula
  Repeated attempts to coax and pressure North Korea to denuclearize have failed to prevent it from developing an increasingly sophisticated nuclear arsenal. The immediate risks of nuclear conflict resulting from the growing North Korean arsenal are complicating longstanding diplomatic efforts to reverse Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Should the Five Parties and other interested states shift their priority to nuclear risk reduction on the Korean Peninsula, or continue to focus on DPRK denuclearization? What are the advantages and disadvantages of prioritizing either goal, including second-order consequences such as setting a precedent for other would-be proliferators? Are policies designed to address risk reduction or nuclearization equally likely to succeed and are there creative ways to pursue both nuclear risk reduction and denuclearization simultaneously?

   

  Andrea Berger

  Senior Analyst, Canadian Department of National Defence
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• In Denial? U.S. Acceptance of Mutual Vulnerability with China
  The United States has not publicly accepted mutual nuclear vulnerability with China, despite China’s increasingly robust nuclear forces. As U.S.-China great power competition gains momentum and technologies with counterforce applications advance in parallel, should the United States publicly accept mutual vulnerability with China? How should the United States evaluate the political and technological costs and benefits of accepting mutual vulnerability with China? How might China react to U.S. acceptance of mutual vulnerability? Should U.S. allies and Indo-Pacific states encourage the United States to accept mutual vulnerability with China or not?

   

  David Santoro

  Pacific Forum
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• The Responsibility to Clean Up? Managing the Legacy of Nuclear Weapons Development
  The development and testing of nuclear weapons has left a legacy of damaging social and environmental effects around the globe that have fallen disproportionately on marginalized communities. There are numerous examples of nuclear weapon states failing to account for the full extent of these social and environmental costs, such as the health impacts of French nuclear testing in Algeria and French Polynesia on surrounding populations; the displacement of indigenous communities for U.S. nuclear sites in the 1940s; and lack of remediation of Soviet test sites in Kazakhstan. To what extent should nuclear weapon states bear responsibility for the damaging legacy of nuclear weapons development and testing? What is the full extent of social and environmental damage of nuclear weapons development and testing? What strategies are available to advocates and affected communities to push nuclear weapon states to fully account for these costs and what additional challenges do advocates and affected communities face when seeking redress across national borders?

   

  Togzhan Kassenova

  Center for Policy Research (SUNY-Albany)
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• The Ivory Tower and the Missile Silo
  Nuclear policymaking has a long history of engagement with academic researchers in history, political science, economics, anthropology, engineering, and the natural sciences. Academic research has advanced nuclear strategy and arms control, normative prohibitions on nuclear weapons use, nuclear proliferation dynamics, and public attitudes to nuclear safety. How has academic research has shaped nuclear policy in the past and why was it successful in doing so? What big questions for nuclear policy are academics uniquely well placed to answer? How might academics satisfy their disciplinary requirements while also engaging with nuclear policy debates in their choice of topics and methods? And how do academics engage in policy outreach to shape nuclear policy?

   

  James Acton

  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

   

  Nina Tannenwald

  Brown University
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• Giving Away too Much? Arsenal Survivability and On-Site Inspections
  On-site inspections will likely comprise a critical component of a post-START US-Russia arms control agreement and perhaps a future arms control arrangement between the United States and China. But on-site inspections generate concerns that the host will give away too much information about their nuclear arsenal—information that could compromise its survivability in a future conflict. What risks do on-site inspections under arms control treaties pose for arsenal survivability, now and in the future? How do on-site inspections for U.S.-Russia arms control treaties, past and present, address those concerns? And what technical and political solutions to those risks to survivability are available or under development?

   

  Michael Albertson

  Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
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• Addressing the Lack of Diversity & Inclusion in the Nuclear Field
  Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) impact everyone. Still, the nuclear policy field is predominantly male and white and lacks diverse voices. Nuclear weapons have come back into sharper focus in military doctrines, arms control arrangements are waning, and new and disruptive technologies are further complicating and straining nuclear weapons decision-making. Amid this backdrop, it is imperative that the 21st-century challenges require new thinking and creative approaches and solutions in the nuclear policy sector by bolstering the voices and visibility of traditionally underrepresented communities. In 2020 WCAPS launched the Organizations In Solidarity initiative to combat racism and discrimination in the peace and security field. With a movement towards greater self-reflection on where the field stands with respect to representation and culture, how can the nuclear policy field address the lack of diversity and inclusion? What are the steps that can be taken to grow and diversify the talent pipeline in the field? How important is mentorship and advocacy to nourish talent and can the nuclear policy field enrich itself by incorporating and practicing reverse mentorship? Are there lessons that have been learned during the pandemic on how to be more inclusive that should be part of “the new normal”?
  
  Hosted by Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation.

   

  Wardah Amir

  Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation

   

  Sylvia Mishra

  Women of Color Advancing Peace, Security, and Conflict Transformation
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• On the Nuclear Brink: Escalation Management in the Taiwan Strait
  Created by the Project on Nuclear Issues at CSIS, On the Nuclear Brink is an escalation management exercise tasking participants to provide policy guidance to the President as a nuclear crisis unfolds. Players assume the role of a Senior Director at the National Security Council, analyzing intelligence, news, and other information to respond to escalating hostilities and provide policy recommendations. Although some high-level intelligence is provided, participants must ultimately define their own objectives based on leadership guidance, assumptions, and interpretation of unfolding events. The Taiwan Strait version of On the Nuclear Brink takes place in 2028 as a close-approach incident between the Chinese and Taiwanese navies in the Taiwan Strait sets off a string of political and military maneuvers that raise concerns of cross strait conflict. With a narrowing gap between U.S. and Chinese military capabilities, participants must identify U.S. objectives and attempt to achieve them with a range of diplomatic, economic, and military tools. The exercise aims to expose participants to a wide range of escalatory outcomes possible in high-stakes crises between nuclear-armed states.
  
  Hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies' Project on Nuclear Issues.
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