Nukes & Other New Tech

Ok, Doomer!

Welcome to “Nukes & Other New Tech”, a bonus episode of “Ok, Doomer!”, the podcast series by The European Leadership Network’s (ELN) New European Voices on Existential Risk (NEVER) network. Hosted by the ELN’s Policy and Impact Director, Jane Kinninmont and Project and Communications Coordinator, Edan Simpson, this episode takes a deep dive into the interplay between nuclear weapons and emerging and disruptive technologies...

In today’s special bonus episode, Jane and Edan are taking a deep dive into an ELN project exploring the emerging risks posed by the intersection between new technologies and nuclear weapons.

In “What’s the Problem?” Jane is joined by Belen Bianco, a former a Policy Fellow at the European Leadership Network and current UN Official., Belen provides a welcome introduction to the ELN’s nuclear weapons and new technologies project. Belen also explains why the ELN decided to analyse the aggregate effects of new technologies on nuclear decision-making, as opposed to exploring the technologies in isolation, and outlines the potential future threat landscape in this field.to look at nuclear policy and nuclear risks which are evolving in a context where we don't just have one rapidly evolving technology, we have multiple technologies, all evolving fast and all of which are interacting with each other.

The episode then turns to Edan’s “How To Fix It” panel, which featuresfeaturing Rishi Paul, a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Leadership Network, Héloïse Fayet, a member of the Younger Generation Leaders Network (YGLN) member and Research Fellow at the Security Studies Centre of IFRI (French institute of international relations), and Kim Westerich-Fellner, a NEVERew European Voices and Existential risk member and Mercator Fellow on International Relations and Visiting Fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR)...

The panel discusses the ELN’s Guardrails and Self-Assessment (GSA) Framework for Emerging and Disruptive Technologies (EDTs), which was designed to raise awareness and familiarise stakeholders at various levels with the complex interplay between a multitude of technologies, NC3 systems, and nuclear weapons decision-making.focus on an ELN project looking into the interaction between nuclear weapons and new technologies.

In this episode’s “Turn Back The Clock” segment, Jane is joined by Julia Berghofer, a Senior Policy Fellow at the European Leadership Network. I, who's talks about a previous time when a major nuclear armed state adopted a systematic approach to reducing some of the key risks that might come up when nuclear weapons intersect with new technologies.n light of the Biden Administration’s decision to undertake a failsafe review of the United States’ nuclear command, control, and communications systems, Julia provides a history of nuclear failsafe reviews, and what’s changed since the United States undertook its first such review in the early 1990s.

And finally, in “In The Debrief”, Jane and Edan reflect on the a really interesting the episode and share, sharing their key takeaways and favourite moments. . They talk about Héloïse’s point around France not having an integrated understanding of EDTs, how Julia shone insight on failsafe reviews and they reflect on how useful it’s been to have such an in-depth this conversation with people from different European countries, providing a more diverse set of insights to see how things actually work and how they actually play out in different parliaments and different governments with different ways of thinking.

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