Increasing Peril from Nuclear Arms: And How Physicists Can Help Reduce the Threat

With geopolitical and technological changes mostly driven by the nuclear weapon states, we are beginning a new nuclear arms race and deterioration of the multi-decade arms control regime. Recent years have seen the collapse of several key arms control treaties, the gradual spread of nuclear weapons to nine nations, destabilizing technological threats (such as cyber attacks on nuclear weapon systems), and an emerging nuclear arms race between superpowers. Modernization and strengthening of nuclear weapon systems in multiple nations is preparing the world to commit to nuclear weapons for the remainder of the century. Nuclear threats accompanyhing the war in Ukraine exemplify the ever present risk of escalation of conventional war to a nuclear conflict. This talk will overview the basic technical and policy aspects of nuclear weapons, and describe the current critical situation. We will also describe feasible steps to reduce the nuclear threat, and a new initiative, the Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction, which was initiatied by the American Physical Society to engage physical scientists in advocacy for nuclear threat reduction. The Physicists Coalition is engaging the physics community in this issue, and establishing a national network of physicsts, as citizen scientists, to participate in the debate over nuclear weapons.