In October, the ELN and Hanns Seidel Foundation partnered on a track 1.5 meeting in London which brought together a range of European and Iranian participants both to assess how the JCPOA could still be revived and to consider alternative scenarios in more detail. The ELN’s Policy and Impact Director, Jane Kinninmont, captures the key highlights from the meeting.
The importance of new technologies for conflict and security has grown in the past decade, but the images we use to represent them have remained the same. In this illustrated long-form commentary, ELN commissioning editor Esther Kersley interviews cyber security experts to explore what current cyber images are conveying and what impact this could be having on our ability to understand these issues and imagine the effects they may have on our future.
With emerging and disruptive technologies (EDTs) increasingly becoming a new field of military competition among great powers, serious questions have been raised about whether they will fundamentally change the ways modern warfare will be conducted, in particular implications for nuclear deterrence. Fei Su and Dr Jingdong Yuan analyse Chinese academic and professional publications to explore new ways forward for mitigating the risks posed by EDTs.
Dr Alexander Graef and Tim Thies look at what kind of arms control might be feasible in the context of evolving multipolar strategic rivalry by drawing on lessons from the past. They argue that the US and NATO allies should pursue limited yet necessary arms control measures that enhance their security.
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.
Thanks to the INF Treaty, Russian forces attacking Ukraine have not been able to use ground-to-ground ballistic and cruise missiles of ranges from 500-5,500 km, which could have devastated centres in Western Ukraine. Dan Plesch writes that the process that produced the INF Treaty provides important guidance for a renaissance in disarmament in the present century and calls on civil society to seek a global zero on missiles.