[music] I'm Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm truly honored to welcome our guest today, Doctor Emma Belcher.

She is president of Ploughshares Fund and a world renowned expert on nuclear weapons policy.

I also want to acknowledge and thank her for empowering us on The Open Mind to explore in depth this issue and its urgency.

Thank you, Emma, for being here today.

A pleasure to host you on The Open Mind.

Thanks so much, Alexander, for having me.

And it's a pleasure to be here to talk about all things nuclear with you.

I emphasize that word urgency, and you are the foremost person to ask about the nature of the urgency in this year.

We're recording this now in 2024, When we think about the urgency of nuclear in 2025.

What strikes you as distinctive about that urgency?

Its a great question because what makes this moment really important for the urgency is that for the first time in decades, we're looking to really, ramp up the number of nuclear weapons that we have, in the world.

A number of countries are looking to modernize their arsenals, Russia, the United States and China.

And there's the potential, and some would argue that we're already in a new nuclear arms race.

So we did a lot of hard work since the end of the Cold War, bringing the total number of nuclear weapons in the world down from between 60 to 70,000 to around 12,000 today.

But right now, we're at that turning point where the trajectory could be that we go in the opposite direction.

So right now, the decisions that we make are going to be critical for the kind of future that we have.

And not enough people are paying attention.

That's why it's urgent that we raise awareness and we make the right decisions now.

What would be most impactful in helping to incentivize those right decisions, in your mind?

I do think that we need to come to a mutual understanding that an arms race, like the one we had during the Cold War is in nobody's best interest.

We need to make sure that leaders understand that.

We need to make sure that elected officials understand that and that the public understands that and can demand that we do better.

I think right now, there's too much of a narrative that more nuclear weapons are needed to keep us safe.

So here in the United States, people are looking at Russia modernizing its arsenals.

Vladimir Putin's aggressive threats to use nuclear weapons to enable his invasion of Ukraine, which is a type of threat to use that we, aren't really used to seeing in that more offensive type way.

And we're also seeing China rapidly ramp up the number of its nuclear arsenals from several hundred to projected around 1500 by 2030.

So that's an alarming change.

And there are challenges out in the world that we need to respond to.

But right now, the sort of dominant narrative in the United States is that we just need more and more of these weapons to counter both China and Russia at the same time.

And what I'm concerned about is that that type of knee jerk reaction is more of an emotional reaction, and it's not one that's based on critical, rational thinking about how do we best secure ourselves against the threats?

Because if the United States reacts and responds, then we're off to the races with a nuclear arms race.

Emma, you and Ploughshares cite the idea of new thinking, novel thinking, to combat that approach beyond the novelty of thinking outside of the box about solving problems, you have to get to a place of persuasiveness.

And I wonder, in your tenure so far at Ploughshares, where you felt that you've made the most successful arguments to people who can potentially shift and reverse the direction that you described.

Well, I think there are a couple of things to think about there.

One is the work that we need to do to bring about innovation and new ideas.

And then the second is how do you communicate the innovation in those ideas to get to people who can do something about it.

So if I break it down, the first aspect that we've been working on at Ploughshares is field building.

So it's no secret that the people outside of government working on the nuclear weapons problem is small and rapidly shrinking.

So since the end of the Cold War, where that was very much something that was studied, people largely thought the problem was over the fall of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons being dismantled, rapidly brought down, the problems over.

But we never really solve that problem, never really went away.

And now we're seeing, it's back with a vengeance.

Now, the problem is, we didn't invest in the minds and the talent of people who would be interested in nuclear weapons.

To keep thinking about these thorny problems and the funding for people right now to look at these problems has drastically reduced.

And here we are in a situation where we need those minds more than ever, and there aren't the resources.

So what we've been trying to do is figure out how do we raise more awareness about the issue in order to bring in some more funding and support?

But how do we also make sure we don't just rely on Cold War thinking?

So we had an arms race before.

How did we solve that?

Well, we had the United States and the Soviet Union as the two superpowers.

Were in a very different world today, multipolar world.

We also have new technology.

And we need new minds, people from outside the nuclear space to come and bring the innovation, bring the new ideas.

Because if we're just talking to ourselves and repeating the same kind of ideas from the past, we're never going to have those breakthroughs that need to match the security environment were in today.

So what have we been doing?

We've been bringing in people who come from different fields, from law, from economics, from climate, from global public health, people who understand trends in the future.

People who understand how to think about big wicked problems in systemic ways.

And we are trying to spark that new thinking.

Now, another piece of bringing in new people with new skills and new thinking is bringing in people who can do effective messaging.

We've done some narrative analysis, working with a sister organization, the Nuclear Threat Initiative, to really look at what the nuclear narrative is now, which is you need more and more weapons to keep us safe, and to figure out how do we push back against that narrative?

How do we sort of challenge that status quo?

And so we engaged in, some narrative research.

We've engaged in message testing, and now we're developing some campaigns to get out there and raise awareness about the issue, to say that there are other ways that we don't need to be on this perilous path.

And one of the terrific things that we saw from our research was that actually, majority of Americans are in favor and support arms control.

Now, this is really critical because that's not the dominant narrative we're hearing right now.

It's that we've got to match and we've got to engage in an arms race.

But most Americans favor arms control, which is terrific for us.

But we need to now get that message out there, get it heard by people in power who have the ability to change our trajectory.

When you were advising the Australian Prime Minister on national security, some years ago.

I take it you were not viewing the nuclear threat with the urgency you are now?

Because there hadn't been years or decades of prolonged, robust proliferation.

Am I accurate in that assessment?

Yeah.

Actually, at the time, I was working on counterterrorism, really.

And domestic counterterrorism.

And the thought that terrorists could get hold of, say, radioactive material or terrorists could get hold of, chemicals or biological agents that they might use.

So this was back in, 2005, 2006.

And, there was just that different kind of calculus.

And there was the concern, I think, that, yes, terrorists could get hold of a nuclear weapon somehow, or maybe more likely, get hold of the material that with enough explosives and engineering expertise, they could fashioned into a crude nuclear device.

That is still a possibility, but it has really been overshadowed by what people would be calling sort of the return of great power politics and their sort of geostrategic situation we're in.

So, times have really shifted, but it's interesting that we are back in a place that we were during the Cold War where at the height of the Cold War, there was a lot of danger.

And the concern now is that in some people's opinions, including, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry, it's more dangerous now than we were at the height of the Cold War.

So in my mind, when I think about the nuclear problem, it's so important to think about how do we solve the current crisis we're in, but be thinking to the future so that we don't repeat this kind of cycle of crisis solution but then erosion of that solution and crisis point again.

You have established that any nuclear incident, even on a small scale, would likely monopolize our attention and warrant the kind of scrutiny this issue does not get in the media, does not get actively in public policy discussions.

But of course, none of us wants that to happen.

The idea of any, material impact on citizens anywhere in the world, as you do a comprehensive evaluation of where there have been breaches and the potential for this kind of calamity, it would seem to me that you would zoom in on nuclear facilities and reactors in the Russia and Ukraine conflict, as the most immediate threat at this particular juncture.

When it comes to the nuclear issue, is that fair to say in your estimation?

I think what I'd say is the nuclear threats that Putin has made to use weapon to, you know, if he deems that Russia's territorial integrity is being threatened or if he feels as though there's incursion into Russian territory, he'd use a nuclear weapon.

I think that concerns me in particular, the fact that he has threatened to use nuclear weapons over the war in Ukraine.

And I remember there was a point that was quite, scary, where on the one hand, Putin had declared he had now, gained four Ukrainian territories, and declared that they were part of Russia at the same time as saying that any attack on Russian soil would be met with nuclear response potentially.

So he's just, taken pieces of Ukraine where there's fighting.

And I think a lot of us were concerned that the fighting continues.

He uses that as an excuse to launch a nuclear weapon.

Now, that didn't happen, which was, I think a lot of people breathed a sigh of relief.

And some people say, well, Putin just bluffs and he's never going to use it.

But I think we've seen recently that, the United States did estimate that there could be a 50% chance of Putin using a nuclear weapon during, those times.

That's really high and really scary.

So I think when we're looking at nuclear use and risks, the consequences are so dire that we've got to take them seriously.

Now, I would say that that is probably the thing that most concerns me.

The facilities, I think, not as much.

It's horrendous what they're doing.

And it's horrendous that Putin is using Zaporizhzhia Power Plant as, kind of nuclear blackmail.

But I think the reality is you could have some kind of Chernobyl kind of meltdown.

Depending on the fighting around there and if the power supply was cut.

But it wouldn't necessarily be the type of nuclear bomb explosion that a lot of people might be thinking.

So while horrific and it's abhorrent what he's doing, and this needs to be, really a crime to do this.

I don't have it at the same level as a nuclear bomb detonating.

So there are three angles that I want to make sure we highlight as it relates to nuclear.

One is the feasibility of disarmament.

And I know that you're advocating for pauses on build up as much as you are on disarming.

One is the logical prerequisite for the next.

That's one, the advent of AI, in this age of nuclear proliferation.

What does that mean?

And then finally, the power of women in this movement to de-escalate and disarm.

Let's start with the first of those points, which is the logical transition.

And this is where Charles Oppenheimer joined us on The Open Mind recently, was to say, you're not going to disarm until you suspend activity that is geared around weaponry.

And the episode that we recorded with him led me to wonder if, in your mind, the only realistic vehicle or pathway to suspend and then disarm is to transition active military or weapons programs into energy programs?

Hm.

Again, that being the seminal salient question on which I know you and your colleagues are most focused on at Ploughshares, how do you realistically forge that path to suspend activity and then ultimately downsize or disarm?

Yeah.

I mean, I think you're pointing to a really key, thorny problem, which is ultimately the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, where we don't need to rely on threatening each other with mutual annihilation to guarantee security is vastly preferable.

And there are real debates in the field between people who are pro disarmament and others who are pro deterrence.

I do think it's a bit of, a sort of a a false dichotomy, really, because, when I talk to people who are in favor of deterrence, most of them would agree that if we could guarantee peace and security without nuclear weapons, it would be far preferable.

And the people who believe in disarmament really think we need to get rid of the weapons.

So, I think at the ultimate level, there isn't disagreement on what a better world might look like.

There's disagreement on how to get there and whether it's realistic.

And one of the things that does trouble me is when there are people that put themselves into camps, I'm proud to say disarmament or Im pro deterrence.

What we actually need is to come together with a range of different people, have a conversation about what are our common goals, what are the various ways we might get there, and how do we problem solve our way out of it.

Right now, I know for people, it's hard to think with all of these nuclear threats that we're going to ever get rid of nuclear weapons.

So for some people, it feels like, well, the disarmament goal is naive.

A pie in the sky.

But we have come close before we think about the Reagan Gorbachev summit back during the Cold War.

They came very close to agreeing to abolish nuclear weapons.

And we also see that there's a big movement in civil society around the world and governments around the world signing the treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, And I fundamentally believe that we actually need to envision what a better world looks like.

What does a world without nuclear weapons unlock for us?

What could we be spending that money on, and how do we get there?

What we're not advocating is that the United States just get rid of all its nuclear weapons and let Russia and China do whatever they want.

That's not realistic, but I think there are steps that could be taken that the US could, start to take some steps that help move us in a direction and definitely try to prepare the groundwork for a time at which it might be possible to really seriously return to disarmament talks.

As I've said in the past, we see these sort of ebbs and flows in history and the same issues come back around again and you have different kinds of times.

I think we've got to be, both preparing to reduce nuclear threat right now, given the dangers, but an eye to that future and making sure that whatever we do now to reduce risk of use isn't getting in our way of a longer term goal of a world that's free of nuclear weapons.

And I want to give you an opportunity in these remaining minutes to expound on those steps that the US could be taking.

And if you want to highlight the importance of women leaders in this movement, and also the relevance of AI want to give you an opportunity to do that as well.

Yeah, fantastic.

Well, you know, you invited me to say what are some first steps the United States could take?

You know that the United States could declare a no first use policy.

That it won't actually use a nuclear weapon first.

It won't be the first one in the conflict to use it.

But that nuclear weapons are more for defensive purposes, which is kind of the general understanding right now.

You know, making that kind of declaratory statement could go somewhere to lowering the temperature and maybe making, China and Russia, less likely to make some kind of misinterpretation or misunderstanding about what the United States is doing.

That's one potential step.

There are others.

I do think we need to have critical dialog that we need to be keeping on persisting.

Talking with Russia, talking with China about strategic stability concerns, pushing to have talks at a time when it's possible.

And I think, a lot of people misunderstand the importance of talks or they say, well, why would we want to sit down and talk with Russia, with Putin at this time?

That would just be an odious thought.

But it's at precisely these moments of high tension.

Where actually having some dialog and increasing understanding and cooperating and recognizing nuclear war is in no one's interest, that it's most important, and it's been effective in the past.

So I would say that, but you've opened the door to something that I'm really passionate about, which is women in the nuclear policy space.

It's no secret, really, that this field has been dominated by a small, homogeneous group, largely older white men.

And we know study after study has shown in the private sector, public sector around the world in different countries that the greater the diverse perspectives you have, the more people you have who come from a different background, different discipline, different lived experience, the more you have that, the better the discourse and debate, the better the policy solutions you have that are more likely to be longer lasting and more durable.

And so if we are looking at this issue of huge human and planetary consequence, such as nuclear weapons and nuclear war, we've got to have represented at that table people who reflect societies around the world.

And we need more women.

We need more people of color.

We need more people who have different orientations and different intellectual backgrounds to work together to solve this problem.

It is a tough environment to be a woman or a person of color in this field.

And we've got studies that show that.

But also, I know that from my own personal experience, it is hard to be heard.

We've got to fight to be heard.

It is hard to be difficult to be taken seriously.

All of the kind of things you see in other fields where it's difficult for women.

It's also in nuclear.

But I want to sort of end this thought on a positive note, I'm seeing a change and I'm seeing a shift, and it's something that we're actively supporting at Ploughshares, which is, providing the space where people can contribute their ideas, where people don't get shot down immediately by the generation that's been in charge for a while and say, that's a silly idea.

We are changing that culture and I know that there are high level women around the world who are now coming together to say, we need to band together.

We deserve to be in these places.

And we can make a real contribution and we can support each other.

So I'm excited by what I'm seeing, and I think it's really critical for the peace and security of the world.

Not only do they deserve it, but women do have, a proven reputation for both problem solving and a history of maternal care.

For generations.

And when you think of the people who are most passionate about the preservation of life and nurturing the next generations, there's no doubt that women policymakers will save the planet.

On a final note, I mentioned AI, I want to give you an opportunity to address this because in this, increasingly digital environment, there would be the temptation not to have the dialog with Putin or other leaders.

And to go into AI silos that are, just sort of driving groupthink on any given subject.

You've made it clear that you want to invite Putin and others to the dialog, even if they have committed atrocities on this.

The nuclear stakes are too great.

But what is your sense as a final question for you, Emma, on the influence of AI on nuclear, the study of nuclear, the potential use of nuclear.

Yeah.

Well, AI is really, you know, everybody's interested in it now.

There's a sort of big buzz around it.

And in machine learning.

And what that all means.

And it's no different in nuclear.

It has the potential to be a game changer.

And there are certainly some benefits and some drawbacks.

So, on the benefits side, it could actually alert you far earlier that another country is planning a nuclear attack, just because of the amount of, you know, remote sensing, the data, the satellite imagery and the computing power could really raise a flag that something is happening earlier than we might be able to know now.

So that is definitely an advantage.

Another advantage, is that potentially you might be able to determine if countries are secretly developing nuclear weapons programs.

You might be able to also, determine if they are, living up to agreements they've made with respect to arms control.

So there could be a verification aspect in a way that we're not able to do now, or that we're beginning to be able to do now, we haven't been able to do in the past.

But the downsides are that the amount of computing power and the speed of that and all of the data means that they're really compressed decision making timelines even more compressed than they are now and beyond human comprehension.

So that introduces a whole lot of potential risk when the decisions are being made very, very quickly.

And also there's a higher chance of false positives just because of the amount of data that you're now having access to and being able to sort.

I think probably one of the the most difficult and concerning and terrifying things for a lot of people is, could machines one day determine launching a nuclear weapon?

Could they be the ones in charge of making a decision about launch?

And now the US, France and the UK have issued a statement to say that there will always be a human in the loop when it comes to that critical decision making about launching a weapon.

Amen to that.

-Yes, amen.

-Yeah.

Amen to that, and to be continued.

And I am so grateful to you, Emma, for again empowering us at The Open Mind to tackle these conversations, including ones with important women leaders like yourself, Kelsey Davenport, Amy McGrath, and many others.

And you can check out our episode with Emma and these other leading experts on nuclear, at The Open Mind website.

Emma, thank you so much for your insight today.

It was a pleasure.

Thanks, Alexander.

[music] Please visit the Open Mind website at thirteen.org/openmind Download the podcast on Apple and Spotify and check us out on X, Instagram and Facebook.

Continuing production of The Open Mind has been made possible by grants from Vital Projects Fund, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Ploughshares Fund, Angelson Family Foundation, Robert and Kate Niehaus Foundation, Grateful American Foundation, and Draper Foundation.