Reducing Risk of Nuclear War: The Long View

Some of the most consequential decisions our civilization makes — decisions that will shape the lives of countless future generations — concern nuclear weapons and the risk of nuclear war. Harvard's Matthew Bunn will join Long Now Boston to take the long view on one of humanity's defining challenges.

A nuclear war is unlikely to come "out of a clear blue sky." It is far more likely to arise from a crisis or conflict between nuclear-armed states that escalates step by step. Bunn offers a structured way of thinking about reducing the risk at each of those steps: lowering the chance of conflict among nuclear-armed states in the first place; keeping any conflict that does occur from crossing the nuclear threshold; and ensuring that, if nuclear weapons are ever used, the exchange does not escalate to hundreds or thousands of weapons.

Drawing on decades of work on nuclear security and arms control, Bunn will explore the key factors driving the risk of nuclear war today and the practical levers — technical, diplomatic, and political — that can shift those factors toward greater safety over the coming decades.