April 26, 2024
Pugwash Secretariat:
On 12-13 April 2024 Pugwash convened a workshop in Istanbul to assess opportunities for galvanizing nuclear arms control. Seventeen experts from the United States, Russia, China, and Europe – and three further virtual presentations – engaged in fruitful discussions about the international security landscape aimed at identifying an agenda for future nuclear risk reduction.
Discussions explored a range of possible measures that could promote strategic stability and robust security and pave the way for future arms control arrangements. Several unilateral actions were proposed although these were largely accepted as politically unappealing in such times of tension and uncertainty. The current P-5 process on risk reduction was understood to be self-serving and ineffective in mitigating competition between nuclear weapons states.
One impact of the present nuclear dangers is that public and political awareness of nuclear weapons use is as high as it’s been in half a century. While this is appropriate give the level of danger, one perverse effect was said to be that the more people think about limited nuclear war fighting, the more likely it is to happen. Given this paradox, participants emphasised that future arms control will need to be creatively reimagined at the Track 1.5 or 2 level, and that forums such as the Pugwash workshop series are a useful testing ground for acceptability of ideas.
Full information: https://pugwash.org/2024/04/26/istanbul-workshop-on-strategic-arms-control/