nuclear war | Global Catastrophic Risk Institute

False Alarms, True Dangers? Current and Future Risks of Inadvertent U.S.-Russian Nuclear War

Post Date January 01, 2016

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Author Seth Baum

View the paper “False Alarms, True Dangers? Current and Future Risks of Inadvertent U.S.-Russian Nuclear War”

In the post–Cold War era, it is tempting to see the threat of nuclear war between the United States and Russia as remote: Both nations’ nuclear arsenals have shrunk since their Cold War peaks, and neither nation is actively threatening the other with war. A number of analysts, however, warn of the risk of an inadvertent nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia — that is, a conflict that …

December Newsletter: A Focus On Solutions

Post Date December 15, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

Category newsletter

Dear friends,

This holiday season, please consider supporting the Global Catastrophic Risk Institute. You can donate online or contact me for further information. At this time, GCRI’s success is limited mainly by its available funding. And nothing beats giving the gift of protection from global catastrophe.

In my view, what’s ultimately important is not the risks themselves but the actions we can take to reduce them. A risk could be very large, but if we can’t do anything about it, then we should focus on something else. …

Confronting the Threat of Nuclear Winter

Post Date October 14, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

Category nuclear war, publications

View the paper “Confronting the Threat of Nuclear Winter”

Nuclear weapons explosions send large quantities of smoke high into the atmosphere. The smoke blocks incoming sunlight and destroys ozone, causing major environmental harms worldwide, including cold temperatures, reduced precipitation, and increased ultraviolet radiation. In technical terms, nuclear winter refers to cooling such that winter-like temperatures occur during summer, as caused by nuclear war. This paper uses the term nuclear winter more generally to refer to the full set of global environmental harms from nuclear war. The …

Winter-Safe Deterrence as a Practical Contribution to Reducing Nuclear Winter Risk: A Reply

Post Date August 25, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

Category publications

View the paper “Winter-Safe Deterrence as a Practical Contribution to Reducing Nuclear Winter Risk: A Reply”

In a recent issue of this journal, I published an article proposing the concept of winter-safe deterrence. The article defined winter-safe deterrence as “military force capable of meeting the deterrence goals of today’s nuclear weapon states without risking catastrophic nuclear winter”. The article and a summary version published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have since stimulated extensive discussion in social media, the Bulletin, and now a symposium in this journal. The discussion has been productive for refining certain …

June Newsletter: The Winter-Safe Deterrence Controversy

Post Date June 22, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

Category newsletter

Dear friends,

The last few months have gone well for GCRI. We have several new papers out, two new student affiliates, and some projects in the works that I hope to announce in an upcoming newsletter. Meanwhile, I’d like to share with you about a little controversy we recently found ourselves in.

The controversy surrounds a new research paper of mine titled Winter-safe deterrence: The risk of nuclear winter and its challenge to deterrence. The essence of winter-safe deterrence is to seek options for deterrence that would …

Winter-Safe Deterrence: The Risk of Nuclear Winter and Its Challenge to Deterrence

Post Date March 14, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

Category nuclear war, publications

View the paper “Winter-Safe Deterrence: The Risk of Nuclear Winter and Its Challenge to Deterrence”

Eight countries have large nuclear arsenals: China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. North Korea might have a small nuclear arsenal. These countries have nuclear weapons for several reasons. Perhaps the biggest reason is deterrence. Nuclear deterrence means threatening other countries with nuclear weapons in order to persuade them not to attack. When nuclear deterrence works, it can help avoid nuclear war. However, nuclear deterrence …

February Newsletter: New Directions For GCRI

Post Date February 17, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

Category newsletter

Dear friends,

I am delighted to announce important changes in GCRI’s identity and direction. GCRI is now just over three years old. In these years we have learned a lot about how we can best contribute to the issue of global catastrophic risk. Initially, GCRI aimed to lead a large global catastrophic risk community while also performing original research. This aim is captured in GCRI’s original mission statement, to help mobilize the world’s intellectual and professional resources to meet humanity’s gravest threats.

Our community building has been …

Global Catastrophes: The Most Extreme Risks

Post Date February 05, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

Category publications

View the paper “Global Catastrophes: The Most Extreme Risks”

The most extreme risk are those that threaten the entirety of human civilization, known as global catastrophic risks. The very extreme nature of global catastrophes makes them both challenging to analyze and important to address. They are challenging to analyze because they are largely unprecedented and because they involve the entire global human system. They are important to address because they threaten everyone around the world and future generations. Global catastrophic risks also pose some deep dilemmas. …

January Newsletter: Vienna Conference on Nuclear Weapons

Post Date January 11, 2015

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Author Seth Baum

Category media coverage, newsletter

Dear friends,

In December, I had the honor of speaking at the Vienna Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons, hosted by the Austrian Foreign Ministry in the lavish Hofburg Palace. The audience was 1,000 people representing 158 national governments plus leading nuclear weapons NGOs, experts, and members of the media.

My talk “What is the risk of nuclear war?” presented core themes from the risk analysis of nuclear war. I explained that each of us is, on average, more likely to die from nuclear war …

November Newsletter: Visiting Colleagues

Post Date November 17, 2014

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Author Seth Baum

Category newsletter

Dear friends,

Over the last two months, I have had the good fortune to be able to visit three close groups of colleagues: the Centre for Study of Existential Risk at Cambridge University, the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, and the Future of Life Institute in Boston, which has ties to MIT and Harvard. All three organizations are doing great work—work that nicely complements what we at GCRI have been doing. I think the foundations are being laid for a productive and successful community …

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