Nuclear Entanglement: The Growing Threat to Command and Control

Nuclear Entanglement: The Growing Threat to Command and Control

Speaker: Acton, J. (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace)

Date: 19 April 2018

Speaker Session Preview

SMA hosted a speaker session presented by Dr. James Acton (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) as a part of its SMA Space Speaker Series. Dr. Acton’s talk focused on two findings: 1) Nuclear weapons and their command-and-control (C3I) systems are becoming increasingly entangled with nonnuclear capabilities, and 2) many of the satellites used for nuclear C3I are dual-use and are increasingly becoming vulnerable to damage during a conflict involving either nuclear or nonnuclear weapons. Dr. Acton explained what entanglement is and discussed the four drivers of entanglement. He proceeded to talk about how entanglement is increasing the risk of “incidental” attacks, and he explained how these “incidental” attacks may lead to escalation. Finally, Dr. Acton discussed two basic options in an approach to risk reduction: reducing the likelihood of attack or reducing the consequences, two approaches that are often in contention with each other.

Speaker Session Audio File

Download Dr. Acton’s biography and slides