The virtual seminar will be held from 12:30 to 2:00 p.m. (E.T.)
There are long standing efforts by arms control scholars and interested policy makers to understand and reduce the risks of nuclear war and nuclear terrorism. In June 2023, in response to a mandate from the US Congress, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released “Risk Analysis Methods for Nuclear War and Nuclear Terrorism.” The report is the first phase of a study exploring the nature of risk analysis methods and its use in U.S. strategy for assessing nuclear war and nuclear terrorism risks. This talk will examine the background to this report, and highlight its limits. It also will offer an assessment of the current risk of nuclear weapon use.
About the speaker: Martin Hellman is Professor Emeritus of Electrical Engineering at Stanford University and affiliated with its Center for International Security and Cooperation, where his work is focused on the risk of nuclear war. His project Rethinking National Security seeks to engage the public on how current policies need to change to reflect that national security is inseparable from global security. His work on public key cryptography has won numerous awards including election to the National Academy of Engineering and the 2015 Turing Award.