On 27 April 2015, VCDNP hosted a seminar by Deepti Choubey, Fellow at The Foreign Policy Institute (FPI) of the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University, who discussed her latest report titled "Toward Disarmament Securely: Clarifying the Nuclear Security and Disarmament Link." During the seminar, Choubey provided a landscape of views from nuclear-armed and non-nuclear-weapon states on the relationship between nuclear security and disarmament, and examined the connections made that can help or hinder progress on both agendas.
Choubey began by outlining how the concepts of nuclear security and disarmament vary between different states. These varying perspectives have implications for progress on global agendas and shaping national priorities. The challenge associated with analyzing how countries understand the link between nuclear security and disarmament, argued Choubey, is that discussions relating both subjects do not usually occur within established and formal multilateral settings. The connection, however, was recently and explicitly made at the 2014 Nuclear Security Summit (NSS).
Choubey's analysis uses the motivations for, central logic of, and reactions to the joint statement "In Larger Security: A Comprehensive Approach to Nuclear Security" offered at the 2014 NSS, as a proxy for how a range of nuclear-armed and non-nuclear weapon states understand the link between nuclear security and disarmament. Toward this end, Choubey interviewed twenty-three senior diplomats and officials from seventeen of the fifty-three NSS participating states on their understanding of the relationship between nuclear security and disarmament as well as on the benefits and costs of efforts to link the two issues within the NSS process.
In the seminar, Choubey stressed that rectifying conceptual disparities in how states view nuclear security and disarmament may identify opportunities for advancing both agendas through constructive dialogue and action. She concluded the seminar by pointing out that prospective efforts by nuclear-armed states to build the confidence of others in the effectiveness of their nuclear security arrangements could contribute to creating trust and other elements that are needed for progress in nuclear disarmament.
