Moderated by Things That Go Boom podcast host Laicie Heeley, three experts — Shannon Bugos, Sébastien Philippe, and Alex Wellerstein — discuss global nuclear dynamics, the personal implications of nuclear policy, and the role of artificial intelligence
Laicie Heeley: Thank you all again for joining me today. I’m really excited to host this Carnegie Conversation, and to dig into questions on nuclear policy. To jump right in, I’m curious, how has Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed our understanding of nuclear dangers? How are you feeling about the current environment?
Shannon Bugos: It certainly has brought nuclear issues to the forefront. A lot of the conversations that we were having initially in the first three to four months after Russia invaded Ukraine were trying to correct the record of facts about nuclear weapons, nuclear policy, how things work, why Ukraine doesn’t have nuclear weapons.
Sébastien Philippe: It has made nuclear weapons much more salient in our daily lives. I remember a few days after the invasion of Ukraine, I was on my way to New York to talk with colleagues at Columbia. And I thought, “Why am I heading to New York right now?” It’s probably one of the worst places to go if the risk of nuclear war is so high. That’s how I felt at least at the beginning. The war in Ukraine has brought us back to really the highest tensions of the Cold War.
Alex Wellerstein: Along with questions about whether nuclear war will start and parsing Russian statements to try to figure out if they are committed to not using nuclear weapons, there has been a lot of discussion of deterrence, not just that they are deterred, but that we’re deterred too. And that to me feels like a shift. People are asking questions like, Why do we have nuclear weapons? Why do these weapons exist? How are they still out there? What do they do for us?
Heeley: This concept that you’re touching on — the idea of potentially moving into an era of predatory nuclear states — how are you feeling about that? Is it shifting your perspective on nuclear weapons, as experts who have been focused on these issues for your entire careers? It certainly has shifted how I’m beginning to think about the use of nuclear weapons.
Bugos: It certainly has prompted, I think across the board, people to rethink things. The main proposals that we had for U.S.-Russian arms control look very different now with China in the picture, and in 2026 when New START isn’t around anymore. We do have to think a little bit broader in order to engage more people and take into account what’s been happening within the government.
Heeley: What are your perceptions of how bad it is out there? How much have things shifted and how much have they remained the same? I’m talking specifically about arms control but also the broader nuclear environment.
Wellerstein: There’s been a lot of language about how everything has changed in terms of risk, not in terms of arms control, which I think is a separate diplomatic issue. But in terms of the risk of nuclear war, the balance of power, there’ve been a lot of discussions. There is probably less risk than people think, though maybe people who don’t think about this every day are more shocked than those of us who do think about this all the time. It’s been sort of Cold War rules so far, despite a lot of rhetoric and posturing. I’ve been impressed that there is a very similar feel to a lot of this, even though again, I would say arms control is a separate issue.
Why do we have nuclear weapons? Why do these weapons exist? How are they still out there? What do they do for us?
Philippe: The long-term trends of arsenal modernization, planning of nuclear force employment and deployment, et cetera, were there already — the Chinese decision to increase the size of their arsenal, the unraveling of arms control that essentially started in the early 2000s. But there are still new things here. Many people didn’t think that Russia would invade Ukraine, that a nuclear weapons state would be in such a major and strategic and possibly existential war for their regime. Of course, Russia’s nuclear threats have not deterred the West and the U.S. from providing massive assistance. The conflict has increased the probability of either intended use or mistakes, accidents, or close calls in this context.
Heeley: What about solutions or bright spots?
Philippe: I recently joined the Scientific Advisory Group on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and we are seeing many nonnuclear weapon states kind of deciding to build an alternative treaty regime within the international legal system, making it clear that not only is the use of nuclear weapons abhorrent, but the threat of use also should be prohibited. I think there are places where discussion about solutions is happening but it’s unclear that it’s happening in the Western world as much as I would like.
Bugos: I hate to be the one to bring all the doom and gloom, but unfortunately, I don’t see many bright spots. The agendas that the U.S. and Russia bring to the table are broadly the same, but the circumstances are vastly different. That’s a tough line to walk. At the end of the day, it’s a political question, and hands are tied about New START. People are entrenched — there’s the disarmament camp saying we’ve been emphasizing nuclear risks for years, and there’s the camp that wants more weapons in the U.S. arsenal because of Russia’s behavior and because of China’s expanding and diversifying nuclear arsenal. New START is currently stuck in limbo, and there is a need for the U.S. and Russia to talk about a post–New START world — leaving much room for disagreement and stasis.
Heeley: I’m seeing nodding heads, unfortunately.
Wellerstein: I don’t know if I’m optimistic or pessimistic. I don’t see arms-control initiatives being very successful in the short term, obviously when you have countries that are this angry. I will say as a historian that Putin and this Ukraine war are not going to last forever. The disruption caused by all of these activities is immensely destabilizing in the short term. Voices calling for another arms race will have more strength than those of us who favor arms control would like. Yet there may be opportunities down the line, in a post-Putin Russia or in the growing sense of urgency about China’s ICBMs. My hope is that maybe it will actually again, not over the short-term but in the long-term, lead to a revitalization of these questions, lead to a sense of urgency that I think the arms-control community has but the general political public does not have or has not had until recently. That’s the closest I can get to a silver lining.
People are entrenched — there’s the disarmament camp saying we’ve been emphasizing nuclear risks for years, and there’s the camp that wants more weapons in the U.S. arsenal because of Russia’s behavior and because of China’s expanding and diversifying nuclear arsenal.
Heeley: Why is there no sense of urgency among the general public?
Wellerstein: It’s not a very salient political issue for most Americans. They have a lot on their plate in terms of things they’re worried about and there’s a lot to be worried about in this world. I think that nuclear weapons have occupied this place in the American cultural zeitgeist since the end of the Cold War that we don’t have to worry about them anymore, it’s something from the past, something we don’t have any control over. I think by making people actually consider seriously that nuclear weapons could be used, that there is the potential for nuclear victims in the 21st century to occur, that these things are not so remote as they perceive them to be, I think that that is an opportunity to wake people up. Various studies show that with every crisis, like a near miss or a false alarm, you get an uptick in public interest. It’s one of these perverse things where the worse things get, maybe they get a little better.
Heeley: What about the human consequences of testing and production?
Philippe: The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons for the first time has provisions for victim assistance and environmental remediation from past nuclear testing. There were more than 2,000 nuclear tests during the 20th century. Over 500 were atmospheric and contaminated communities and ecosystems, mostly in places that had no political power to prevent them. With the modernization program now, I see a lot of work in coming years to raise awareness about risks and consequences. How close do you live to nuclear weapons systems? Are you likely to be blown up or experience fallout?
Heeley: That brings up an interesting question, which is should we be thinking more about present nuclear impact?
Philippe: Yes, absolutely. When we talk about the U.S. modernization program, I think people don’t realize it’s a gigantic construction program that should open a new discussion about environmental impacts. During the Cold War, the FBI raided the Rocky Flats plant where plutonium pits for nuclear weapons were made. Now we are about to restart production of those pits. What are local communities going to say about that?
Bugos: The National Nuclear Security Administration goal is to be producing 80 plutonium pits per year by 2030 or so. There is a lot happening on nuclear weapons– related issues that a lot of people are not necessarily aware of. There’s a difference between nuclear weapons issues being brought to the forefront of people’s minds and deep engagement with the issue itself and consistency. That’s something that NGOs have had to struggle to do for a long time: What’s the trick to try and get people to stay engaged with this issue?
There were more than 2,000 nuclear tests during the 20th century. Over 500 were atmospheric and contaminated communities and ecosystems, mostly in places that had no political power to prevent them.
Heeley: It’s not that people aren’t interested; the information just isn’t getting out there.
Bugos: There are a fair number of technical questions that come with trying to explain things. I wind up going too far into the weeds as I try and figure out the best way to communicate these issues to my family and loved ones in the Illinois cornfields.
Heeley: What about a lack of transparency?
Philippe: I have found as a scientist and scholar that there are many interesting things I can do in this field, and teaming up with other scholars from different fields or with journalists and working together as a team can result in much more policy-impactful projects and accountability. For example, I really enjoy working with investigative journalism outlets. They are more and more interested because there is almost zero deep investigation on these issues at the moment.
Heeley: Nuclear weapons policy is actually very new. We’ve only been coming up with these policy questions and solutions for 70 years — since Hiroshima. How have our arsenals changed since then?
Wellerstein: Right after Hiroshima there was serious discussion in the UN, Russia, the U.S., about not having nuclear weapons at all, and obviously that didn’t work out. Also, the concept of mutually assured destruction is not as old as most people think. The Soviets didn’t have nuclear parity until the ’70s and ’80s. And with China and other nuclear countries, the status quo is maybe two decades old.
A sense that history can change really fast is a useful precondition to any discussion, because if you think this all fell out of the sky and has to be this way, you’re not going to be open to change. Even arms control wonks might need reminding that the nuclear defense triad isn’t sacred but was cooked up to justify not getting rid of ICBMs. A lot of it was the whim of one person or a few who happened to be positioned to make decisions in these highly hierarchical, centralized systems.
Think of the changes in the last 80 years; now move forward another 80. Could we ever have a world without nuclear weapons? We’re fewer than a dozen countries now. It’s not unimaginable in 50 years. What should we set in motion today to get there, or not set in motion? That thought is one reason I’m dismal about the current arms race talk.
Maybe China has rational reasons for its ICBM buildup — some version of their own military industrial complex greasing the skids. I try to get people to assume they’re not evil, not hoping to destroy the world but seeking security. Could it be our ABM deployments? The hyperaccuracy of our weapons? Seeing this as a dynamic that we are sharing is to me the first step to breaking this cycle, so we don’t flush all our money down the toilet maintaining the status quo.
Could we ever have a world without nuclear weapons? We’re fewer than a dozen countries now. It’s not unimaginable in 50 years. What should we set in motion today to get there, or not set in motion?
Philippe: Yes, most of the time it is bureaucratic and industry politics that say missiles need to be replaced. They say safety concerns, but the companies make money from these replacements. We have generals and admirals who build their careers on this and they want to perpetuate the institution and increase their budgets. I worked in the French Defense Procurement Agency, and every time a new weapon system is deployed, there are plans already to replace it in 20, 30 years. I remember a mind-blowing interview when a former French official of the Atomic Energy Commission said, “We don’t have plutonium to make nuclear weapons forever, but we probably have enough at least for the next 3,000 years, so we should be fine.”
Bugos: We need to take more account of the U.S. role in inspiring that kind of thinking. The Annual Threat Assessment of the U.S. Intelligence Community this year clearly stated that China is pursuing its nuclear weapons activities and expansion because of U.S. missile defenses. And it jolted me because it was such a clear admission of the U.S. saying yes, this was our role. Also, Russia points continually to the U.S. pulling out of the ABM Treaty to justify what it’s doing. But there’s not much rethinking around that recognition.
Wellerstein: Once I heard a very, very high-ranking U.S. military official give a public talk where he basically said, “Oh, yeah, China’s doing this because we’re doing this, and so then we’re going to do this, which is going to cause them to do this, which will then let us do this.” And he was positively thrilled by the arms race he was describing. And I don’t blame him. He’s the military guy, this is his career success, and you don’t get into that role if it doesn’t excite you. I’m not saying get rid of the guy; I’m saying don’t let him determine policy.
I don’t want to keep coming back to costs, but we are barreling into other huge issues, like climate change, and all the solutions are expensive, so I just despair about setting a trillion dollars on fire without changing anything. We are never going to just dominate the Russians and the Chinese until they give up. They’re going to do what we would do in the same situation — we build more, they’ll build more; we build defenses, they’ll build things to get around the defenses. So why are we letting the people who benefit from arms races essentially set the terms of the debate?
Heeley: Is there any way around that?
Wellerstein: We have representative democracy and politicians. We have to make this a public issue. If people don’t care what happens, it defaults to the people who care the most, either on the political fringe, or who get money or jobs from the status quo. If you could make it a salient political issue, then there’s a chance of the political system operating the way it’s supposed to.
Heeley: Could the authorization process be improved if we didn’t give only one person the ultimate authority to launch nuclear weapons?
Wellerstein: Yes. It’s such an obviously bad idea that most Americans have a hard time accepting it’s how it is.
Bugos: I agree. I did Sharon Weiner’s VR nuclear threat simulation last October, and I’ve never been so discombobulated and overwhelmed in my life. You are in the president’s shoes deciding whether to use nuclear weapons, and it’s clear that a lot of the information coming in is from the Pentagon where so many voices emphasize the central role of nuclear weapons in everything. Voices that express some caution get pushed aside.
Now there’s a lot of conversation around doing sea-launched nuclear-armed cruise missiles again. The Navy secretary has said we do not want this capability, but voices in the Pentagon and in Congress say you will have this capability whether you want it or not.
Heeley: What about the role of artificial intelligence?
The main proposals that we had for U.S.-Russian arms control look very different now with China in the picture, and in 2026 when New START isn’t around anymore.
Philippe: One obvious application — and a big issue — is in command and control. The pace of warfare is getting faster and faster so that humans, generals, and especially the president, even if he’s the only one who can take the decision, may not be able to move as fast as required because of the way the weapons system is set up. So, you might have AI quickly generate prebaked options to assist decisions. But we don’t really understand how AI makes those options, because most AI systems are black box, mathematically speaking.
The other AI area is in tracking. We’re already imaging the entire surface of the earth, getting hourly and possibly very soon subhourly information about any spot, anywhere, at any time. That’s a massive amount of data you probably need AI to process — every nuclear site, nuclear weapons system, its deployment, submarines leaving port, the location of all the silos, whatever. And here the U.S. has an advantage over its competitors; but how will Russia and China react knowing that we can track their nuclear assets continuously?
Heeley: So how does all this interact with our decision-making processes?
Philippe: Recently I asked ChatGPT how it would be best implemented in military command and control structure. It admitted it could be useful, such as in signal intelligence like analyzing phone conversations. Say you’re on a conversation between two generals and you have an AI that does instant translation. Is it really translating the conversation or is it proposing a summary of what it flags as key points? Maybe one general says he’s going to move nuclear weapons from place A to B, so now you’re acting on information from a mission-learning algorithm. You don’t always know how it works. Has it got a bias? I think we’re already seeing this technology being fielded, and in some sense, it may be too late to create effective guardrails.
So again, this is a policy issue. Are we okay with key decisions on life and death and national security being made by a computer? Key pioneering figures who made important contributions to the field are now saying we should be very careful about where we’re going.
Heeley: Shifting here to a recent poll from Carnegie Corporation of New York and the Chicago Council finding that almost 60 percent of people 18 to 29 are interested in learning more about U.S. nuclear policy. How should we engage with this generation?
Wellerstein: Young people are already very invested in a lot of other pressing issues. But if they do want to add nuclear policy to those, what’s their action path? Without that, they’ll get jaded and put it in their pile of things to be fatalistic about. Maybe the careers angle is key. If there’s a job in it for them, they’ll get more interested because they are very economically anxious. The hitch is that if the only jobs are in the defense industry, then they’re going to realign their interests real quickly.
Heeley: Finally, what’s one action concerned people can take?
Philippe: Writing to your elected officials expressing your concerns is first, as you do often get an answer back. Then it’s about finding allies. Vibrant organizations still exist today doing grassroots advocacy, and new ones are being set up. Recently, a group of scientists launched a new physicists coalition for nuclear threat reduction. We need new networks and new groups of people to voice concern in more effective ways.
Wellerstein: Yes, organization is the only answer. You have to multiply the voices; by yourself, you’re not very powerful, but if you organize, you’re a thousand, you’re a million.
Bugos: Mobilizing political will is what it’s all about.
Laicie Heeley is the founding CEO and editor in chief of Inkstick Media and the host of the Things That Go Boom podcast. Shannon Bugos is a senior policy analyst at the Arms Control Association. Sébastien Philippe is an associate research scholar and lecturer at Princeton University. Alex Wellerstein is an associate professor and director of the Program in Science and Technology Studies at Stevens Institute of Technology.
Chloe Cushman is a Toronto-based illustrator. She is a frequent contributor to the New Yorker and the New York Times, among many other international publications.
(Credit: Illustrations by Chloe Cushman.)
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