GCR Policy Newsletter (8 August 2023)
Instability and complexity in US-Russia nuclear arrangements, and catastrophic risk from climate tipping points
This twice-monthly newsletter highlights the latest policy, research and news on global catastrophic risk (GCR).
Managing instability and complexity in US-Russia nuclear arrangements
On 31 July, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, and Deputy Chairman of its Security Council, wrote on Telegram that “If [Ukraine’s] offensive, which is backed by NATO, was a success and they tore off a part of our land, then we would be forced to use a nuclear weapon according to the rules of a decree from the president of Russia.” An influential Russian political scientist tied to Russian leadership has argued for lowering the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons, which he believes have been set unacceptably high. According to the US State Department, Russia is in noncompliance with the 2010 New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START), after Vladimir Putin announced the suspension of Russia’s participation in the treaty in February 2023. Russia is refusing to allow inspections or meet in the treaty’s implementation body, and has stopped providing its treaty-mandated notifications.
The bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States is looking to deliver its recommendations on nuclear threats and strategy in August. The plans for US nuclear forces would cost $756bn over the 2023-2032 period, according to a July 2023 estimate by the Congressional Budget Office. About $247bn would go towards modernization of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, almost exclusively for tactical nuclear weapons systems, and another $108bn towards modernization of Department of Energy’s facilities and for Department of Defense’s command, control, communications, and early-warning systems. Meanwhile, efforts by the US Department of Energy to address cybersecurity gaps and challenges in nuclear weapons systems are “in their early stages”, according to a June 2023 report by the US Government Accountability Office. And nuclear expertise in the US is in decline due to the pivot to global terrorism since 2001, reduced funding for nuclear policy studies and the retirement of practitioners inside and outside government.
The dangers of nuclear war are the highest in decades, and the complexity of nuclear stability is only increasing. Nuclear dynamics will be fundamentally reshaped by the development of strategic non-nuclear weaponry, the integration of disruptive and emerging technologies in military systems, and nuclear tripolarity due to the rise of China. Major nuclear powers must urgently come together to address the rising nuclear risk, particularly the nuclear instability caused by the integration of artificial intelligence and cyber within military systems. Groups like Back from The Brink and more recently The Elders have proposed tangible actions that nuclear weapons states could unilaterally take around doctrine, disarmament and non-proliferation. Non-nuclear powers could also increase their pressure on nuclear-weapon states in the UN Security Council, International Atomic Energy Agency and other multilateral groupings, such as the East Asia Summit and G20. As any major nuclear conflict will have wide ranging effects on the entire world, non-nuclear powers could also conduct their own full assessment of nuclear risk and resilience, including the potential failures of nuclear deterrence and stability, and how their own countries would best survive a global nuclear conflict.
Recent relevant research and reporting:
A July 2023 report by the Congressional Research Office, “Arms Control and Nonproliferation: A Catalog of Treaties and Agreements”.
The Federation of American Scientists claim that “The Department of Defense and Department of Energy twice rejected requests from the Federation of American Scientists to declassify the number of nuclear weapons in the US stockpile and the number of nuclear weapons awaiting dismantlement.”
Founders Pledge has released a detailed guide for philanthropists for “Global Catastrophic Nuclear Risk.”
A tribute to Daniel Ellsberg (1931-2023), Pentagon official turned nuclear disarmament advocate and author of The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner.
The Jolly Swagman podcast episode with Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb.
Mapping the catastrophic risk from climate tipping points
The Director of Climate Services at the World Meteorological Organization noted that eight of the warmest years on record in the past 173 years were the years 2015 to 2022. And July is set to be the hottest month on record. The UN Secretary General warned that “the era of global warming has ended” and “the era of global boiling has arrived.” Some research suggests that the recent shift to low-sulfur shipping fuel - an International Maritime Organization rule imposed in 2020 - has weakened the masking effect that sulfur dioxide was having on greenhouse gas warming. The International Panel of Climate Change estimated that the hidden effect could have been up to 0.9°C of warming. New research published in Nature Communications suggests that the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (AMOC) could collapse as soon as mid-century, one of the so-called major climate change “tipping points” that could have cascading catastrophic effects on the global community.
From a GCR perspective, reducing climate change risk requires a more clear understanding of potential tipping points and efforts to prevent or prepare for them. Although significant research and policy effort is being devoted towards climate change, this work needs to be contextualized and detailed for GCR scenarios. Climate change could feed into other global catastrophic threats, such as global pandemics, conflict, food system breakdown and societal collapse. Policymakers should promote more rigorous investigation of the mechanisms, factors, pathways and solutions for climate risk-related catastrophes. For example, futures and horizon-scanning functions of government could better map how climate change might lead to sudden shocks to the global food supply, and share that knowledge with other countries and multilateral organizations. This understanding would also inform policy measures to reduce the vulnerabilities that exacerbate climate risk, such as social cohesion, disinformation and misinformation, governance gaps and supply chain resilience. Should extreme climate change scenarios present a greater risk than expected, policymakers could take measures that improve a country’s ability to withstand greater shocks.
I recently wrote a post to summarize tipping points and their potential contribution to societal collapse: https://existentialcrunch.substack.com/p/the-trouble-with-tipping-points