Disentangling the Nexus of Nuclear Weapons and Climate Change—A Research Agenda

Abstract

Global warming and nuclear war are frequently described as the world's greatest threats. Both challenges could be understood as expressions of modern science and technology, and both present tough collective action problems. They are also mutually entangled. Yet students of security have still to systematically unpack the relationship between climate change and the politics of nuclear weapons. In this article, I critically review the nascent literature on the climate–nuclear nexus and set out avenues for future research. I find that the existing literature has focused disproportionately on immediate managerial challenges such as the likely inundation of current nuclear weapons bases, neglecting the potential consequences of more profound, crisis-induced global transformations. Students of nuclear arms control, deterrence, and disarmament should interrogate the assumption that the basic political and institutional structures that condition policy outcomes today will continue to exist indefinitely.