Science Diplomacy for Nuclear Threat Reduction

The Center of Innovation for Science, Technology, and Peacebuilding is working with the National Academy of Sciences to explore science diplomacy’s potential to address issues of nuclear security, in alignment with USIP’s support of the Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States. 

The project will seek to answer, among others, the following questions:

• How can scientists and politicians better cooperate to improve compliance with nuclear agreements?  What new technologies (monitoring, verification, etc.) or diplomatic opportunities exist that could be used to improve the enforceability of international agreements such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the proposed Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty (FMCT)?  
• How can international cooperation and scientific application limit expansion in the number of nuclear weapons states while still allowing for increased access to carbon-neutral nuclear energy, for example through creation of a nuclear-fuel bank? 
• What other “track-II” science diplomacy initiatives can contribute to enabling the goals of nuclear nonproliferation and arms control? 

On January 19, 2011, the Center co-hosted a symposium "Reykjavik to New START: Science Diplomacy for Nuclear Security in the 21st Century" on science and diplomacy in support of international security with the National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control (CISAC). As we approach the 25th anniversary of the Reykjavik Summit, CISAC and USIP invited prominent scientists from Russia and the United States to examine the roles of transparency and confidence building in 21st Century nuclear security. 

Read a USIP Special Report Science Diplomacy for Nuclear Security

This is part of the Center's Science Diplomacy for Conflict Prevention initiative.