Marion Messmer is a senior research fellow in the International Security Programme at Chatham House. She has expertise in arms control, nuclear weapons policy issues and Russia-NATO relations.
Before joining Chatham House, Marion was the Co-Director of BASIC, where she led on the organization’s nuclear risk reduction and disarmament work.
Marion is an N2 Innovation Fellow (2020-2021) and an ACONA Fellow (2021-2022) and holds a PhD in Security Studies from King’s College London.
Listen to the first episode of the NEVER podcast – Ok, Doomer! In this episode, we explore the basics of man-made existential risk, featuring an introduction to the topic, its relationship to great power competition, how governments have dealt with potential existential risks such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and how they should respond to them in future.
If there is one parallel between the Cuban Missile Crisis and the war in Ukraine, Marion Messmer writes, it’s that decision-making is influenced by myths, enemy images, and beliefs. The fog of war makes miscommunication, misperception, and miscalculation that much more likely, in turn increasing the risk that further escalation might take place. Whether the war in Ukraine will be able to provide a similar motivation for arms control efforts as the Cuban Missile Crisis did will depend on how exactly it will end.
The first Meeting of States Parties of the TPNW (1MSP) is taking place this week, and the NPT Review Conference (RevCon) in August. Marion Messmer argues that these international conferences can be a success if all states engage constructively.