Nuclear Complacency and You

By Richard L. Wood

Perhaps no issue more quietly threatens the human future than the current recrudescence of the nuclear arms race.  Earlier this year, I participated in a convening in New York sponsored by the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. Some 20 nuclear policy experts, scholars, and strategic thinkers came together under “Chatham House rules” of anonymity. The conversation very much reflected elements of the “Nuclear Strategy: Disarmament or Deterrence” conference that IACS convened in September 2024 at the University of New Mexico in the nation’s nuclear heartland.

Out of the New York convening, the Carnegie Council this week issued an important report on “nuclear complacency” that flags the urgency of public discussion of the strategic questions and existential risks of nuclear build-up.

Nuclear Complacency will reward a careful read and ongoing reflection. It also demonstrates the way IACS’s work continues to form part of a broad effort to relaunch/deepen public dialogue around nuclear policy, alongside the likes of the Carnegie Council, Guggenheim Foundation, the front pages of the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, Commonweal Magazine, the Vatican, Church thought leaders, and national nuclear policy experts from both parties.  Four articles from the IACS-UNM convening are included in this Commonweal Forum, laying out divergent views on nuclear strategy. On this topic and a broad range of issues that are shaping the US and global futures, IACS aspires not to a mass readership but rather to a focused audience of scholars and thoughtful institutional leaders across all sectors of American society, global society, and the Church. Engage with us on this topic via LinkedIn, Facebook, or X/Twitter

Thanks to Joel Rosenthal (President of the Carnegie Council) and Daniel Wilhelm (President of the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation) for including IACS in the conversation—and for sponsoring ongoing work on this terrain.