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AGA: Arbeitsgruppe Physik und Abrüstung

AGA 2: Missiles, Missile Defense, and Disarmament

AGA 2.1: Invited Talk

Thursday, March 29, 2012, 09:30–10:30, A 151

Disarming Dynamics — •James Acton — Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington D.C.

There are about 22,000 nuclear weapons in the world spread across nine states. There is also a broad global desire to reduce that number drastically as a waypoint on the way to zero. Whether deep reductions will actually prove possible depends on whether states believe that their security will be enhanced-or at least not undermined-by the process. States' calculations in this regard depend not only on the capabilities of one another's nuclear forces but also on "strategic" conventional capabilities, power projection capabilities and the possibility of further proliferation. Moreover, they will be coloured by domestic and bureaucratic considerations. An examination of the relevant interactions between today's nine nuclear-armed states demonstrates that further significant reductions will be difficult, not least because nuclear arsenals outside the United States and Russia are already exerting a significant influence on global disarmament efforts and the problem will switch from a two-player problem to a multiplayer problem much sooner than commonly realized.