RUSI and Hiroshima convene conference to envision world without nuclear weapons
Earlier this month, RUSI and the Hiroshima Organization for Global Peace (HOPe) convened policy experts from across the world in Japan for an ambitious discussion on the conditions needed to build a global security system that does not rely on nuclear deterrence.
Experts from the Indo-Pacific, Euro-Atlantic and Middle East regions participated in a two-day conference as part of RUSI and HOPe’s joint project on Envisioning Global Security Without Reliance on Nuclear Deterrence.
The project aims to identify potential alternatives to the role nuclear weapons play in regional and global security architectures, outlining the steps needed to develop and implement these alternatives and assessing the consequences of doing so.
Reflecting on the conference, Łukasz Kulesa, Director of RUSI’s Proliferation and Nuclear Policy team, said:
Convening this meeting in Hiroshima carried particular significance and added to the sense of urgency expressed by several participants. The conference took place at the time of high global and regional tensions, with nuclear weapons playing an increasingly visible role as instruments of deterrence, alliance reassurance, strategic coercion, and arguably also as sources of status and prestige. Russian aggression against Ukraine, conducted under a nuclear shadow, continues unabated. Nuclear armed states continue their force modernisation programmes, with China’s nuclear buildup particularly raising questions about the future of its nuclear posture and policy. Against this challenging background, conference participants – including experts from nuclear armed states and countries covered by the US extended nuclear deterrence guarantees – discussed not only the role of nuclear weapons in national and regional context, but also feasible ways to reduce their salience. It was broadly agreed that this would require parallel movement in at least three areas: political (including reduction of tensions between nuclear-armed states), military (examination of the options for substitution of nuclear weapons by conventional means in some roles), and nuclear risk reduction and arms control.
Lukasz Kulesa
Director, Proliferation and Nuclear Policy
As part of the conference, experts were able to visit the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and take part in a dialogue with hibakusha – a term used to refer to the survivors of the atomic bombs which targeted Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. Hideiko Yuzaki, Governor of the Hiroshima Prefecture and President of HOPe, welcomed participants.
HOPe and RUSI also held a public event on “International Security and Nuclear Weapons in the Flux of Global Security Dynamics”. The panel discussion was chaired by Dr Nobumasa Akiyama (Hitotsubashi University) and included contributions from Professor Malcolm Chalmers (RUSI), Dr Ibrahim Fraihat (Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies), Professor Yoko Iwama (National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies) and Dr Manpreet Sethi (Asia-Pacific Leadership Network and Centre for Air Power Studies). The event can be watched here.
About the project
The conference followed three regional working group meetings – covering the Indo-Pacific, Euro-Atlantic and Middle East regions – which RUSI and HOPe convened in late 2023 and early 2024. These meetings offered preliminary thoughts from participants on the project’s key research questions:
- What functions do nuclear weapons currently serve in regional security contexts?
- What alternatives are available that could fulfil these functions?
- To what extent is reducing the role of nuclear weapons in states’ security policies possible before a full replacement for these functions is found? Which interim steps are feasible?
RUSI will produce a research paper drawing on the findings of the conference and the working group meetings, which will be published later in 2024.
About the Hiroshima Organization for Global Peace
The Hiroshima Organization for Global Peace (HOPe) was established by Hiroshima Prefecture in 2021 as a vehicle of implementing its policies towards a world without nuclear weapons. Its mission is to explore the paths to realize a world without free from nuclear weapons through the three approaches: (1) promoting awareness of the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapon, (2) seeking an alternative security system without reliance on nuclear deterrence, and (3) advancing the global agenda on the elimination of nuclear weapons by bridging perspectives of humanity, security, and sustainability.
About RUSI’s Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Programme
The Proliferation and Nuclear Policy team at RUSI conducts research and convenes dialogue on nuclear, chemical and biological weapons issues. We have five main programmes of work:
- Understanding deterrence and risk in the new nuclear age
- Stopping the spread of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery
- Strategic and security aspects of civil nuclear power
- Understanding chemical and biological weapon threats
- Building nuclear policy networks and encouraging learning
Across all these programmes, we write public and private analysis, we brief policymakers and parliamentarians, we bring people together in high-level discussions and next-generation networks, and we contribute to public debate. You can read more about the team’s work here.