Charting Future Paths for Nuclear Arms Control and Disarmament

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Remarks by Thomas Countryman, Chair of the Arms Control Association board of director, at the 2024 Annual Meeting. 
 

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Remarks by Thomas Countryman, Chair of the Arms Control Association board of director, at the 2024 Annual Meeting.                         

June 7, 2024

For a number of reasons, many of which have been discussed today, this is a very difficult, dangerous, pivotal moment in the long journey to address the dangers posed by nuclear weapons.  So, what kind of a talk can I give you today?

Thomas Countryman speaking at the 2024 Annual Meeting, June 7, 2024 (Photo: Arms Control Association)

Well, this is not a graveside eulogy.  Reports of the death of arms control are greatly—and deliberately—exaggerated.

This is not a religious service, where the pastor tells the faithful—in gory detail—what awaits the sinners who are not in church.

It’s also not a cable news show, where pundits bemoan the perilous state of the world (or of an election) and ask plaintively “Won’t somebody do something?”

I think it is a little more like a football coach’s locker room pep talk, fine-tuning the game plan for the second half.

So today, I will offer some thoughts not just on what we want from the possessors of nuclear weapons—what they must do—but also what this community and others need to do to effect a change in direction.

This moment is dangerous NOT because world governments have forgotten the risk of nuclear war, but because too many world leaders no longer see it as the overriding existential risk.  After the Cuban crisis of 1962, two superpowers recognized that if nuclear destruction were not averted, no other national goals mattered.

Today is different.  At least Moscow views the risk of nuclear war as secondary to the risk of failing in its goal of territorial expansion.  And this drives reactive decisions in other capitals.

As Secretary-General Guterres noted in his remarks, the primary responsibility for addressing nuclear risk continues to lie with the owners of the two supersized arsenals, the United States and the Russian Federation.  The refusal of Russia to engage in any kind of bilateral discussion is not just irresponsible, it is inconsistent with a history in which arms control dialogue continued, even at a time when one side’s weapons were killing the other side’s soldiers, in Vietnam or Afghanistan.

Just as unfortunately, in response to Moscow’s refusal, many officials in this city shrug their shoulders and say, “We tried arms control; now let’s rebuild our arsenal.”  That ignores a central lesson of the fifty years in which arms control negotiations improved America’s national security. That lesson is that the indispensable ingredient is American creativity, American persistence, American leadership.  Note that leadership does not mean American dominance or American control of a process—it simply means tireless determination.  At this moment, it means refusing to take "no" as the final answer.

As Pavel Podvig writes in the May issue of Arms Control Today, there exists still both a conceptual basis and a historical basis for Washington and Moscow to reach a successor agreement to New START those addresses both states’ national security interests.  As he notes, the political change that would make negotiation possible “may seem distant today, but it may be closer than it appears.”

There still exists a place where Russian and American officials speak to each other on nuclear issues: the P5 process.  At a moment when bilateral dialogue is impossible, the P5 dialogue should assume greater importance.  In a private dialogue, new steps—small or large—can be explored without the posturing and the point-scoring that marks the public debate in Geneva, or New York, or Vienna.

China will soon assume, for one year, the chairmanship of this process. Recall that last year Presidents Biden and Xi agreed that proliferation concerns was one topic on which the two sides need to cooperate. It is my deep hope that China will show some ambition, equal to the importance that it claims in world affairs, that it will increase the frequency of P5 meetings, elevate their level, and expand their agenda. They don't need to focus on reaching consensus among the five on every issue; they do need to focus on listening and on mutual understanding.

As I noted, the primary responsibility for progress lies with Washington and Moscow.  France, and China, and the United Kingdom are not off the hook, however. They do not have the option of sitting on the sideline, waiting for the U.S. and Russia.  They must recognize—and respond to—the overwhelming view of non-weapon states that the P5 are failing to meet—and even consciously ignoring—their obligations under the Nonproliferation Treaty.

Let me say a little bit about what we should expect and demand from the non-nuclear weapon states.

I am impressed by the way the non-weapon states parties to the NPT have stepped up in recent years. They correctly concluded that arms control initiatives are urgently needed—so urgently that the initiative should not rest only with the P5.  One result was the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, an admirable if imperfect document.

Non-weapon states now need to step up higher if we are to preserve the essential norms of global security. As the late Michael Krepon described them, these are the norms against use or threats of use, against nuclear testing, and against the transfer and proliferation of nuclear weapons.                         

So, let's be specific: when President Putin and his acolytes make nuclear threats, there is no audible pushback from the non-nuclear world, only a deafening silence. Saying out loud that such threats—whether subtle or explicit—are unacceptable to the international community is NOT taking sides on the war in Ukraine; it is simply living up to the principles that non-nuclear states proclaim in the sound-proof chambers in Geneva and New York.  Mr. Putin does not expect anyone to endorse his methods, but because he does not hear anyone outside of NATO criticizing his threatening words, he will continue to use them.

Let's be more specific: the level of the speaker matters. When I was an assistant secretary of state, I took the statements of my counterparts to represent accurately the positions of their governments.  but presidents and prime ministers do not listen to their own assistant secretaries and assistant ministers as closely as they listen to other presidents and prime ministers.  If arms control concerns are not conveyed at a higher level directly to the leaders of the P5 states, those leaders will conclude—correctly, perhaps—that nuclear issues are of lower importance to the rest of the world. Putin is not the only leader who needs to hear directly from other world leaders, but his is the right address to begin.

Non-weapon states also have a duty to preserve the nonproliferation pillar of the NPT. At a moment when several states speak openly about leaving the Treaty or developing their own nuclear arsenal, non-weapon states need to speak with one voice; they should declare, jointly and publicly, that any such move would make it impossible to continue normal political and economic relations with a new weapons-possessing state.

All of these are ideas that we have to convey loudly to the world’s governments, and since we are here in Washington, we need to start with the United States government.  Our public statements need to support the White House when it says or does the right thing.  The best example was the statement Jake Sullivan made here one year ago when he said the nuclear arsenal was sufficient for deterrence for the foreseeable future and declared that the U.S. wanted bilateral dialogue with Russia without preconditions.  (Sadly, at least a few people in the U.S. government seemed to believe that Mr. Sullivan’s offer has been overtaken by events and is now no longer relevant.)

At the same time, we have to be vocal about backward steps and persistent in convincing this government and others that there are alternatives to a new nuclear arms race.  Our work to reduce and eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons must be informed by the catastrophic humanitarian impacts of nuclear war, but our dialogue with policymakers must also recognize the validity of genuine national security concerns, made more and more obvious by threatening rhetoric from nuclear-possessing states.  We can critique the flaws in deterrence theory and postures, but we can’t simply dismiss deterrence as a concept without offering realistic alternatives sufficient to provide security.

The Arms Control Association, this tiny but mighty team, with great analytic contributions from so many of you in this room, has worked to analyze and address the questions that should be discussed among governments.  Can our national security be better protected by concepts of sufficiency rather than symmetry?  Are we tied to ratified treaties as the best form of agreements, or can we find new forms (which sometimes means old forms) of bilateral and multilateral agreements, focusing as much on behavior and transparency as on numbers? How do we achieve the goal that Presidents Xi and Biden agreed to pursue, maintaining human control of nuclear decisions?

It is also important as we push back against those who argue that arms control is dead or dying that we do one thing better than government spokesmen or diplomats: we have to speak with an air of civility, even when those who disagree with us are condescending or insulting.  As in diplomacy, anyone in or out of government who is trying to solve the same vexing issues should be seen as a potential partner, not an eternal adversary.

Our target audience is broad, perhaps impossibly broad for the size of our community.  In Washington, as in other countries, it comprises political and military leadership and workers—thousands of dedicated specialists—as well as the Congress.  We need new ways to appeal to public opinion and to mobilize public engagement, and that door is more open at this moment when more citizens are aware of nuclear risk than at any time in the last forty, or perhaps sixty years.

We cannot avoid the awareness that elections matter.  Since the 1950s, every U.S. president—except one—has acknowledged that arms control IS national security; that it can be win-win, not zero-sum; that speaking to an adversary is a sign of confidence, not of weakness; that insisting on absolute American sovereignty or American dominance in arsenals is a recipe for tragic conflict.  The results here on November 5 will affect the strategy of our efforts, but not their urgency.

In particular, we have to look to younger people, the generation from which I draw my daily dose of optimism.  Are we doing enough to raise their consciousness, to equip them with the concepts and analytic tools to address the dilemmas that my generation is leaving to them? I was pulled kicking and screaming into the 21st Century, and I don’t know how to get meaningful news and analysis from TikTok or other social media.  But millions of young people do, and we have to meet them where they are, where they read, where they watch, where they think.

In one way, I am nostalgic for the 1980s, when millions of people in the U.S. and abroad mobilized in support of saner responsible nuclear policies and arms control diplomacy to halt and reverse the arms race; their activism convinced national leaders that sensible national security pays political dividends.  We live in a different time that requires new alliances and strategies. I am heartened—but confess also envious—when I see millions of people, primarily young people, demanding responsible action on climate change, the other existential threat we face.  I recommend an article in Arms Control Today last November by Ambassador Kenneth Brill.  He notes there should be, there must be a common cause between climate change activists demanding a secure and prosperous future and nuclear activists who are simply demanding a future.

It’s a long list of tasks and it can be discouraging.  Setbacks have been frequent, and advances have only been at the margins.  The issues are many and our numbers are not. As fishermen traditionally pray: “The sea is so wide, Lord, and my boat is so small.”  The total annual budget for all of the organizations working in this field—in the U.S. and elsewhere—is less than governments spend on nuclear weapons in half a day.

As John Kennedy said about going to the moon: “We choose to do this not because it is easy, but because it is hard, because the goal will organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because the challenge is one we are unwilling to postpone”.

I still believe—despite all evidence to the contrary—that humans are better at solving problems than at creating problems. In September 1962, nobody would have predicted that within a few months, Moscow and Washington would initiate decades of world-changing negotiations, making both nations safer.

Today, we both need to work to prevent the breakdown moment when guardrails against nuclear catastrophe evaporate, and be prepared to seize the breakthrough moment, when we can advance again in the direction of the security of a world free of nuclear weapons.  Your contributions now—whether in time, or money, or analysis, or activism—will be crucial as we head toward that moment.

Now I realize that this was more like a church sermon than a locker room pep talk. I can tell because I can see a couple of people nodding off. I want to simply thank you for your attention and above all thank you—tomorrow—for your commitment.

God bless.

Author
Thomas Countryman

Welcome and Closing Remarks

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Opening remarks from Executive Director Daryl G. Kimball to the 2024 ACA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.  

June 7, 2024  

Good day everyone and welcome to the National Press Club and the 2024 to Arms Control Association Annual Meeting!

Daryl G. Kimball, opening the 2024 ACA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., June 7, 2024 (Photo: ACA)

I am Daryl Kimball, executive director, and we are delighted to have so many of you here in the room and online for today's event which is titled: "Moving Back from the Nuclear Brink."

We are indeed, on the brink, or at least closer to it that we have been in decades.

The three states with the largest nuclear arsenals—Russia, the United States, and China—are on the precipice of an unconstrained era of dangerous nuclear competition. Billions of dollars are being spent by the world’s nine nuclear weapons possessor states to maintain and upgrade their deadly arsenals.

Key nuclear arms control and nonproliferation agreements that have helped to ease tensions and reduce the nuclear danger are either gone, are being ignored, or are in jeopardy.

The last remaining treaty constraining U.S. and Russian strategic nuclear weapons will expire in about 600 days ...

... and so far, the Kremlin also rejected the U.S. offer—announced at by Jake Sullivan at ACA 2023 Annual Meeting—to engage in talks on a new U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control framework before New START expires.

Russia has also de-ratified the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, deployed sub-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus, and is alleged to be developing a nuclear-armed space weapon. Meanwhile, as Putin's deadly and illegal assault on Ukraine continues, he continues to threaten possible nuclear weapons in response to Western efforts to help Ukraine defend itself.

Citing a China's nuclear modernization efforts, some members of the U.S. nuclear weapons establishment are proposing to spend even more U.S. tax dollars to expand the U.S. nuclear arsenal for the first time in decades.

There are other stresses the broader arms control and nonproliferation system.

Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza following the Oct. 7 terror attack has produced a monumental humanitarian catastrophe that U.S. arms transfer policies and laws were supposed to help prevent but haven't.

And, in the absence of the agreed limits on its nuclear program and tougher international monitoring through the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, Iranian leaders have expanded their capacity to produce weapons-grade nuclear material and restricted IAEA access to key sites.

As the risk of an Iranian nuclear bomb has grown, Saudi Arabia has redoubled its campaign to acquire sensitive nuclear technologies from Washington.

Our meeting today will explore these issues in depth with the help of some of the most experienced, best-informed experts from outside of government and some from inside the government, including our first keynote speaker.

We hope today's discussions will provide some new insights and ideas about how to best address these massive challenges.

Let me close this brief introduction to the day by underscoring the fact that if we are going to be successful in moving back from the nuclear brink, it will take all of us and much more to make it happen.

ACA is a medium-sized organization, with just a dozen full time staffers, a volunteer Board, working with a very modest budget that is supported by a very small number of generous foundations and our loyal members.

As the MacArthur Foundation once said about us, ACA is an "exceptional organization that effectively addresses pressing national and international challenges with an impact disproportionate to its small size.'

But we cannot succeed by ourselves. In my 35 years as a professional in the arms control and disarmament field, its clear that progress depends on:

  • Smart, collaborative, sustained civil society campaigns, involving multiple organizations, large and small, local, and national, to engage and inform and mobilize the public to put pressure on key policy makers to take responsible action.
  • It takes bold presidential leadership and constructive Congressional action.
  • It requires responsible behavior and initiative from other governments.
  • We also need the active and principled leadership of the UN and the UN Secretary-General, who we will hear from later this morning.
  • and it takes some good luck and more.

Together, over the years, we've all helped to establish and defend the norms against nuclear weapons use, threats of use, nuclear testing, nuclear proliferation, and nuclear weapons buildups, and to advance progress on nuclear disarmament.

But as the civil rights and nuclear disarmament champion Coretta Scott King once said (in 1993):

“The struggle is a never-ending process. Freedom is never really won. You earn it and win it in every generation.”

At this time, the collective efforts of our generation are more important than ever.

Closing Remarks from Executive Director Daryl G. Kimball to the 2024 ACA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C.  

What a great discussion on a difficult topic that bears our urgent attention. Thank you, Rachel, and to each of the other panelists we just heard from.

I just want to close today's event with a few words of thanks to those who helped make this all possible.

First, thanks to our ACA team who have been working for several weeks and through the day today to make this event run smoothly. ACA is fortunate to have not only a very professional and capable staff team, but they are passionate about their work, and they are a joy to work with. Let's give them all a generous round of applause.

I want to give a particular shout out to our dedicated COO Kathy Crandall Robinson, our Director of Communications and Operations Tony Fleming, our program and operations assistant Libby Flatoff, and to Allen Harris, our stellar production and design editor, who along with our chief editor Carol Giacomo, is responsible for making Arms Control Today look so sharp.

For those of you watching online, you have our videographer Brendan Kowanoski to thank for his work today.

ACA's appreciation to all of our speakers and expert panelists. We heard from some of the very best in our field today. Thanks for all you do.

Finally, I want to recognize all of this year's generous annual meeting sponsors and everyone who joined us here today in person, and online. Your financial support, your interest, and your engagement is essential to our ability to pull this off and to pursue ACA programs and initiatives throughout the year.

You'll see the list of more than 40 meeting sponsors in the back of your program book and on our online 2024 Annual Meeting page, which will soon host an archived recording of today's proceedings.

I want to give a shout out to the essential grant-making foundations in the peace and security field who generously and loyally provide much of the financial support we need to sustain our work. These include our friends at:

  • the Prospect Hill Foundation
  • the Ploughshares Fund
  • the Carnegie Corporation of New York
  • the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, and
  • the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which has for many years been a major supporter of our work and that of many others in the nuclear risk reduction and nuclear policy field, but will, beginning next year, shift their attention to other urgent issues.

Yet, our work to address the threats posed by the world's most dangerous weapons must go on.

As Secretary General Guterres said, "the world is on a knife's edge," and as Tom Countryman reminded us, its our time to act to try to tackle the big challenges ahead and to make a difference.

That makes your engagement, your own efforts, and your financial support for ACA's work more important than ever.

[It will take persistence, it will take passion, it will require considered risks, it will require a more engaged and informed public, it will take new ideas and new voices, it will take all of us all working together.]

Thanks for joining us today.

We are adjourned.

A Congressional Perspective on Nuclear Weapons Spending and Arms Control

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Remarks from Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA8), co-chair of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, to the ACA 2024 Annual Meeting.

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Remarks from Rep. John Garamendi (D-CA8), co-chair of the Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group, to the ACA 2024 Annual Meeting.
(Official Transcript)

June 7, 2024

Ladies and Gentlemen, thank you for the opportunity to join you today. To Daryl and the Arms Control Association: thank you for your continuing work for a safer world and for this event. And to all of you joining; thank you for being a part of this critical dialogue.

Rep. John Garamendi, addressing the ACA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C., June, 7, 2024 (Photo: Arms Control Association)

In these unsettled times, events like this are important. They provide a forum for honest discourse and an opportunity to cut through the rhetoric of fear and doomsaying that too often pervades our nuclear policy. Unfortunately, dispassionate, calm voices are regularly drowned out by the loudest, most fearful voices.

Last year, at this event, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan outlined three goals: prevent an arms race, reduce the risk of misperception and escalation, and ensure the safety and security of people from nuclear threats. He emphasized that these were the “same goals, new strategy” and that “effective deterrence means we have a ‘better' approach, not a ‘more' approach.”

While these are fine principles, I am concerned that, in practice, we are moving in the direction of “more” and not “better." Instead of developing cost-effective systems that provide security while defusing tensions, we have fallen into the fallacy that more missiles make us more secure. Nothing could be further from the truth.

It’s well past time for our voices, the voices of restraint and risk reduction, to be heard in the nuclear arms debate. The United States, the Russian Federation, and the People’s Republic of China are locked into an extraordinarily dangerous nuclear arms race. All three countries are rapidly increasing their nuclear firepower with new and more capable bombs, more long-range missiles, new stealth delivery systems, bombers, submarines. And all of this totally dependent on the newest field of warfare: space. All three countries depend upon their space assets to observe, detect threats, and communicate the commands to act.

Today, we must call out the failures of our current approach to nuclear modernization and demand that we treat arms control and de-escalation with the same dedication and focus we give to our nuclear weapons development. It is long past time to develop a strategy that sets priorities, recognizes limitations, and strives for a safer future.

Before diving into the specifics of how Congress is approaching our nuclear weapons systems, I think it is important to step back and consider the broader context. Since their development almost 80 years ago, the destructive capability of nuclear weapons has terrified and shocked, but also led governments to pursue their own arsenals and develop the capacity to destroy our civilization multiple times over. Governments justified expanding stockpiles with convoluted theories of nuclear deterrence that often defy common sense.

It wasn’t until arms control programs and treaties were established that Russia and the United States de-escalated this spiral of stockpiling bombs. Through four decades, progress was made, and the number of deployed and existing nuclear bombs was reduced, and even the most adversarial countries agreed that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.” Yet, despite this understanding, we continue to maintain and modernize our arsenals with a belief that these weapons dissuade others from employing theirs. The threat of nuclear conflict remains, and with it, life on our planet ending or becoming dramatically changed.

It would be useful to remind people of the arms control agreements and the leaders that negotiated them. I’m sure that some of my congressional nuclear warriors would be surprised to see that their most ardent nuclear security heroes negotiated the reductions and controls.

I recognize the nuclear threats posed by countries like North Korea, Russia, and China. I do not deny the challenging security environment we face. I am fully aware of the Taiwan/China threat, as well as China’s military buildup and South China Sea expansion. The North Korean regime is dangerous and could precipitate a conflict at any moment. I condemn Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, irresponsible nuclear saber-rattling, and dangerous nuclear exercises.

Despite these serious threats, we must be wise in preparing our defense and response.

Aggression should not be our first thought when faced with threats, uncertainty, and misunderstandings. Therefore, I strongly support efforts by the US and Chinese governments to engage in meaningful dialogue that results in specific, concrete actions to reduce the risk of miscommunication or escalation.

As we navigate these complex geopolitical landscapes, it is imperative that we pause and reflect on the strategies guiding our nuclear policy. Strategy must be more than a word thrown on top of grandiose statements. True strategy is making the hard choices to align our country’s limited resources with our unlimited aspirations.

The greatest problem facing our nuclear strategy today is that we fail to realistically consider that balance, revisit our assumptions, adjust course when programs fail, and figure out new paths forward. Once approved, weapons programs persist, even when they nearly double and triple their budget. No one stops and says, “Enough.”

Too often, we allow these debates to be driven by military calculations and how "experts" would fight a nuclear war. But we must not forget that in a democratic society, the military is the extension of the political and not the other way around. When it comes to programs and strategies that threaten our very existence, we, as a whole society, must decide what costs we should bear and what risks we must take. Our nuclear strategy must be balanced and rational, allowing for deterrence and defensive actions while encouraging collaboration for a more peaceful future.

We in Congress are part of the problem. We have bought into the assumption that more nuclear weapons will make us safer.

Ever-growing costs reflect the irrationality that has plagued our nuclear policy. In the name of “modernization,” we’ve taken on hundreds of billions of dollars of additional spending, and the nuclear accounts grow without question or scrutiny.

An example is the nuclear modernization efforts. The political price tag for New START was the modernization of all three legs of America’s nuclear triad. Proponents told us the multi-billion-dollar cost was necessary to ensure that we continue to have a viable deterrent. Today, we can and should debate whether every part of modernization is cost-effective and necessary for deterrence. We must also fully understand the reasons for the massive growth in the cost of all these programs.

Let’s turn to the new Sentinel ICBM, which is destined to replace the Minuteman III. It has incurred an egregious 37% cost overrun, making the program's cost almost 211% higher than the Air Force’s initial 2015 estimate. This has triggered a critical Nunn-McCurdy cost overrun, forcing a stop and a full statutory review. Despite the new estimated cost of $130 billion, there are loud and clear reflexive signals that the Pentagon and Congress intend to plow ahead no matter the cost or the necessity. “We’ll do whatever is necessary.”

While this may be convenient, the law requires a complete and full review that addresses five critical steps. 1) The program is essential to national security; 2) there are no alternatives to the program that will provide acceptable capability; 3) the new cost estimates have been determined to be reasonable; 4) the program is a higher priority than programs whose funding will be reduced to cover the increased cost of this program; and 5) the management structure is sufficient to control additional cost growth. It is imperative that the Pentagon conduct a thorough examination to assess the necessity and feasibility of continuing the program in its current state. Equally necessary is that Congress engage in a full debate to access the Pentagon’s rationale.

Without public pressure, it is doubtful that any hearings will occur, and that’s why our Congressional Nuclear Weapons and Arms Control Working Group will hold its own hearing on July 24th.

For years, Congress has dictated in the annual NDAA that the US maintain a minimum of 400 ICBMs. A number founded not on logic but because “that’s what we have always had.” The number of ground-based ICBMs should not be set by the number of existing concrete silos but in the honest analysis of nuclear strategy. Such a review must consider the risk of a catastrophic mistake inherent in the Sentinel program. In the event of an attack, it is assumed that the first target is the well-known locations of the ICBMs. It’s a use-it or lose-it situation. Therefore, a “Launch on Warning” is the operational imperative. The President has only minutes to decide if the attack is real.

If the nuclear program is for deterrence, then the submarines, airplanes, and their missiles offer sufficient firepower to dissuade an adversary. These systems have the benefit of stealth, and the President has the time to gather all information and then decide to use the nuclear response. If that weren’t enough, we also have ample conventional weapons capability to deter potential adversaries.

However, the Sentinel program is not the only problem. The hidden costs of ground-based ICBM modernization are found in unexpected and little-noticed places like the "Energy and Water" appropriations bill. Did you know that it appropriates $19.8 billion for "Weapons Activities," a $2.7 billion increase from the previous year? So, what is the $20 billion for? This year, the Department of Energy/NNSA requested a nearly $3 billion down payment for the modernization of "plutonium pits," which are the hollow plutonium shells used to trigger the nuclear reaction. On its own, this number is astonishingly high, but it doesn’t even include $8 billion to build the production facility in Los Alamos and the second facility at Savannah River, which alone has a projected total project cost of $18-25 billion, nearly 6 times the cost initially planned for construction. It will be the most expensive building in America. Oh, and there is the $1.4 billion requested for stockpile sustainment, the $1.1 billion dollars for the Sentinel warhead development at Lawerence Lab, which has grown by 63%, and the untold cost of the 6 other warheads and bombs that support the other nuclear modernization programs.

Even proponents of modernizing nuclear programs should be concerned about the high costs.

The January 2023 GAO report found that the NNSA has not developed a comprehensive schedule or cost estimate and has not identified all necessary activities or milestones to achieve the required 80-pit-per-year production capacity. And why do we need to produce 80 pits per year when America already has over 4,000 plutonium pits in storage? Has anyone studied the potential of repurposing these pits for the new bombs? The bottom line is this: Senior officials at the NNSA admit they won't meet deadlines and have no idea what the ultimate cost will be.

My simple, straightforward amendment would change the current law requiring 80 pits per year to a lower number that represents the realistic number of plutonium pits our country needs and can feasibly produce. To some, this is seen as an "extreme radical position," and my proposal was voted down. Too bad the same Nunn-McCurdy law does not apply to the DOE, although I have included in this year’s NDAA a requirement that the GAO review the feasibility of applying the Nunn-McCurdy law to the DOE.

Across the nuclear enterprise, costs are soaring, fears are growing, and it remains unclear what goals we are achieving. Yet, amidst soaring costs and escalating risks, it's imperative to reassess our nuclear priorities. Investing more of the modernization budget into diplomacy, arms control, and education could yield far-reaching benefits, fostering a stronger and more secure nation. Congress must fulfill its duty to allocate taxpayer funds responsibly, avoiding excessive expenses on wasteful nuclear programs that do little to enhance genuine security. Maintaining a "safe, secure, and effective deterrent" does not necessitate these costly modernization plans, especially given the pressing needs in other areas critical to national strength and stability.

The significance of arms control cannot be overstated. Prioritizing de-escalation isn’t just an idealistic notion; it’s a necessity. Arms races cannot be won. When we attempt to outpace our adversaries in weapon development, they inevitably respond in kind, draining our limited resources and fostering international instability as fear predominates and the world’s most devastating weapons become a more likely option.

The critical role of arms control in preserving global stability and security is evident from history's many close calls. We can't afford to wait for another Cuban missile crisis to recognize the dangers of miscommunication and the failure to engage in dialogue.

I know that many of you in this room have spent years drawing attention to the importance of arms control, and I am grateful for your efforts. Like Sisyphus pushing the boulder up the hill, I know that it is often thankless work, fighting and clawing for progress only to see it roll back down again. But the work could not be more important, and, unlike that Greek myth, I do believe that we can get the boulder to the top of the hill and develop robust arms control regimes that will help us all to avoid an existential threat.

I believe there are three key pillars in this endeavor. First, sharing knowledge and fostering understanding are paramount. There are some in the room who have written compelling arguments calling public attention to the dangers of nuclear weapons. We cannot forget the horrors that nuclear weapons would inflict if they were ever used again. This work cannot be understated. It’s been 40 years since The Day After aired, showing Americans and their leadership just how terrible such an event would be. It is a hard truth, but one we must face. We can't allow nuclear rhetoric to be divorced from its very real consequences.

Secondly, encouraging dialogue and fostering open communication channels are essential.

The recent dialogues with China’s political and military leaders is encouraging. We should accept China's offer to discuss “No first use” policy. We don’t know where the discussion may lead, but it’s an opening.

Lastly, garnering political support is crucial. Non-profits and advocacy groups have laid the groundwork; now, we must amplify their efforts and call on Congress to act. For too long, our focus on arms control has waned, and members of Congress have paid too little focus.

This is the moment to redouble our efforts. In a world marked by uncertainty and growing competition, building bridges and fostering understanding is more critical than ever. However, this effort must start at home. Inevitably, we must reconcile our infinite desires with our limited means. That means making hard decisions about how and where to spend taxpayer dollars. No other country in the world approaches its geopolitical environment by promising to win everywhere, against everyone, because such hegemony is not, nor ever was, possible. One needs only count the empires that have fallen in time to realize how such lofty visions detached from practical reality led to instability and decline.

Inevitably, we must reconcile our infinite desires with our limited means. That means making hard decisions about how and where to spend taxpayer dollars. Billions of dollars and at least a decade has been spent justifying weapons programs, instead of finding paths to peace. It’s time we said, “enough.”

We face real challenges in this world, but too often, hyperbole and fear are being used to drive our decision-making. Competition need not mean hostility. It is time we returned to reason and rationality. Together, we must confront the challenges before us, not by building ever more dangerous weapons, but by placing the same priority on effective arms control and risk reduction measures that we currently place on modernization. We may face challenges, but we still have the choice of which future we will pursue. We know the risks; we know the dangers that modernizations and the inevitable arms race could hold, but that’s why it is so important we redouble our efforts toward making de-escalation real. Let us take this moment, this opportunity, to engage in a meaningful dialogue and choose the path towards a safer and more secure world.

"Adapting the U.S. Approach to Arms Control and Nonproliferation to a New Era"

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Remarks from Pranay Vaddi to the 2024 Arms Control Association Annual Meeting

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Remarks from Pranay Vaddi, Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Arms Control, Disarmament, and Nonproliferation at the National Security Council

June 7, 2024

Thank you for that introduction, Daryl.

You know, as you went through your list of the different things I’ve been doing in this current job, I just immediately felt my energy leave my body thinking about how busy we’ve been.

Pranay Vaddi speaking at the ACA Annual meeting in Washington, D.C., June 7, 2024 (Photo: Arms Control Association)

But I really do appreciate that kind introduction—and I want to thank the Arms Control Association for bringing us all together today for this important set of conversations.

And most importantly, I want to thank all of you for giving me this opportunity to address you—to update you on where things stand in the administration’s approach to this important set of issues.

Since the dawn of the nuclear era, the United States has focused on a central goal: reducing the risk of a catastrophic nuclear conflict occurring.

President Biden has been personally committed to reducing nuclear dangers throughout his career—and since day one of this administration.

We are committed to seeking the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons with undiminished security for all;

To upholding strategic stability;

To working with allies and partners to strengthen arms control and nonproliferation under the rules-based international order;

And to reducing the global salience of nuclear weapons.

We have pursued these goals with urgency, as well as pragmatism—

Balancing the imperative to maintain the capability and will to deter aggression or a nuclear attack;

Against the need to control the build-up and further spread of nuclear weapons.

The need for this dual track approach was described aptly by President Carter, who said, “National weakness, real or perceived, can tempt aggression and thus cause war.”

“That's why the United States can never neglect its military strength.”

“We must and we will remain strong.”

“But with equal determination,” he went on to say, “the United States and all countries must find ways to control and reduce the horrifying danger that is posed by the enormous world stockpiles of nuclear arms.”

In the period following the Cold War, the world made significant progress in reducing nuclear dangers thanks to U.S. leadership—

Together, we reduced the salience of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction threats;

We strengthened the international nonproliferation regime and the global commitment to nuclear security;

And we limited the strategic arsenals of the largest nuclear powers.

Just fifteen years ago, we would have celebrated the trajectory that we were on.

But the last decade has revealed cracks in each of these pillars—

Cracks that, as the National Security Advisor said at this forum last year, run substantial and deep.

Russia, the PRC and North Korea are all expanding and diversifying their nuclear arsenals at a breakneck pace—showing little or no interest in arms control.

Those three, together with Iran, are increasingly cooperating and coordinating with each other—in ways that run counter to peace and stability, threaten the United States, our allies and our partners, and exacerbate regional tension.

They are also freely proliferating advanced missile and drone technology among one other, and around the globe.

They also possess capabilities relevant to chemical and biological warfare that pose a threat to the United States and allied and partner forces, as well as civilian populations—

Russian forces have even used chemical weapons and riot control agents on the battlefield in Ukraine—in violation of Moscow’s obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention.

This is a new and dangerous era marked by evolving proliferation risks and rapid changes in technology.

It’s an era that demands we adapt both our strategy and our solutions.

So today, I want to describe how we are adapting our approach to arms control and nonproliferation for this new era.

In each pillar—

  • Demonstrating what it means to take action as a responsible nuclear power;
  • Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons;
  • And continuing to pursue arms control arrangements;

There should be no question—we have adjusted our strategy to account for a more complex and worsening security environment.

But we are in no way abandoning our principles. We are taking a more competitive approach.

First, this administration remains determined to lead by the power of our example—

To show what it means to act responsibly as a nuclear power—and encourage others to do same.

To ensure that all five nuclear weapon states live up to their statement that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.

In terms of our capabilities, we are developing and fielding only what is required to deter.

The President recently issued updated nuclear weapons employment guidance, which takes into account the realities of a new nuclear era.

It emphasizes the need to account for the growth and diversity of the PRC’s nuclear arsenal—and the need to deter Russia, the PRC, and North Korea simultaneously.

It also reaffirms our commitment to use arms control and other tools to minimize the number of nuclear weapons needed to achieve U.S. objectives.

And reiterates that the United States will continue to abide by New START limits for the duration of the Treaty, so long as Russia does the same.

Unlike our adversaries, we will not develop radiation-spewing, nuclear-powered cruise missiles—

Or nuclear weapons designed to be placed in orbit—which would be a clear violation of the Outer Space Treaty.

We will continue to uphold the global norm against nuclear explosive testing.

We remain committed to bringing the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty into force.

And we will ask the world to join us in supporting a treaty to cut off production of fissile material for nuclear weapons.

We will continue to forswear chemical and biological weapons, meet our obligations under the Chemical and Biological Weapons Conventions, and hold countries accountable for compliance.

Indeed, this administration completed the destruction of the U.S. chemical weapons stockpile last year—

A disarmament milestone decades in the making that earned our workers and technicians this Association’s distinction of Arms Control Persons of the Year for 2023.

In our doctrine, we have reaffirmed that U.S. nuclear weapons are reserved for deterring strategic attack by those that threaten us and our allies and partners with nuclear weapons.

And we will maintain a human in the loop for all decisions regarding nuclear weapon employment.

Together with the United Kingdom and France—and in stark contrast to the PRC—we have committed to transparency regarding our nuclear policies and forces.

However, we know that leading by example has only limited influence on our adversaries’ behaviors these days.

If they are unwilling to follow—and instead take steps to increase the salience of nuclear weapons—we will have no choice but to adjust our posture and capabilities to preserve deterrence and stability.

Stable deterrence—that is what we’re aiming for with our posture.

Toward that end, we are modernizing each leg of our nuclear triad, updating our nuclear command, control, and communication systems, and investing in our nuclear enterprise—to ensure that we can sustain, and if necessary, enhance our capabilities and posture.

We remain confident in our position today.

And, as the National Security Advisor made clear, we do not need to increase our nuclear forces to match or outnumber the combined total of our competitors to successfully deter them.

But without a change in the trajectory that Russia, the PRC, and North Korea are on—

The United States will need to continue to adjust our posture and capabilities to ensure our ability to deter and meet other objectives going forward.

We have already taken some prudent steps in this regard.

For example, we decided to pursue the B61-13 gravity bomb to provide an additional capability against certain harder and large-area military targets—

And that will allow us to move beyond the outdated megaton-class B83-1 that we seek to retire.

We are also seeking to extend the life of certain Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines to provide additional margin during the transition from legacy to modern capabilities across the triad.

The B61-13 is an example of a qualitative improvement to our arsenal that aligns with our approach—

It will enhance deterrence without increasing overall numbers, unduly stressing the existing program of record, or requiring any substantial new resources that would force a trade-off with other defense priorities.

As we consider potential adjustments, we will carefully keep in mind—

  • the implications for strategic stability;
  • the capacity of our defense and nuclear enterprise;
  • and competing budget priorities.

We’re focused on a “better” approach, not necessarily a “more” approach—which will require some creative solutions, and potentially discrete capabilities that fill an important niche.

But let me be clear—

Absent a change in the trajectory of adversary arsenals, we may reach a point in the coming years where an increase from current deployed numbers is required—

And we need to be fully prepared to execute if the President makes that decision—if he makes that decision.

If that day does come, it will result from a determination that more nuclear weapons are required to deter our adversaries and protect the American people and our allies and partners.

It will not be a simplistic calculation that more for them requires more for us.

The second area of focus for our administration is preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and other strategic capabilities by strengthening the global nonproliferation regime.

Extended deterrence has been one of our greatest contributions to the nonproliferation regime.

For decades, U.S. security guarantees have persuaded many of our allies that they do not need to develop nuclear weapons of their own to deter against the greatest threats that they face.

The continued success of extended deterrence is not, however, a foregone conclusion—

Allies face ever-increasing nuclear and conventional threats from Russia, the PRC, and North Korea, and may worry about the credibility of our guarantees.

Under the President’s leadership, we have fully invested in strengthening our alliance system—to ensure that extended deterrence continues to contribute to nonproliferation.

The Washington Declaration between the United States and South Korea is an example of our efforts to jointly approach nuclear scenarios with our allies, as equal partners.

NATO is also taking steps to improve its capabilities, posture, exercises, and planning.

This is work we are advancing ahead of the Washington Summit—to account for Russia’s actions in Europe, including in the nuclear domain.

In both Asia and Europe, we are looking for ways that allies can contribute to nuclear deterrence—

Whether by easing the burden on U.S. conventional or dual-capable forces, or stepping up their conventional support to U.S. nuclear operations in a contingency.

Enabling greater participation will increase allied confidence in U.S. security guarantees and achieve this extended deterrence for nonproliferation approach that we’ve taken.

This administration also continues to uphold the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty as the cornerstone of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime—

We are committed to advancing all three NPT pillars: disarmament, nonproliferation, and the peaceful uses of nuclear energy.

We are reestablishing U.S. leadership in the peaceful use of nuclear energy by making significant investments in our domestic industry and banning Russian uranium imports—

And, we are using that leadership to ensure that new reactor designs integrate the highest standards of safety, security, and safeguards;

To export our nonproliferation values through nuclear supply arrangements;

And to prevent the spread of sensitive enrichment and reprocessing technology to new countries.

We are also seeking to establish nonproliferation norms as part of the Administration’s effort to accelerate the development of fusion energy—

And are working with like-minded countries to establish a framework for guardrails on fusion energy systems, equipment, and related materials.  

We are committed to working closely with the IAEA to maintain the safe, secure, and peaceful use of nuclear technology—including on AUKUS, where we are working to set the highest nonproliferation standard as part of our cooperation with Australia and the United Kingdom. 

A related aspect of our nonproliferation policy is strategic trade controls.

We have traditionally worked through the multilateral arrangements to limit the spread of long-range missile technology that could be used to deliver nuclear weapons.

And we continue to advance strategic trade controls internationally by

  • improving coordination among like-minded partners;
  • strengthening existing multilateral regimes;
  • and taking steps to address any gaps that may emerge.

But there are limits to this consensus-based approach in a more competitive environment.

Our adversaries are blatantly disregarding their commitments and standing in the way of reforms.

To support its war in Ukraine, Russia has turned to the PRC to prop up its defense industrial base, North Korea to provide artillery and missiles, and Iran to provide missiles and drones.

Russia is increasing its defense cooperation with all three, and creating concerns as to what capabilities and know-how Russia may share as payment for the assistance it is receiving.

It has also been blocking new controls from being implemented on the most advanced technologies in the Wassenaar Arrangement.

Given the blatant steps by our adversaries to undermine the Missile Technology Control Regime, we are working to streamline our trade and cooperation to boost allied and partner defense capabilities—particularly with regard to long-range strike.

We are calibrating our “small yard, high fence” of controls to ensure that we can enable our allies and partners to strengthen their defense and deterrence.

We are looking to create new opportunities for exports and co-production that have been challenging because of existing controls and licensing requirements—

Not only within AUKUS but among a broader set of allies and partners.

A final area where our nonproliferation policy has adapted has been with regard to Iran.

The President remains as resolved as ever to prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon—and we are prepared to use all elements of national power to ensure that outcome.

We have been increasing pressure on Iran through a combination of sanctions, deterrence, and international isolation—

Including sanctioning over 700 additional individuals and entities connected to the full range of Iran’s problematic and dangerous behaviors in this administration.

We have long said that diplomacy is the best way to achieve a sustainable, effective solution to Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran’s escalations related to its nuclear program, support for Russia, and support for Hamas have undermined our ability to compartmentalize Iran-related issues—and caused us to lose opportunities for multilateral diplomacy.

We must, therefore, focus on setting the conditions for future diplomacy.

By taking steps to underscore to Iran the consequences of its nuclear escalations;

  • Building leverage;
  • Redoubling coordination with key partners;
  • Encouraging the PRC to press Iran to cease destabilizing behavior;
  • And insisting that Iran fully cooperate with the IAEA, and not further escalate its nuclear program. 

Earlier this week, we voted in favor of a Board of Governors resolution that calls out Iran for its lack of cooperation with the IAEA.

We also supported a comprehensive report by the IAEA to provide a greater understanding of the Agency’s outstanding concerns regarding Iran.

Such a report will be important as we approach a key inflection point in October 2025—when the UN Security Council could close consideration of the Iran nuclear issue under Resolution 2231.

Above all, our objective has been and will remain a diplomatic solution that ensures that Iran’s nuclear program is exclusively peaceful.

For the third pillar of our approach, we continue to prioritize arms control.

U.S. leadership on arms control and risk reduction makes tangible contributions to global security—

It also affirms the importance that we place on taking “tangible steps” under Article 6 of the NPT;

And it builds our credibility with close allies and partners and non-aligned countries.

The President made clear at the UN last September that “no matter what else is happening in the world, the United States is ready to pursue critical arms control measures.”

We are upholding that promise by thinking through what a future arms control agreement with Russia after New START might look like.

In any future agreement, our goal will be to reduce nuclear threats to the United States and our allies and partners by limiting and shaping adversary nuclear forces.

Without a doubt, the type of limits we will be able to agree to with Russia will be impacted by the size and scale of the PRC’s nuclear buildup, and U.S. deterrence needs vis-à-vis Beijing.

We are also investing in new monitoring and verification technologies and approaches—

Both to solidify existing agreements and set the stage for a future where the arms control arrangement, subject matter, and implementation may be very different than the past.

What’s more, this Administration is vigorously pursuing the arms control opportunities that do exist.

We’re pushing for results-based discussions at every major multilateral body that seeks to limit nuclear and other WMD risks:

  • The United Nations;
  • The NPT Preparatory Committee and Review Conference;
  • The P5;
  • The Conference on Disarmament;
  • The Chemical Weapons Convention and the Biological Weapons Convention;
  • Among many others.

We are thinking creatively about the content and mechanisms of arms control—and pursuing opportunities when they arise, even where treaty-based solutions are not going to be available.

We’ve committed to not conduct destructive, direct-ascent anti-satellite missile testing.

And put forth proposals for responsible behavior in space, and principles for the responsible military use of artificial intelligence—all unilaterally.

We are working to institutionalize new norms by bringing them into UN mechanisms.

We are also supporting arms control through accountability.

Together with our NATO allies, we suspended the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe in response to Russia’s withdrawal—opening the possibility of larger U.S. conventional force deployments and exercises in Eastern Europe.

We enacted lawful countermeasures in response to Russia’s suspension of New START that ensure Moscow would garner no advantage.

States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention also voted to oust Russia from the governing body of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons—

This was fitting given Russia’s continued violations of the Convention and unprovoked war of aggression against Ukraine.

But at least in the near term, the prospects for strategic arms control are dim.

Russia’s outright rejection of arms control dialogue casts a shadow over the likelihood of a New START successor after February 2026.

We must be prepared for that possibility—that these constraints disappear without replacement.

With the PRC, the United States offered a number of specific proposals focused on managing strategic risks in connection with a bilateral consultation held last year.

The PRC has shown no interest in engaging on these proposals and rejected holding a follow-on arms control-focused meeting.

With North Korea too, our attempts to engage on risk reduction and nuclear issues have been answered with more missile tests and greater hostility to us and our close allies.

In their outright refusal to even discuss arms control, Russia and the PRC are failing to meet their international obligations.

Practically speaking, they are forcing the United States and our close allies and partners to prepare for a world where nuclear competition occurs without numerical constraints.

The reality is that further enhancing our capabilities and posture is incredibly important to rejuvenating strategic arms control.

It will incentivize Russia and the PRC to engage in arms control;

Frame the subject matter at the heart of those engagements;

Provide the United States with leverage in those engagements;

And prepare us for an environment in which they may continue to refuse engagement.

We need to persuade our adversaries that managing rivalry through arms control is preferable to unrestrained competition across domains.

Let me close with this.

We should be under no illusions about the challenges ahead.

But we have a tremendous opportunity to chart a new path for arms control and nonproliferation—

Same goals, new approach.

I look forward to continuing to work with all of you to make that happen. Thanks for your time.

Author
Daryl Kimball

Remarks from UN Secretary-General António Guterres

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United Nations Secretary General António Guterres offered the following remarks to the 2024 Annual Meeting of the Arms Control Association, June 7, 2024, in Washington, D.C. 

 

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***EMBARGOED UNTIL 10am ET, June 7 ***

Dear friends, for more than 50 years, the Arms Control Association has gathered experts and leaders around an issue of monumental importance, ending the madness of nuclear weapons.

Your team has it right, we need to move back from the nuclear brink.

Humanity is on a knife's edge, the risk of a nuclear weapon being used has reached heights not seen since the Cold War. States are engaged in a qualitative arms race. Technologies like artificial intelligence are multiplying the danger. Nuclear blackmail has reemerged with some recklessly threatening nuclear catastrophe.

Meanwhile, the regime designed to prevent the use, testing and proliferation of nuclear weapons is weakening.

Dear friends, we need disarmament now. This was the central message of my disarmament agenda launched in 2018. Disarmament and conflict prevention are also at the heart of the New Agenda for Peace to reform the global peace and security architectures.

All countries need to step up, but nuclear weapons states must lead the way.

  • They must resume dialogue and commit to preventing any use of a nuclear weapon. And they should agree that none will be the first to launch one.
  • They must reaffirm moratorium on nuclear testing, and they must accelerate the implementation of the disarmament commitments made under the Nonproliferation Treaty. All parties to the treaty must start collaborating now to ensure consensus at the Review Conference in 2026.
  • I also urge the United States and the Russian Federation to get back to the negotiating table, fully implement the New START treaty and agree on its successor.
  • Until these weapons are eliminated. All countries must agree that any decision on nuclear use is made by humans, not machines or algorithms. Finally, nuclear saber-rattling must stop.

The United Nations is proud to stand with groups like the Arms Control Association across these important efforts.

Let's continue working to achieve a secure and peaceful world every country wants.

 

QR Access Code for the 2024 Annual Meeting

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Thank you for your attendance at our 2024 Annual Meeting. The National Press Club is a secure facility. Once you have arrived on the 13th Floor, you will need to pass through security gates by scanning the QR Access Code below from your phone or a print-out. All guests must have use this code to pass through security gates at the entrance of the Club to attend the event.

If you have any questions about the event, please contact Libby Flatoff at [email protected] or 202-463-8270 ext 105.

A roundtable discussion with Nicole Grajewski, Sina Toossi, and Ali Vaez.

June 2024

A Middle Eastern region already on edge over the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza faced another escalation of violence on April 1 when Israel struck the Iranian embassy complex in Damascus, killing 16 people, including eight officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC). Two weeks later, Iran responded by attacking Israel from Iranian territory for the first time with at least 300 drones and missiles. An Israeli base in the Negev desert sustained light damage, and a 7-year-old girl was seriously wounded, The New York Times reported, but more serious damage was averted because the United States and its allies helped Israel intercept the Iranian onslaught. Israel’s retaliation on April 18 was more limited than expected, but as the two countries had brought their long shadow war into the open, many people were fearful of what might come next. Arms Control Today gathered three experts on May 24 to discuss the implications of the Iranian-Israeli faceoff for the region. Nicole Grajewski is a fellow with the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Sina Toossi is a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, and Ali Vaez is senior adviser at the International Crisis Group and director of the group’s Iran Project. This transcript has been edited for clarity and length.

Arms Control Today: Why did the shooting war between Iran and Israel not explode into a wider war? What does this escalation mean to regional stability and the regional balance of power?

Ali Vaez: I think there are two main reasons why the exchange of fire between Iran and Israel did not result in an all-out war. The first is that none of the key stakeholders—Iran, the United States, and I would even say the Israeli government—had an interest in this turning into a regional conflagration. We know the United States already has its hands full with the war in Ukraine, with the war in Gaza, with concerns about China’s designs over Taiwan and it’s an election year, of course. In Iran, there is deep socioeconomic discontent, and the country just does not have the bandwidth to go through a conflict with much stronger adversaries such as Israel and the United States. Finally, Israel already is bogged down in Gaza and has serious concerns with Hezbollah on its northern border. I think this reluctance on all sides was one of the key reasons that they could manage the repercussions of an Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate on April 1, the Iranian retaliation on April 14, and Israel’s pinpoint attack on April 18.

Ultra-Orthodox Jews gather on April 30 around the remains of one of the ballistic missiles, fired by Iran earlier in the month and intercepted by Israel, that landed in an open area of the Negev desert. (Photo by Menahem Kahana/AFP via Getty Images)

The second reason is that there was a lot of behind-the-scenes diplomacy aimed at trying to minimize the risks of tensions spiraling out of control. We know that the United States was surprised by Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus and tried to take distance from it. We know that, since the attack, not just the United States but also Iran’s neighbors and European governments reached out to Iran, urging a restrained or at least a limited response. That is why, I think, the Iranian response was calibrated and telegraphed in advance. Finally, once the response took place, attention shifted toward trying to hold Israel back. That 
is why Israeli response was quite limited in nature.

Sina Toossi: I think neither side wanted war. The United States certainly didn’t want war. I would argue that Israel’s attack on the Damascus consulate ended up being a miscalculation. The Israelis did not think that Iran would launch a direct attack on Israel. The Iranians in that attack sought to establish a new redline. Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, characterized the attack on the Damascus consulate as an attack on Iranian soil and one that would be directly responded to by Iranians, and we saw that the attack was telegraphed 10 days in advance.

According to what the Iranians say, they didn’t use their best missiles and armaments. It started with these more slow-moving drones, which took five hours to get there, followed by ballistic missiles. But their goal was to establish deterrence. Israel, until now, has had deterrence domination in the region. We’ve seen years of Israel, pretty much with impunity, attacking Iranian-aligned targets in Syria, acts of sabotage and subversion within Iran, assassinations, and Iran has more or less been restrained or unable to respond or had this policy of so-called strategic patience. But this [attack] was an example of the Iranians explicitly trying to establish a new deterrence equation; that’s how the IRGC chief characterized it.

In terms of whether they’ve successfully achieved that, Israeli officials immediately claimed that 99 percent of Iranian missiles were intercepted. I think that has to be taken with a certain amount of salt. Regardless of what [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s personal ambitions might be, I think that U.S. pressure pushed the Israelis towards restraint. I think they had an incentive to downplay the impact of the Iranian strike. Regardless, U.S. officials told ABC News that around 10 Iranian missiles hit some of these Israeli facilities that were responsible for the attack on the Damascus consulate and airbase. There are also videos out there that show some impacts, at least. I think the Iranians did manage, on a minor level and without an intention of this escalating into a regional war, to penetrate the Iron Dome and David’s Sling systems, this kind of multilayered air defense that Israel has. I think that is partly why this has not escalated, that in addition to all the regional diplomacy and the personal stakes for all these countries, that this deterrence equation is changing. For now, temporarily at least, I would again argue that Israel’s very measured response, compared to what they’ve done in the past, which was much more brazen, much more aggressive in what they’ve claimed to do and what they’ve seemingly done, this one was much smaller by all accounts. The Iranians pretty much claimed that nothing really happened. Again, part of that is a desire not to escalate, and a new deterrence has been salvaged from the Iranian side, but that is tenuous. I think the direction of the Gaza war, and especially with Lebanon, will be very decisive.

ACT: In addition to adding anything to that last question, what does this Iranian-Israeli escalation mean to regional stability and the regional balance of power?

Nicole Grajewski: I think when we’re thinking about regional stability and the balance of power, this kind of acrimonious relationship between Iran and Israel has really shaped the broader regional order, and that’s likely to continue. One thing about the attacks that was so remarkable was that this was an escalation outside of the traditional area where Iran and Israel usually have engaged. Typically, Syria and parts of Iraq or Lebanon are where the main tension between Israel and Iran has played out. In December, there was an assassination of a higher-level IRGC general and then of course the consulate attack [in Damascus]. There’s still ongoing hostilities between Iran and Israel within Syria or within Iraq. I believe some of the Iranian proxies claimed that they were targeting Israel from Iraq a few days ago. So, this has not really faded away.

Unidentified men in Tehran carry a model of Iran’s first-ever hypersonic missile, Fattah, past an anti-Israeli mural during a gathering on April 15 to celebrate Iran’s drone and missile attack against Israel in retaliation for Israel’s attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus. (Photo by Morteza Nikoubazl/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

One thing about the April 14 attack on Israel that is less discussed is just the precision of Iranian weapons and munitions was actually very bad. Some of the missiles were not intercepted because of the lack of precision of Iranian ballistic missiles, which deviated from their targets. The strikes, although overwhelming, showed some of Iran’s weaknesses when it comes to precision targeting and accuracy. In contrast, the Israeli strike on Iran’s S-300 pinpointed the missile defense system’s battery down to a T. This shows a weakness when it comes to Iran’s capabilities.

But on the regional balance of power, I think that Iran restored deterrence, and we see a return to kind of the status quo. Obviously, Israel is bogged down in Gaza, but there are discussions ongoing still with Israel and the Saudis on potential normalization. Iran has normalized relations with the Saudis. But there hasn’t been a major disruption in terms of military or coercive power that has radically shifted the balance of power since the events.

ACT: The recent deaths of Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian in a helicopter crash introduced a new element of instability. What does Raisi’s death mean to politics in Iran and the region?

Toossi: I don’t expect much change in the near term. Foreign policy in Iran is implemented by the presidential administration, but devising it is more with the supreme leader’s office and more through a consensus approach in the Supreme National Security Council. As for the driver of Iran’s policies in the region, I don’t think any of those factors are going to change in the near term. Iran is still trying to engage in this proxy war with Israel, with the United States, but we’ll have to see what happens in Iran’s upcoming presidential election. The calculations for Iranians are contradictory in a way. There are opposing forces; and they’re having this increased legitimacy crisis in the past five years, where the turnout in the past presidential election and the parliamentary election was at historic lows; and there have been these protests over the death in custody of Mahsa Amini.

On the other hand, all the factors that contributed to Raisi’s rise and to the main center of power in Iran engineering the 2021 election to ensure his victory are still largely in place. I would argue it was largely about the conservative factions most fiercely loyal to Khamenei trying to maximize their influence over the system and Khamenei’s eventual succession. They want to have all these institutions aligned with them for when Khamenei passes; he’s obviously at a very advanced age. I think that logic still applies. If they allowed a Mohammad Javad Zarif [a moderate former foreign minister] to run now for president to boost public enthusiasm and potential turnout, that to me is still in contradiction with what seemingly has been their agenda all along. But I think they ultimately have to balance these forces. We’ll see who the Guardian Council approves as presidential candidates. If it does approve a more prominent moderate or reformist figure who could potentially generate more public enthusiasm, then that could potentially have implications for Iran’s foreign policy. But I think that is unlikely. Most likely, they’ll look for someone like Raisi, someone more passive and docile who’s more in line with what Khamenei wants.

ACT: Do you think that there’ll be any real change?

Vaez: It appears unlikely. At this moment in its history, the Islamic Republic seems to be primarily focused on ideological and political conformity at the top rather than legitimacy from below. In that sense, it is very likely, as has been the case with the past three elections—one presidential and two parliamentary—that the Guardian Council is only going to allow a very limited number of candidates that are in line with the supreme leader’s vision for the future of the Islamic Republic to participate. Even if there are reformist or pragmatist candidates, those would be rather safe bets who would not be able to garner sufficient support from the electorate. For its part, the electorate is experiencing political apathy. Two weeks ago, there were run-up parliamentary elections; and only 8 percent of Tehranis in the Iranian capital went to the polls, which was quite telling about how the institution of elections has been emptied out of any meaning for bringing about viable change and reforms to the political system.

Having said this, without any doubt, the upcoming election is going to splinter the conservative camp and deepen the rivalries as they jockey for the position of president, with the succession of the supreme leader looming large on the horizon. We don’t know this for sure, but if President Raisi was being groomed for the top job, then it’s back to the drawing board because it will be hard to find someone who would have all of the characteristics that Raisi had, in the sense that he’s a cleric subservient to the supreme leader with a long track record of proven loyalty and a relative consensus figure within the conservative camp. Most of the names that are out there right now [as alternative candidates] are actually laypeople, not clerics. It wouldn’t be hard, however, to find someone who would be a figurehead for succeeding the supreme leader, someone who would no longer be supreme. Earlier this week, a 92-year-old ayatollah was selected as the head of the Assembly of Experts, which nominally is in charge of selecting the next supreme leader. He can barely speak. People with that kind of characteristic are not difficult to find, but not all the characteristics that I mentioned in one person.

In terms of regional and foreign policy, I do agree with what Sina said. There’s just one consideration: this unexpected, sudden demise of the president and his foreign minister means that the country, at least for the next few weeks as it goes through a condensed electoral process and then will have to get confirmation for a new cabinet, would be inward-looking. That means that it would not have enough bandwidth to engage in any kind of serious discussions, whether that’s with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) or in direct talks with the United States that we know recently took place in Oman.

ACT: There has been an uptick in Iranian rhetoric about its nuclear weapons capability in recent weeks. Kamal Kharrazi, adviser to Iran’s supreme leader and a former foreign minister, for one, has said an Israeli strike on an Iranian nuclear facility could provoke Iran to build a weapon. Why is this rhetoric churning now? What are the implications?

Grajewski: The increase in rhetoric about this looming threat of weaponization, I think that’s a conscious choice, and in a sense that was part of this whole deterrence strategy that you’ve seen out of Iran. Obviously Iran, if it wanted to, has the ability to reconstitute some of its former activities prior to 2003, but we’ve not seen that decision made. Iran’s political elites have not made the decision to weaponize. The rhetoric has mostly been used as kind of a deterrence tactic or part of this larger strategy of leveraging Iran’s status as a threshold state, meaning that in many ways Iran has the fissile material and the experience to potentially break out, although it has not made that decision. When you see the rhetoric coming out from high-level officials, it seems to be almost coordinated. There are statements from Ali Akbar Salehi, the former head of the atomic energy organization, that would imply that. Then you have the supreme leader’s advisers making similar statements on multiple occasions within a few days. Other people have different interpretations, but it seems to me that there is an understanding that the West is paying attention to that and that this is an issue that is more directed outwardly, then there’s one that is directed inwardly toward its populations as a way to normalize a nuclear program to the Iranian population. In my view, the rhetoric is mostly directed outwardly in an effort to leverage Iran’s threshold nuclear status.

Kamal Kharrazi, a former Iranian foreign minister, shown here in Doha in 2022, is among those Iranian officials who are raising the level of rhetoric regarding the country’s nuclear capability. (Photo by Karim Jaafar/AFP via Getty Images)

Toossi: I think there’s definitely this element of using warnings about potential weaponization as leverage, also with an interest for some kind of negotiation, such as Kharrazi last week explicitly tying the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) nuclear deal and the desire for negotiations. But both Zarif and a senior IRGC commander, Ahmad Haghtalab, who is in charge of the protection of nuclear facilities, also tied their warnings about Iran potentially changing its nuclear doctrine to an Israeli attack on Iran. I think that’s also an important context where we are in this unprecedented situation where Iran ultimately did launch a direct attack on Israel. We were talking about whether deterrence is established early or not, but I also read into that rhetoric a kind of warning that if this situation with Israel escalates, that could factor into Iran’s nuclear calculations. We’ve seen that, for example, Israeli officials are seemingly primed to eventually attack Lebanon. It’s unclear when that would happen, but there are a lot of indications of that. In the case of a major regional escalation with Hezbollah, I think potentially the Iranians are also putting that option of potential weaponization on the table.

Vaez: What worries me the most is that the discourse that was taboo in Iran is becoming gradually normalized, and that has happened in parallel with a significant growth in Iran’s nuclear capabilities. That combination, even if in the short run, doesn’t imply an immediate decision to cross the Rubicon and develop nuclear weapons, but in the medium term could take the country in that direction especially if Iran comes to the conclusion that it cannot use its nuclear capabilities as leverage at the negotiating table to get out from under U.S. sanctions. This could happen if the United States fails to demonstrate that it is willing and able to provide effective and sustainable sanctions relief to Iran or if there is an administration in place that does not have an interest in a mutually beneficial agreement with the Iranian regime. This could well happen with a second Trump administration.

The second thing that could compel Iran to move in that direction is a change in its threat perception. So far, tensions in the region have remained relatively contained, but if indeed Israel engages in a conflict with Hezbollah that could result in the significant weakening of Hezbollah’s capabilities, then Iran would feel more insecure. The pinpoint attack that Israel conducted on April 18 also was a reminder to the Iranians of how vulnerable they are, especially in terms of conventional defensive military capabilities. So, if Iran’s regional deterrence is diminished, it might decide to use its nuclear capabilities as the ultimate deterrent. I think we should take this seriously, but I agree that in the immediate run, what this implies is that Iran does not want to become a Cuba and live under U.S. sanctions in perpetuity and so it is going to put pressure on the West to engage in nuclear diplomacy in a serious way.

ACT: Do you think that Iran is still interested in a nuclear deal that rolls back its program, or do you think that it sees a strategic benefit in maintaining some sort of threshold status?

Vaez: I no longer believe that a deal that would be as good as the JCPOA is achievable. I believe Iran always wanted to arrive at a point where it is right now, which thanks to President [Donald] Trump’s unwise decision [to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal] in 2018, it has been able to get to. I don’t think there is any going back from it, especially because of a high degree of cynicism within the Iranian political elite about the prospects of getting viable sanctions relief. If you look at the realities on the ground, almost everything that led to the 2015 nuclear deal no longer applies. The P5+1 [coalition of the permanent members of the UN Security Council and Germany] no longer exists because of tensions between Russia and China on the one hand and the West on the other. The core bargain of the JCPOA is no longer relevant because of Iran’s irreversible nuclear advancement and because of the West’s proven inability to provide sanctions relief. The compartmentalization of this agreement with Iran, which was one of the reasons that the JCPOA became possible, is no longer realistic, given that Iran is, from the U.S. perspective, on the wrong side of the war in Ukraine and Gaza and of course has stepped up its repression against its own people. So, I think what the Iranians are seeking is economic incentives in return for preserving the status quo and staying a threshold state, which as you can imagine is a very unattractive prospect for the West. This is why, even in the best case scenario post-U.S. presidential elections, it is going to be excruciatingly difficult to find a mutually acceptable formula.

ACT: Are you saying that if there is a deal at any point going forward, it would not just deal with the nuclear issues, but with political issues as well?

Vaez: Yes, if you look at the deescalatory understanding that the United States and Iran had in the summer of 2023, it is quite telling because, for the first time, this didn’t include just nuclear measures but regional and ballistic missile elements as well. Iran had committed, from what we know, not to transfer ballistic missiles to Russia and not to target U.S. forces in Iraq and Syria in addition to agreeing to freeze the size of the stockpile at [uranium enriched to] 60 percent [U-235] and not installing additional advance centrifuges. That is the model that would have to be applied in the future as well. I have a hard time imagining that the West would be willing and able to reward Iran with sanctions relief if indeed there are Iranian activities that would then make justifying that economic reprieve too politically costly for Western leaders.

ACT: How do the rest of you see the prospect of diplomacy?

Toossi: I think that’s a very notable aspect of the deescalation agreement, that the Iranians agreed to tie it to these regional actions that they do and attacks on U.S. forces. From my understanding, that’s something they were averse to do in the past, in 2015. At least in my view, it kind of creates a precedent if there is a new deal. I agree that the JCPOA doesn’t work for any side anymore and that a new deal would have to be something bigger and these regional disputes would have to be included. But whether that’s viable or not, I’m inclined to agree with Ali, and I’m very pessimistic. I think, in general, the overall trajectory in Iran is, we don’t care what the West wants, we’re going to continue these relationships with our neighbors, with China, with Russia, kind of bet on that horse. Raisi’s funeral is testament to this fact that Iran’s ties have improved with a lot of its neighboring countries, the Gulf Arab states.

The UN Security Council meets April 14 to urge restraint after Israel struck the Iranian diplomatic facility in Damascus and Iran retaliated. From left, Israeli Ambassador Gilad Erdan, Iranian Ambassador Amir Saeid Iravani, and U.S. Deputy Ambassador Robert Wood. (Photos by Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images)

Another positive difference is that, in 2015, a lot of these Gulf Arab states, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, were not included in those [nuclear] negotiations and were very suspicious of them and ultimately were not supportive of that effort. Now, that may be different. They do have these better ties with Iran, and maybe that creates space for some kind of agreement at a regional level that could potentially be expanded. Long term, I do see this desire within at least certain centers of power in Iran that, in order to have a more balanced foreign policy overall and for Iran to benefit from trade even with Russia or China or India, they ultimately need the secondary U.S. sanctions gone. That camp obviously was most strong with people like former President Hassan Rouhani and Zarif, but there are also elements on the moderate conservative side that make these kinds of arguments still.

I think right now the best hope in the short term is continuation of these kinds of deescalatory models. From my understanding, the reason that deescalatory deal from last fall fell apart was partly because of Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel, but also the money that was supposed to go to Iran and South Korea went to Qatar and Iran’s access to it is still heavily restricted there. The Iranians probably point to that as another reason why the United States can’t be trusted to follow through on its commitments. The best we can hope for in the short term is putting a ceiling on escalation, on confrontation. For example, having Iran not go beyond 60 percent enrichment of U-235 in its nuclear stockpile and ending attacks in the region. The United States can commit not to escalate more on our end and just keep that status quo until the next administration when I think, if there is any potential, we have to think bigger in terms of a bigger deal that takes into account other issues.

ACT: Are you suggesting a deal including the nuclear issue? How does that factor into the regional context? Israel, which has an unacknowledged nuclear weapons capability, is unlikely to contain its program. Saudi Arabia is negotiating with the United States to have its own nuclear energy program. Doesn’t that complicate the situation?

The Israeli army’s “Iron Dome” air defense system, which was used to defend Israel from Iranian drone and missile attacks, is shown to journalists in Sderot, Israel on April 17. (Photo by Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Toossi: I think a lot of this is contingent on the trajectory of Iranian politics, the elections, supreme leader succession, whether the current status quo is going to continue, which seems likely. So again, I am pessimistic. But I think when it comes to U.S.-Iranian relations, obviously the disputes are not just on the nuclear issue but also in the region from the Red Sea to Lebanon to Persian Gulf security, energy security. The United States still has this interest in getting out of this region to dedicate more resources to China and elsewhere. There are some in Iran who still think they need to get rid of these secondary U.S. sanctions. In the United States, there are many people who would say that we need to get off a war footing with Iran and dedicate more resources elsewhere in the world. For the Iranians, I think one lesson of the JCPOA was that, after the Americans, ultimately all these other issues, such as regional conflicts, prevented the JCPOA from being successful in the region. All these other differences now make me very pessimistic about the prospects for a grand bargain, especially after everything that’s happened in the past 10 years. I think the most we can hope for in the medium term is just putting a lid on further escalation.

ACT: If there were to be any agreement on the nuclear issue, would Russia and China be part of it? What are they advising Iran to do? How are they influencing Iran’s engagement with Israel?

Grajewski: On the question of whether or not any kind of deal is plausible, one of the things that makes it much more difficult is that a lot of the knowledge gained that Iran has had with working with higher enrichment levels, with more advanced centrifuges, that can’t really be reversed. On top of that, there is the issue that part of the JCPOA’s provisions expire by October 2025. So, no longer will the snapback sanctions be enabled, and there are sunset provisions that expire then. That being said, I do think there is a will within the United States and within Iran to get to a level or at least some kind of deescalation where there is a partial restoration of the JCPOA. Whether or not Russia and China have a role in restoring the JCPOA, I’m actually not quite certain about that right now. With the relationship we see between Iran and Russia, there has been a real difficulty with any kind of discussions on the JCPOA. First, Iran’s provision of drones [to Russia] likely violated part of the embargo that expired in October 2023. On top of that is the question of ballistic missiles. I think it’s really important to say that we haven’t seen Iranian ballistic missiles appearing in the war in Ukraine, and that’s very positive if we’re thinking about the prospects of any kind of discussions of the JCPOA. Perhaps it does reflect a conscious choice on the side of the Iranians not to deliver ballistic missiles. There have been reports on ballistic missiles, but I’ve seen no evidence of them actually arriving or Iran actually making that decision.

ACT: If Iran were to provide ballistic missiles, what would be the fallout?

Grajewski: The E3 [France, Germany, and the United Kingdom] really made clear that was a redline for them. One thing that is an issue is that ballistic missile deliveries to Russia would be far more escalatory than the drone provisions. But when it comes to the negotiations with the West and Russia and China’s role, I don’t see them playing a large role or at least not a positive role. China has been acquiescing to Iran’s expansion of its program. We’ve heard that, in [U.S.] Assistant Secretary of State Mallory Stewart’s discussions with the Chinese, there’s been some indication that China would be willing to pressure Iran not to continue with an expansion of its nuclear program. But the Chinese don’t want to assume this role as a mediator between the West and Iran.

With the Russians, there’s more of an emboldening of Iranian positions. Russian acquiescence to Iran’s kind of progression expansion has been a shift from its position prior to the war on Ukraine. This complicates the dynamics, especially when we’re thinking about it in the P5+1 context. One issue relating to Russia is Iranian support for the war in Ukraine on the side of the Russians. Right now, in the negotiations, especially within the IAEA, Russia emboldened Iran while China has taken a step back. Before the war in Ukraine, Russia was a really important and useful mediator. It pressured Iran to comply with the IAEA, either with the reinstallation of cameras or coming to the negotiation table after Raisi was elected. But that’s not the case anymore, and that complicates things. On U.S.-Iranian back channel discussions, I think Russia’s influence is looming but it’s not as present as it is within the P5+1 and IAEA contexts.

ACT: Any other comments about the Russian and Chinese regional roles? To add another question: Iran’s acting foreign minister, Ali Begari Khani, has conducted talks through Oman with the United States. What have they achieved? Could that be a possible channel or is it a continuing channel for deescalating not just political tensions but nuclear tensions going forward?

Vaez: On the first question, I think there is an element that one has to take into consideration, which is that Russia and China have a much higher threshold of tolerance in terms of Iran’s nuclear capabilities than is the case with Western countries. Now with growing, worsening great-power competition, both countries have an interest in making sure that the United States is preoccupied with concerns in the Middle East, as long as that doesn’t infringe on their own interests with Iran, especially on the Chinese side in terms of their ability to access energy resources in that part of the world. But if the United States is bogged down in the Middle East, that means that it cannot focus on China, and it’s a distraction from the war in Ukraine. Both of those things are positives for China and Russia.

In terms of negotiations that have occurred in Muscat, to the extent that we know, these are not aimed at crisis resolution but at crisis management. Iran and the United States have tried to keep a lid on the current tensions, whether it’s disagreements in the region or the nuclear standoff, rather than trying to think about what kind of future diplomatic solution could be found to address these in a more sustainable fashion. From what we know, a good part of these meetings is focused on exchanging threats and warnings of what would happen if the other side crosses certain redlines rather than engaging in a real quid pro quo bargaining aimed at resolving these issues. There is no guarantee that Bagheri Khani will become the foreign minister in the next Iranian government. If he is, by this point he has plenty of experience engaging with U.S. officials indirectly, and that could facilitate future negotiations rather than having someone who does not have such background. But we don’t know for sure that that would be the case. One element that has been introduced now, again as a result of the presidential transition in Iran, is that if there was the possibility of using the next few months before the U.S. elections in trying to lay the foundation for what comes next, that window has now been shortened because Iran would be internally focused in the next few weeks. I don’t think that the interim foreign minister or the regime as a whole would have an interest in serious engagement with the United States in this period.

Toossi: Ali knows the state of U.S.-Iranian negotiations and summarized them very well. On the China-Russia point, it was interesting that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin this week, when he was asked about Raisi, said Raisi was a very reliable partner for Russia. I think this gets to an important thing for China and Russia, and I’ve heard this from Iranians, that the kind of thinking in Tehran is that, during the Rouhani era, he was very much prioritizing the JCPOA, improving ties with the West…. We saw in the post-JCPOA era in Iran that, during that year, year and a half that we had the deal, those who sought better ties with the West were giving Western companies, European companies—Total, Airbus, Boeing—priority over Chinese and Russian ones. There are practical reasons for that, but for the Russians and Chinese, they didn’t have that assurance that Iran would be totally with them or closer to their orbits, even after Khamenei gave this kind of seminal speech during the Rouhani era, saying,  “We should prioritize the East over the West.”

Photo taken from Iranian state-run IRIB TV on May 20 shows the wreckage of the crashed helicopter in which Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian and other officials died some 670 km from Tehran. Raisi’s death has created new uncertainty for Iran and the region. (Photo by Shadati/Xinhua via Getty Images)

With Raisi, I think they really tried to make that clear. Even with the 25-year cooperation agreement with China, from what I’ve heard the Chinese wanted that earlier with Iran, as early as 2016 when the Chinese premier went to Iran. But then, it was slow-rolled from the Iranian side toward the end of Rouhani’s administration. I think that is a factor of Raisi’s presidency, and what Khamenei has tried to do is to signal to the Russians and Chinese that we’re not really counting on the West, we’re not fundamentally trying to improve our relations with them. I think tactically this space for secondary sanctions is potentially an avenue. In terms of primary U.S. sanctions, maybe the Iranians are never going to be interested in that; and they want to be closer to the Chinese and Russian orbits; and their bet overall seems to be that, in this changing global order and the emerging multipolarity, they want to go in that direction strategically. I think that stood out to me regarding these foreign relations of Iran.

ACT: After Rouhani took office, the desire of Iran’s young population for engagement with the West seemed effusive. If Iranian leaders now say our bet is with Russia and China, can they really drag their country into the embrace of Russia and China if the population is still interested in engagement with the West?

Iranians attend a funeral for the late President Ebrahim Raisi at Tehran University in Tehran on May 22. Raisi and other officials were killed in a helicopter crash three days earlier. (Photo by Iranian Leader Press Office/Handout/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Toossi: I would argue that, in Iran generally…they’re more interested in the West, Western culture, especially the more cosmopolitan youth. That is the kind of media that they consume, the things that they’re interested in. So, that is indeed the fissure. Strategically, the leadership wants to take the country in one direction, but the thrust of society wants to go in another direction. I think this plays into the broader potential unsustainability of the Islamic Republic and its government model. With that said, there are deepening ties between Iran and China and Iran and Russia. Especially with Russia, for example, it’s not that economically significant; but I do see, interestingly, that there are more Iranians who travel into China, that China is also working to promote its soft power within Iran. But I would say that as things currently exist and given modern Iranian history, most Iranians want normal relations with the world, want to be able to travel to Europe and the United States especially, and the Iranian diaspora is in these places as well. Those are big factors that will continue to play into this appetite, that a big part of Iranian society, as well as the Islamic Republic’s political system, do have this interest in ties with the West.

ACT: How sustainable are the current embraces between Russia and Iran, China and Iran?

Grajewski: The political embrace of Russia in particular isn’t necessarily very popular with the Iranian population, and that’s been a long-standing grievance that has been expressed on the streets and during the Green Movement and even after the invasion of Ukraine, where you heard “death to Putin” chanted in front of the Russian embassy in Tehran. That’s partly because of historical grievances toward Russia, this legacy of imperialism. China also has been subjected to a lot of popular discontent, partly because of its business practices and the view that Iran is essentially being bought out by China. But yes, there is a huge gulf between the Iranian population’s view of its foreign relations and also its domestic politics, especially among the youth and the reformists opposed to its current trajectory.

I don’t really tend to ascribe to a binary between East and West in Iranian policy because I think it’s a little more nuanced and balanced. But there is that tendency, and I think you see it a lot right now, to emphasize the East. Whenever Iran discusses the East, it also includes South America. Raisi represented in many ways the conservative disregard for a lot of popular sentiment, popular expression, and freedom of expression, and I think that this is likely going to continue. I do think that the current trajectory… and also the acrimony with the United States, the acrimony with Israel, will continue. As optimistic as we’d like to be, there’s a lot more shadow figures within the Iranian bureaucracy, such as the IRGC, which is largely disinclined to support any kind of nuclear agreement, partly because sanctions help sections of the Iranian bureaucracy or what Trump would call a deep state. But yeah, I think that you’re right though. I do think that the population doesn’t necessarily ascribe to these views. It’s a shame, and I think hopefully things change. 

Nuclear armaments are not a new element in cinematic culture in the United States but it seems they are more a focus today than they have been in a generation.

June 2024
By Luisa Kenausis

In recent years, nuclear weapons have made their way back to a prominent role in popular media in the United States. The headliner has been Oppenheimer, the most feted film of the 2024 Academy Awards and the most high-profile movie depicting nuclear weapons in decades. Beyond that example, nuclear weapons have appeared repeatedly in other U.S. media products, playing roles of varying significance in fictional movies, TV and streaming series, and docuseries and documentaries.

An original movie poster for director Ishirô Honda’s 1954 film ‘Gojira’ (‘Godzilla’). The rampaging monster’s destruction of Tokyo was designed to evoke devastation and fear caused by the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from Japan’s perspective. (Photo by Movie Poster Image Art/Getty Images)

Nuclear weapons are not a new element in cinematic culture in the United States, but it seems they are more of a focus today than they have in a generation. To understand the surge in interest, viewers must consider the societal function of storytelling, the interaction of global politics and popular culture, and the history of nuclear weapons in pop culture.It is also necessary to examine some recent and upcoming nuclear weapons-related films and TV shows, assess how they interact with prevailing Western narratives about nuclear weapons, and consider their potential impact on public opinion on nuclear weapons in the United States.

Narrative and Popular Media

Storytelling is how humans preserve and share knowledge. When a story is shared with people, its imbued meaning can be spread widely and become part of a community’s common beliefs or knowledge. In this way, stories allow people to make sense collectively of the world around them.1

Over time, the stories that people see and hear repeatedly, especially in a popular culture context, can contribute to their worldview and become part of a shared cultural perspective. The ways that objects such as nuclear weapons are depicted in popular, typically fictional TV shows and films and the narratives that are linked to them through popular media impact how the real-life versions of those objects are perceived and discussed within a culture.

Although global events can drive trends in popular culture, interaction between the two phenomena is more complex. Popular media informs the way that global events are perceived and interpreted within a specific cultural context.2 Pop culture is produced and consumed intertextually, with viewers, consciously or not, interpreting popular films and TV shows in relation to other popular works that they have already seen or that have already entered cultural consciousness. One fictional depiction of nuclear weapons may not drastically change a viewer’s personal beliefs about those weapons, but the viewer’s preexisting beliefs about nuclear weapons likely have been shaped by nuclear-related narratives that have been repeated across U.S. popular media over time.

U.S. Nuclear Cinema From 1950 to 1990

Popular films tend to reflect the beliefs, fears, and pervasive questions of their time. Within just a few years of the first nuclear detonations in 1945, U.S. filmmakers were using their films to examine nuclear weapons and nuclear war and its potentially apocalyptic aftermath thoughtfully. When public views on nuclear weapons shifted over time in response to global events, the depiction of nuclear weapons shifted as well, leading to a few distinct eras in nuclear cinema in the United States.3

Early films about nuclear weapons took seriously the task of making sense of these new weapons. Their narratives often felt heavy with anxiety, fear, and guilt, reflecting the nation’s complicated feelings about the bomb. The first Soviet nuclear test in 1949 and subsequent nuclear arms race further drove nuclear fears in the United States. In the 1950s, radiation-based monster and mutant movies reflected growing fears about the unknown impacts of radiation, nuclear testing, and atomic fallout.4 Science fiction films such as Godzilla, King of the Monsters! released in the United States in 1956 in a heavily modified version from the original Japanese Godzilla, Them!5 in 1954, and The Incredible Shrinking Man in 1957 emphasized the unknown, unpredictable dangers posed by nuclear weapons. In the same period, films such as On the Beach, released in 1959 and set in 1964, offered direct warnings to audiences that a nuclear war could lead to the extinction of humanity in the near future.6 These films raised questions about the atomic bomb and its effects, and their narratives centered on the unknown, potentially uncontrollable destructive power of nuclear weapons.

Peter Sellers, seated, as Dr. Strangelove, is surrounded by generals in a ‘war room’ scene from the 1964 pathbreaking classic movie satire Dr. Strangelove or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. (Photo by Screen Archives/Getty Images)

A few years later, Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb in 1964 took a sharper look at the dangers posed not only by the physical power of nuclear weapons, but also by reliance on nuclear deterrence to prevent a doomsday scenario. In this film, nuclear weapons are not depicted as a source of strength or protection for the nation holding them but as a vulnerability at the global level.

While the Cold War thawed from the late 1960s to 1979, nuclear weapons played relatively little role in U.S. films. This shifted following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and U.S. President Ronald Reagan’s election in 1980. A series of crises in the early 1980s, along with Reagan’s “axis of evil” speech in March 1983, again stoked fears of nuclear war among the U.S. public.7 These heightened fears were reflected in The Day After, a 1983 ABC TV movie in which nuclear war breaks out between the United States and the Soviet Union, destroying Lawrence, Kansas. Nuclear narratives in The Day After are reminiscent of those from the early nuclear films, with emphasis placed on the unimaginable horrors of a nuclear attack and its aftermath and the human impact of nuclear explosions.

Since the Cold War ended, the role of nuclear weapons in films has been reduced significantly, with weapons often functioning as plot devices rather than as film topics in themselves. In the 1996 blockbuster Independence Day, for example, the United States launches a nuclear-armed missile at an alien spaceship hovering above Houston, and the missile destroys the city but fails to harm the spaceship. In this film, the primary purpose of nuclear weapons is to demonstrate the alien ship’s imperviousness to human technology. No clear message about nuclear weapons themselves can be discerned from the film.

Nuclear War Rebooted

One consequence of the complex relationship between global political events and popular culture is that a viewer’s specific experience with a particular work of popular media is dependent on when and where they see it, with their viewing context being informed by current events in the world and their local news cycle. In February 2024, an audit analyzing U.S. media coverage of nuclear weapons between August 2020 and August 2023 found that coverage increased sharply following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, from a prewar average of 500 stories per month to a peak of nearly 3,000 stories in March 2022.8 After that, nuclear weapons coverage appears to track with key events in the Russian-Ukrainian war and threatening statements from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Across the analyzed coverage, there appear to be broadly shared assumptions among journalists, officials, and other quoted sources that nuclear weapons are dangerous and that their use would be catastrophic and must be avoided. Perspectives diverge, however, on the question of how best to avoid nuclear war. Proponents of arms control characterize nuclear weapons as a source of risk and advocate for their reduction or elimination in order to prevent nuclear war. Those in the other camp characterize a strong nuclear arsenal as essential to deter attack. These perspectives constitute the two competing narratives about nuclear weapons in today’s media: nuclear weapons keep the world safe or put us at risk.

In recent months, there has been significant media attention paid not only to specific news events relating to nuclear weapons, but to the rising risk of nuclear war more broadly. In March 2024, The New York Times launched “At the Brink,” an interactive multimedia series that seeks to examine the current dangers posed by nuclear weapons and consider what can be done to reduce nuclear risks. In the first installment, a narrative essay is paired with interactive illustration, animation, photography, video, and audio to depict vividly a hypothetical nuclear attack.9 Five installments have been published so far, and the series is expected to run through 2024.10

A recent public opinion survey further illuminates the context in which the current wave of nuclear weapons media will be interpreted. In the survey, respondents report relatively low familiarity with nuclear weapons topics, but six in 10 of them indicate interest in learning more about nuclear weapons and U.S. nuclear weapons policy.11 The survey was conducted a year after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and five months before the premiere of Oppenheimer, making it a useful snapshot of public opinion at this nuclear moment in film and TV.

The Current Wave

The much-anticipated release of Oppenheimer in July 2023 marked the start of the current surge of nuclear weapons in popular media. Directed by Christopher Nolan, the film tells the story of physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and his role in the creation of the atomic bomb. Although most of the film focuses on the Manhattan Project, it also depicts a contentious 1954 congressional hearing on the renewal of Oppenheimer’s security clearance.

Audiences line up for the screening of the blockbuster film Oppenheimer, about the development of the U.S. atomic bomb, at the MAX Cinema in Shanghai in August 2023. (Photo by CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

The film uses debates among Oppenheimer and other scientists to raise some of the competing narratives about nuclear weapons. As the Manhattan Project progresses, viewers see scientists discuss whether the new weapon will make the world more or less safe, whether the bomb should be used against a nearly defeated Japan, and whether the United States should pursue development of a hydrogen bomb. Although these on-screen debates add some nuance, the primary narrative is that before the United States used nuclear weapons against Japan, its creators believed that atomic bombs would mean the end of war. In an early scene, Niels Bohr asks Oppenheimer, somewhat leadingly, if the weapon will be big enough to end “all” war. Later, Oppenheimer repeats this belief directly more than once, saying that the bomb “will ensure a peace mankind has never seen” and that after it is used, “nuclear war, maybe all war, becomes unthinkable.” Notably, his view changes dramatically by the end of the film, but his post-Hiroshima perspective on the bombs is less explored.

Oppenheimer has drawn criticism for not giving a voice to the victims of nuclear weapons.12 Although the number of Japanese people killed by the atomic bombings is mentioned, the movie does not show the use of the bombs against Hiroshima and Nagasaki or the physical effects of the weapons on the human victims. Moreover, in telling the story of the Manhattan Project and the first U.S. nuclear test, called Trinity, Oppenheimer makes no mention of the downwinders, the victims of the fallout from U.S. nuclear testing. Nolan has said that the film does not show the bombings of Japan to maintain its subjectivity because Oppenheimer himself did not witness them and the film extends from Oppenheimer’s point of view.13 This omission may strengthen the film as a portrayal of Oppenheimer, but by leaving out the ugliest and most horrific consequences of nuclear weapons, it limits its own potential to inform its audience on nuclear weapons.

In some recent releases, nuclear weapons exist in the background. In Wes Anderson’s 2023 movie Asteroid City, for example, the film takes place in an isolated desert town, bursting with atomic kitsch imagery reminiscent of 1950s Americana. Characters comment idly on the atomic bomb tests that go off every so often. Despite the obvious proximity of nuclear weapons to Asteroid City, it is difficult to say what statement, if any, the film is trying to make about them.

Amazon Prime’s new streaming science fiction series Fallout, based on the video game franchise, reflects a similar tendency. The Fallout games are known for raising complex questions about nuclear weapons14 and, at times, offering a surprisingly accurate and powerful portrayal of a nuclear attack. In the new series, nuclear weapons serve only to explain the postapocalyptic setting in which the story takes place, and their portrayal lacks realism. In the first scene, viewers see a large-scale nuclear attack on Los Angeles, but the explosive flashes are weak, the shock waves move impossibly slowly, and the scale of destruction per detonation is far too small.15 The series explores stories in a wasteland created by a massive nuclear war, but real-world questions and concerns about nuclear weapons feel out of scope.

Fictional and dramatized films can increase viewers’ interest in nuclear weapons, but leave out key information when it does not fit the narrative of the story being told. Recent and upcoming documentaries can build on this increased awareness and allow interested viewers to learn more about the reality of nuclear weapons.

Netflix’s Turning Point: The Bomb and the Cold War is a nine-part nonfiction docuseries that looks at the development of the atomic bomb and the ensuing rapid proliferation of nuclear weapons. It links the collapse of the Soviet Union to the history of the Cold War to Putin’s ascent to power and ultimately to the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine. Nuclear weapons are particularly relevant in the first episode, which focuses on the U.S. effort to develop the atomic bomb during World War II and the decision to use it against Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.

There is overlap between the timelines depicted in Oppenheimer and Turning Point, but the two productions differ sharply in that Turning Point tells the story with a focus on the victims of the bomb, including victims of nuclear testing in the United States. For example, in Turning Point, viewers learn how a girls dance camp was located only 40 miles from the Trinity test site and how all but one of the 12 girls there would die of cancer before turning 30 years old. In Oppenheimer, these girls and other downwinder victims are not addressed at all.

Turning Point continues to challenge and interrogate commonly held notions about nuclear weapons. When the narrative that using atomic bombs against Japan was militarily necessary in order to end World War II is raised, most experts interviewed challenge or flat out reject it, arguing that the decision to use the atomic bomb was driven more by concerns about the balance of power with the Soviet Union than actual military imperative. The same episode features interviews with several Japanese hibakusha as they share their memories of the atomic bombing, another group of nuclear weapons victims essentially ignored in Oppenheimer.

Upcoming Documentaries

First We Bombed New Mexico, part of a flurry of new documentaries on nuclear weapons, draws attention to the downwinders of New Mexico, who were victims of the U.S. nuclear weapons program and were ignored in the Oppenheimer movie. Tina Cordova (L) and Louisa Lopez are organizers of the downwinders movement. (Photo by Valerie Macon/AFP via Getty Images)

Looking forward, a flurry of new documentaries and the seriousness with which they promise to address nuclear weapons could mark a meaningful shift in nuclear cinema. First We Bombed New Mexico draws attention to the downwinders of New Mexico who have been harmed by the testing of nuclear weapons near their communities. The film profiles Tina Cordova, leader and co-founder of the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium and a cancer survivor, in the fight for justice for the many nuclear victims in her state. Directed by Lois Lipman, the film is screening in festivals. Its timing coincides with a legislative effort to renew and expand the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, which originally excluded New Mexicans and is slated to sunset on June 7. The expansion bill passed the U.S. Senate in March, but is stuck in the House of Representatives.16

Bombshell tells the story of the struggle to control the narrative surrounding the atomic  bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The documentary will examine how the United States fought to repress accurate reporting on the atomic bombings until the publication of John Hersey’s Hiroshima. The film will consider the staying power of narratives and the ways journalists and others can challenge prevailing narratives. Now in production, it is directed by Ben Loeterman.17

Finally, How to Stop a Nuclear War will adapt Daniel Ellsberg’s book The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner into a feature-length documentary that promises not only to inform its audience about the dangers inherent in U.S. nuclear war planning, but also to call the audience to action. In a promotional video, actress Kristen Stewart said the film “sounds the alarm about this threat, but also shows the solutions and steps we can take to avert catastrophe.”18 Directed by Paul Jay, the documentary is in production.

Impact and Trends

The United States may be at the beginning of a wave of pop culture products depicting or discussing nuclear weapons. The earliest and most popular project in this current era, Oppenheimer, was released less than a year ago. It is too soon to draw conclusions about the long-term impact that any of these recent or planned releases will have on public opinion about nuclear weapons, and there are no recent survey data.

Nevertheless, there are some real-time information sources that can inform this question. Reviewing Google Trends data for U.S.-based web searches for “nuclear weapons” over the last few years suggests that people tend to seek information on nuclear weapons immediately following global events that remind them of the risks of nuclear war. In particular, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Putin’s subsequent nuclear threats have led to spikes in search volume, but other recent film and TV releases that deal with similar topics have not had a similar effect. Despite Oppenheimer’s release in late July, for instance, July and August 2023 did not see a significant uptick in searches on nuclear weapons.19 There was a heavy media buzz leading up to the premiere and a healthy box office turnout, but it appears that watching the film did not spur many viewers to seek further information about nuclear weapons.

Recent and upcoming media projects dealing with nuclear weapons can be grouped into two broad categories, based on content, target audience, and intended impact on the viewer. Several dramatized and fictional properties (Oppenheimer, Fallout, Asteroid City) appeal to a relatively broad audience and aim primarily to entertain audiences. Films and TV shows in this category have the effect of increasing public awareness of nuclear weapons through viewership of the properties themselves and through media coverage surrounding their release, which can have an even bigger impact.20 Yet, these projects are unlikely to move viewers to take action against nuclear weapons because they are meant primarily to entertain.

The other category is nonfictional properties, which often have a narrower audience but can dig deeper into the details of nuclear weapons topics with the primary objective of informing their audience and feeding its curiosity. Since the Cold War, the audience for documentaries and docuseries about nuclear weapons in the United States has been narrow. With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, nuclear weapons unfortunately have returned to salience, offering an unusually potent opportunity to reach viewers through a documentary. The potential audience for nuclear weapons documentaries is large and growing. Most people are interested in learning more about nuclear weapons, and it appears that filmmakers are moving quickly to meet and build on this interest.

Although these recent releases and the Russian war on Ukraine have brought nuclear weapons back into public awareness, it seems likely that the U.S. audience simply does not feel equipped yet to take action. Since the Cold War, most people in the United States have spent little time thinking about nuclear weapons, and an entire younger generation has no memory of the Cold War. As a major blockbuster, Oppenheimer may have raised public awareness of nuclear weapons, but it does not offer viewers a clear understanding of the dangers that these weapons pose or a pathway for viewers to take action against them. The film could increase interest to such a degree, however, that its audience might be more likely to engage with future nuclear weapons documentaries.

In terms of potential audience impact, the documentaries now being readied for release could not come at a better time. Russia’s war on Ukraine has kept nuclear weapons in the headlines, and this topic will continue to feel unusually relevant and salient to the public. The popularity of Oppenheimer may have a priming effect on public interest that bolsters viewership and audience engagement for upcoming anti-nuclear weapons documentaries.

 

ENDNOTES

1. Lucas M. Bietti, Ottilie Tilston, and Adrian Bangerter, “Storytelling as Adaptive Collective Sensemaking,” Topics in Cognitive Science, Vol. 11, No. 4 (October 2019): 710-732.

2. Jutta Weldes and Christina Rowley, “So, How Does Popular Culture Relate to World Politics?” in Popular Culture and World Politics: Theories, Methods, Pedagogies, ed. Federica Caso and Caitlin Hamilton (Bristol: E-International Relations Publishing, 2015), pp. 11-34.

3. Paul Boyer, “A Life in American Cinema: The Nuclear Option,” Perspectives on History, Vol. 46, No. 8 (November 2008), https://www.historians.org/research-and-publications/perspectives-on-history/november-2008/a-life-in-american-cinema-the-nuclear-option.  ​​

4. Toni Perrine, “The Godzilla Factor: Nuclear Testing and Fear of Fallout,” Grand Valley Review, Vol. 16, No. 1 (1997): 19-40.

5. Steve Ryfle, Ed Godziszewski, and Yuuko Honda-Yun, Ishiro Honda: A Life in Film, From Godzilla to Kurosawa (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2017), pp. 105-106.

6. Iris Strimitzer, “On the Relationship Between Apocalyptic Films and Reality in U.S. Cold War Culture” (thesis, Universität Graz, April 2021), https://permalink.obvsg.at/UGR/AC16210730.

7. Deron Overpeck, “‘Remember! It’s Only a Movie!’ Expectations and Receptions of The Day After (1983),” Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television, Vol. 32, No. 2 (June 2012): 267-292.

8. Adrienne Lynett, “Arms Control Advocates Have Increased Voiceshare, Media Audit Finds,” ReThink Media, February 12, 2024, https://rethinkmedia.org/blog/arms-control-advocates-have-increased-voiceshare-media-audit-finds.

9.  W.J. Hennigan, “The Brink,” The New York Times, March 7, 2024.

10. “New York Times Opinion Announces a New Series on Nuclear Threats,” The New York Times, March 4, 2024.

11. Dina Smeltz, Craig Kafura, and Sharon Weiner, “Majority in U.S. Interested in Boosting Their Nuclear Knowledge,” Chicago Council on Global Affairs and Carnegie Corporation of New York, July 2023, https://globalaffairs.org/sites/default/files/2023-07/Nuclear%20Survey%20Report%20PDF.pdf.

12. Emily Zemler, “Critics Say Omitting the Japanese Toll Makes ‘Oppenheimer’ ‘Morally Half-Formed,’” Los Angeles Times, August 4, 2023.

13. Christian Holub, “Christopher Nolan Responds to Criticism for Not Showing Hiroshima Bombing in Oppenheimer,” Entertainment Weekly, November 8, 2023.

14. Cameron Hunter, “The Ambivalent Nuclear Politics of Fallout Video Games,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 17, 2018, https://thebulletin.org/2018/10/the-ambivalent-nuclear-politics-of-fallout-video-games/.

15. Fallout, season 1, episode 1, “The End,” directed by Jonathan Nolan, written by Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Graham Wagner, aired April 10, 2024, on Amazon Prime Video.

16. Danielle Prokop, “RECA Expansion Passes U.S. Senate,” Source New Mexico, March 7, 2024, https://sourcenm.com/2024/03/07/reca-expansion-passes-u-s-senate/.

17. “Bombshell,” Filmmakers Collaborative, n.d., https://filmmakerscollab.org/films/bombshell/ (accessed May 5, 2024). Devon Terrill, a colleague of the author, is a consulting producer on this project.

18. Etan Vlessing, “Kristen Stewart Warns the World Is ‘Dangerously Close’ to Nuclear Catastrophe,” The Hollywood Reporter, December 15, 2023, https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/kristen-stewart-nuclear-catastrophe-warning-1235758067/.

19. Use of Google Trends highlighting Google searches from the United States from January 1, 2019, to April 1, 2024, showed spikes in search frequency for the term “nuclear weapons” that closely aligned with nuclear weapons-related global news events.

20. Stanley Feldman and Lee Sigelman, “The Political Impact of Prime-Time Television: ‘The Day After,’” The Journal of Politics, Vol. 47, No. 2 (June 1985): 556-578.

Luisa Kenausis is associate program officer for nuclear weapons at the Stanley Center for Peace and Security, where she plans and implements programming on nuclear risk reduction.

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