The momentum towards abolishing nuclear weapons has been building over recent years. The level of debate is at its highest since the end of the Cold War. This has rightly re-focused attention on the urgent need to build strategies for limiting and abolishing nuclear arsenals. Insufficient attention, though, is being given to the role of certain non-nuclear or ‘conventional’ weapons (namely long-range conventional ballistic missiles and missile defence technology) in this area. In particular, there is a pressing need to mitigate the prospect of conventional weapons imbalances, hindering progress in getting all nine nuclear weapon states on the path of abolition.

The way that nuclear weapons act as the ‘great equalisers’ in global strategic relations (ie. lowering the impact of conventional weapons imbalances between some states, particularly the great powers), creates a strong and dangerous ‘conventional-nuclear link’. To put it simply, the longer conventional weapons imbalances remain unaddressed, the lower the incentives are for all nuclear weapon states to take concrete steps towards nuclear abolition.   

ORG’s Sustainable Security Programme Manager Ben Zala recently spoke on this issue at a conference at the University of Aberystwyth on Nuclear Rivalries: Prospects for Cooperation and Trust-Building (part of Research Councils UK’s Global Uncertainties Programme). Ben and sustainablesecurity.org contributor Andrew Futter presented a paper at the conference. They argued that the Obama administration’s current strategy for moving towards nuclear zero via an increased reliance on missile defence and the conventional ‘prompt global strike’ system is fundamentally flawed. Ben and Andrew joined colleagues from King’s College London, Oxford University, and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, in discussing alternative strategies for building long-term trust between nuclear rivals in order to shift the current drive towards nuclear disarmament on to a more sustainable pathway.

A full version of Andrew and Ben’s paper will be published later this year, and a new project run by ORG’s Sustainable Security Programme on the ‘nuclear-conventional’ link will be launched soon.     
 

Photo credit Zionsiva.