"The Crisis of Nuclear Disarmament and Arms Control"

VCDNP Senior Research Associate Ulrich Kühn has published and edited a new volume entitled "The Crisis of Nuclear Disarmament and Arms Control" in cooperation with the Heinrich Böll Foundation (HBS) and the Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy at the University of Hamburg (IFSH). The volume, which marks the capstone of HBS's Nuclear Expert Talks: Next Generation (N.EX.T) Project, comprises articles by a select number of international mid-career scholars and experts on nuclear matters from Europe, Russia and the United States. In addition to an article to which Mr. Kühn contributed, "Europe's nuclear woes: Mitigating the challenges of the next years 14", he has written the volume's introduction.

"The instruments of bi- and multilateral nuclear disarmament and arms control are in a state of despair. Russia and the West have entered a new round of conflict. The US-Russian nuclear arms control and disarmament dialogue has stalled. East Asia is rattled by North Korea aggressively pushing forward its nuclear and missile programs. Beyond the bilateral and regional levels, frustration about the nuclear-weapons states' unwillingness to meet their own disarmament obligations under Article VI of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has already led a majority of UN states to seek alternative venues to ban the risks and threats associated with nuclear arms.

That leads to some urgent questions: Which arguments could help to reinvigorate moral and political support for further nuclear disarmament? What can the international community do to move further with multilateral nuclear disarmament? What could or should a stable future US-Russian framework for managing the nuclear relationship look like? How can Europe deal with its nuclear challenges against the background of a missing «grand deal» between NATO and Russia? How can the world better bridge the gap between the need for broader civil society engagement and the lack of interest in many societies?"

On 12 October, contributors to the volume Kelsey Davenport, Petr Topychkanov, and Ulrich Kühn presented their findings to members of the German expert community in Berlin at an event hosted by HBS. The volume, which also features a foreword by VCDNP Senior Fellow Angela Kane, is available for download on the HBS website.