Confronting novel challenges in a new nuclear age:

Ten years ago during a speech in Prague, then President Barack Obama announced that the United States, the only country to have used an atomic bomb, would commit to concrete steps toward realizing a world without nuclear weapons. While some interpreted this proclamation as a sign of progress toward a new non-nuclear age, the reality has proven to be more complex. Recent years have seen a resurgence of the central role of nuclear weapons in the international security dynamic driven by a return to great power competition between nuclear states, particularly the U.S., China, and Russia, and increasing threats from actors such as North Korea. Further complicating the situation, rapid technological advances have thrust warfare into new domains, notably space and cyber, with significant implications for the future of nuclear policy.

To consider these shifts in the discussion about nuclear issues, the Japan–U.S. Program of the Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) published a new book entitled The End of Nuclear Forgetting: Revival of Nuclear Weapons (Japanese only) edited by Nobumasa Akiyama, professor at the Graduate School of Law at Hitotsubashi University, and Sugio Takahashi from the National Institute for Defense Studies. The book features in-depth analysis by a panel of Japanese scholars and security specialists aiming to address the reality of nuclear weapons in modern international relations from a Japanese perspective.*

On the occasion of the book launch, the Japan–U.S. Program organized a seminar on July 19, 2019, assembling two expert panels. Given the central role of U.S. nuclear policy in the international dialogue regarding disarmament and deterrence, the second panel featured a conversation with two former U.S. government officials: Frank A. Rose, former Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance; and M. Elaine Bunn, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy. These distinguished experts provided a comprehensive view of the issues surrounding U.S. deterrence and disarmament strategy, opening a window into the analytic challenges facing policymakers in the 21^st century.

While the majority of the discussions focused on ways to contend with the existence of nuclear weapons in the context of international relations, the question of whether the world will ever be free of nuclear weapons loomed large over the day’s conversations. Ms. Bunn argued that even from a technical perspective, complete disarmament may be beyond reach. “You can't get rid of the knowledge and you can't get rid of the materials,” she explained, noting that the half-life for the fissile materials used to make nuclear weapons range from 24,000 years to 75 million years, and the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons has already spread around the world. In addition, Ms. Bunn maintained that even in the event of complete denuclearization, the challenge becomes how to prevent a race to rearm in a crisis.

Mr. Rose agreed, saying in a roundtable discussion following the event that “I think grand visions of a nuclear-free world are going to have to be put on hold for some time.” Instead, he asserted that hindsight will likely show the period from the 1990s to the early 2010s to be an aberration, with managed competition emerging as the predominant pattern of international relations. Given this pragmatic stance, he still expressed hope that nuclear policy can contribute to the stable management of risk even in a world with nuclear weapons. “If in the next 20 years we don’t reduce a single nuclear weapon but we don’t have nuclear use, that’s my definition of success,” said Mr. Rose.

*To learn more about the book and comments by the Japanese panelists, please see the Japanese article.
 

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To view the full event, please click here.
For more from the Japan-U.S. Program, please visit the program page.