Strategies for Reducing Nuclear Dangers
It is highly unlikely that in their present state existing pro-arms control efforts can have any meaningful impact on Trump’s nuclear policies.
The concluding Part IV of my new analysis published in the International Policy Journal of the Center for International Policy.
The very first step in avoiding extinction is simply to be aware of the threat.
A re-elected Trump will likely put nuclear weapons programs on steroids, trash the remaining U.S. participation in the global arms control regime, and trigger discussion of new nuclear weapons programs in more other states than we have seen since the early 1960s. Indeed, Trump’s election has intensified talks in some countries that, in a period of uncertain American leadership and growing threats from Russia and China, they need to develop their own nuclear weapons. This is not just adversaries like Iran, but allies like South Korea where a growing majority of the public already favors developing nuclear weapons.
It is unlikely that in their present state, the existing pro-arms control organizations and research programs can have a meaningful impact on Trump’s nuclear policies. Nor is a mass anti-nuclear movement likely to emerge, as it did in the 1980s. There are, however, several possibilities that could develop measurable influence over nuclear policy.
The first and easiest is for the existing groups to merge. As it stands, they are simply too weak to have any discernible political impact, but united they might. There are a few that could continue on their current budgets and funding streams. Most will, at best, limp along as funding grows more constricted. If just a few of the groups could agree to merge efforts, it could snowball. Mergers would increase their size, visibility and clout while reducing administrative overhead.
Similarly, research programs and academic institutes could agree to cooperate on substantive reports documenting the current crisis, its root causes and plans for preserving and modernizing nuclear security agreements. While a report from projects at Stanford, Harvard and Princeton is always valuable, a combined report would generate more interest and produce more impact on policy makers. The same is true for research projects at think tanks, such as the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace or the Brookings Institution.
The recently formed Task Force on Nuclear Proliferation and U.S. National Security is a recent example of such an approach. This centrist group is the result of a collaboration among Harvard University’s Belfer Center, the Carnegie Endowment and the Nuclear Threat Initiative. They hope to issue a report in mid-2025 “with policy recommendations to guide the future of U.S. national security policy.” Whether the Trump White House will listen to such a group is an open question, but it could help develop a consensus among those outside the extremes represented by the incoming administration.
The relative rarity of such cooperation is a testament to the strong institutional reluctance and competition for recognition that motivates most organizations in the field.
Another approach could be for major donors to encourage coordination by funding a new campaign. Several large donors could agree to fund such a campaign headquartered in a single institute (perhaps one not associated with previous efforts), providing grants to experts, advocates and communications mavens conditioned on their participation in a joint effort.
This was the model successfully developed and deployed in the New Start campaign and the Iran Deal coalition in the 2010s. These two campaigns built on the success of similar campaigns in the 1980s to extend and strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to negotiate the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention. Those, in turn, learned from the successful campaign to Save the ABM Treaty in the 1980s.
These formal, cooperative, jointly-funded campaigns are the only ones that have worked absent the kind of mass mobilizations represented by the Nuclear Freeze movement.
All these efforts were three-legged stools, relying on the work and cooperation of experts, who develop and validate alternative nuclear policy; advocates, who work with government officials in the executive and legislative branches to advance the policies; and messengers, who build public support for the policies through sustained media engagement.
Another possible method is for donors to provide grants to add a nuclear weapons or Pentagon budget component to larger, established expert and advocacy groups. This could fit in well with groups looking to protect social programs from Trump’s budget ax, providing an alternative source of budget savings. Stand alone efforts have failed, but an integrated approach may have a better chance of success. This technique worked well for the Iran campaign, bringing in groups such as MoveOn, Indivisible, Vote Vets and J Street who otherwise may not have had the resources to work on the issue.
Finally, if none of the above approaches prove feasible, or if Trump’s hammerlock on the executive and legislative branches is judged too powerful to overcome, a campaign based primarily on communications might work.
Media and Mass Movements
Donors often look to duplicate the impact of the ABC movie event, The Day After. It was one of the most dramatic communications events of the 1990s, said to have even moved President Reagan towards nuclear abolition.
It is possible that one or more such movies could reawaken public concern about nuclear risks. Annie Jacobson’s brilliant 2024 novel, Nuclear War: A Scenario, for example, could be such an event. Dune director Denis Villeneuve has purchased the film rights to the book. “The expectation is that Villeneuve would take this one as another giant project after he completes Dune: Messiah, which he and Legendary are developing as the conclusion of the trilogy,” reports the Hollywood publication, Deadline.
Many thought that the award-winning film, Oppenheimer, could play such a role. While it had a huge impact on audiences, however, it had no such corresponding impact on policy. Nor did it spontaneously generate a new anti-nuclear movement.
The lesson may be that a movie or show has to be part of an existing movement rather than relying on it to instigate such a movement. The Day After aired in 1983 during the Nuclear Freeze movement that had already generated one million people to demonstrate at a rally in Central Park in 1982. Films can validate the concerns of thousands of people already in motion but not generate momentum where none exist.
Absent a mass movement, the value of such a movie could best be realized by coalitions of experts and groups prepared and funded to amplify its message as part of a multi-faceted campaign.
“It’s vital that we use media technology to reverse the direction that we seem to be headed in again,” says David Craig, author of Apocalypse Television: How The Day After Helped End the Cold War. “I don’t think that it’ll be in the form of a one-off Hollywood narrative. It would need to be dozens coming together and letting communities know that this is something that we can’t afford to ignore.”
Alternatively, a big-event film or series could help generate collective action if it came out during a period of heightened media concern over nuclear dangers. Starved of funds, many news organizations could benefit from generous grants to support their investigation of the growing nuclear risks. The Outrider Foundation is engaged in such a strategy with its no-strings grants to The New York Times, the Associated Press and others. The foundation does not dictate the content of the reporting, its grants merely allow journalists to pursue their own analysis.
Conclusion
We are at a critical crossroads. The path forward is not clear. This article is intended to stimulate discussion; it is not meant to be the final word. It is the author’s hope that others will contribute articles correcting this analysis, offering their own, or deepening particular points raised. Others may want to explore why past efforts failed, drawing lessons for future work.
We must start by recognizing that we are in a deep hole. It will take sustained, collective work to get us out and to chart a new course.
More About the Author
Joseph Cirincione was president of Ploughshares Fund for 12 years. He was previously the vice president for national security and international policy at the Center for American Progress; the director of nuclear non-proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; and a senior fellow and director of the Committee on Nuclear Policy, the Campaign to Reduce Nuclear Dangers and the Campaign for the Non-Proliferation Treaty at the Stimson Center. He worked for nine years on the professional staff of the House Armed Services Committee and the Government Operations Committee. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the author or editor of seven books and over a thousand articles on nuclear policy and national security. He was recently elected vice chair of the Center for International Policy Board of Directors.
End of Part IV
For Part II, please click here
For Part III, please click here
For the complete article, please visit the International Policy Journal at the Center for International Policy.
Bonus: A new article in Gizmodo by Matthew Gault features extensive comments from me and the insightful Sharon Squassoni on all these themes.
Bonus Bonus: A new analysis from the great team at The New York Times covering nuclear issues reads like a mind meld between me and the editorial board. It tracks very closely with the analysis I have presented in Strategy & History this month. Great videos; great analysis.
Very much appreciate the attempt to outline action paths. Most likely will require some terrible scare to make any of them viable.
Joe writes, "The first and easiest is for the existing groups to merge."
This assumes the primary goal of the groups is nuclear weapons, when it may be more accurate to suggest the primary goal is career advancement. Merging would require most of the group leaders to demote themselves to supporting players.
Joe writes, "The relative rarity of such cooperation is a testament to the strong institutional reluctance and competition for recognition that motivates most organizations in the field."
Ah, there you go, now we're talking. Thank you.
Joe writes, "Similarly, research programs and academic institutes could agree to cooperate"
Isn't this more of the same old thing that has consistently failed from the beginning? Where is the evidence that information and analysis can solve this problem? Wouldn't this be researchers doing what they like to do, instead of what must be done?
Not information. LEVERAGE. Pain inflicted as a necessary medicine.
Joe writes, "Another approach could be for major donors to encourage coordination by funding a new campaign."
How about all these people aiming their money at supporting the election of a congressperson who would pledge to talk about NOTHING every single day other than nuclear weapons? A single issue candidate laser focused on the single biggest threat to America, that almost all our other "leaders" are typically happy to ignore. The novelty of a proudly proclaimed single issue candidate might succeed in generating a lot of media coverage.
Joe writes, "Donors often look to duplicate the impact of the ABC movie event, The Day After."
That sounds promising! Less intellectual abstraction, and more in your face horror, speaking to the public where they live.
Joes writes, "Many thought that the award-winning film, Oppenheimer, could play such a role. "
Sadly, that was one of the worst movies ever made on this subject. I struggled mightily to finish it, and failed. Why it got so many awards is a complete mystery. As example, Fat Man and Little Boy, while being somewhat outdated at this point, did a much better job of telling that story.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat_Man_and_Little_Boy_(film)
Joe writes, "Films can validate the concerns of thousands of people already in motion but not generate momentum where none exist."
Good point. However....
The next detonation is coming, and it would seem helpful to be prepared for that crucial moment. Make the films, keep them handy, and wait for the right moment to release them.
Joe writes, "This article is intended to stimulate discussion"
Where? Who? When?
In the spirit of your original suggestion of merging efforts, how about this?
All the nuclear weapons experts and activists brought together on a single online forum, where their thinking could be easily accessed by the public. It would take someone like yourself to make that happen.
The problem of course, which you also mentioned, is that to a great degree the nuclear weapons expert community is as much about business as it is nukes. And so everybody wants to write on their own blog or book etc, where they are the focus of attention. And so I'd reluctantly agree, getting the entire industry to come together to write in a single place would be a major herding cats operation that perhaps even you couldn't organize.
I dunno. I really don't. But honestly, there just seems to be far too much focus by all the experts on the usual failed routines. Everybody is wearing their nice suit, sitting in their nice office, finishing up their latest book, promoting their book at the latest conference, going along to get along, complacently content in the group consensus, afraid to stick their neck out, or not seeing a need to do so etc.
Suggestion for a future article:
Where are the bomb throwers in the nuclear weapons experts/activists community?? Who is willing to jump up and kick over the card table their peers are sitting at?
Not obscure nobodies like me. People with some credibility and chance of being heard. Do such people exist? Can you find such folks and introduce us to them?