Disruptive Technologies and Nuclear Weapons

The risks posed by nuclear weapons are now compounded by a host of emerging technologies that undermine the traditional foundations of nuclear deterrence, arms control, and nuclear crisis management. In a new essay published by New Perspectives, VCDNP Executive Director Elena Sokova considers these issues, as well as the contentious political environment that surrounds them.

In an era when the existing arms control framework is disintegrating at an accelerating pace and when relations between two key founders of that framework, the United States and Russia, reach a new low nearly every day, international security increasingly rests on unilateral decisions about deterrence while research and procurement of new arms increasingly are shaping as an arms race.

Against this backdrop, a number of emerging technologies may further exacerbate dangers associated with nuclear weapons and trigger escalation transforming political conflict into a nuclear one. These technologies include but are not limited to artificial intelligence (AI), quantum computing, drones, cyber technologies, hypersonic missiles and robotics. In particular, Ms. Sokova draws attention to the threats posed by offensive cyber capabilities, AI and quantum technology.

• Cyber threats to nuclear facilities, as well as to nuclear command, control and communication (NC3) systems have moved out of the realm of theory. Ms. Sokova referred specifically to the attack on an Indian nuclear power plant in October 2019 as an example. Although the reactor was not affected, the nexus between cyber threats and the nuclear domain has become a reality.
• AI may threaten conventional wisdom about where the nuclear threshold lies. For example, better situational awareness provided by AI may result in dangerously raised alert levels or even to delegation of launch authority to an AI system – a return to the frightening “dead hand” system from the height of the Cold War at a whole new level.
• The implications of quantum computing technology for nuclear or any other security realm are not yet sufficiently understood. Examples of possibilities include advances in “un-spoofable” geolocation technologies that would improve missile navigation and theoretically result in a perception of feasibility of a disarming first strike, radically enhancing threat perceptions and undermining traditional foundations of strategic stability.

In conclusion, Ms. Sokova observed that the effects of all technologies on the global landscape depend on how they are used. AI, for example, could pose the threats mentioned above, but it could also improve confidence in nuclear verification and arms control. Much will depend on how leading military powers perceive their uses and whether they are able to engage in a constructive dialogue emphasizing their positive opportunities and mitigating their negative consequences.

Read the full essay