How to avoid catastrophic nuclear blunders | Joan Rohlfing (2022)

Originally released March 2022. Since the Soviet Union split into different countries in 1991, the pervasive fear of catastrophe that people lived with for decades has gradually faded from memory, and nuclear warhead stockpiles have declined by 83%. Nuclear brinksmanship, proxy wars, and the game theory of mutually assured destruction (MAD) have come to feel like relics of another era.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed all that.

According to Joan Rohlfing — president of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a Washington, DC-based nonprofit focused on reducing threats from nuclear and biological weapons — the annual risk of a ‘global catastrophic nuclear event’‘ never fell as low as people like to think, and for some time has been on its way back up.

At the same time, civil society funding for research and advocacy around nuclear risks is being cut in half over a period of years — despite the fact that at $60 million a year, it was already just a thousandth as much as the US spends maintaining its nuclear deterrent.

If new funding sources are not identified to replace donors that are withdrawing (like the MacArthur Foundation), the existing pool of talent will have to leave for greener pastures, and most of the next generation will see a career in the field as unviable.

Learn more and see the full transcript on the 80,000 Hours website: https://80000hours.org/podcast/episod...

Chapters:
• Rob’s intro (00:00:00)
• Joan’s EAG presentation (00:01:40)
• The interview begins (00:27:06)
• Nuclear security funding situation (00:31:09)
• Policy solutions for addressing a one-person or one-state risk factor (00:36:46)
• Key differences in the nuclear security field (00:40:44)
• Scary scenarios (00:47:02)
• Why the US shouldn’t expand its nuclear arsenal (00:52:56)
• The evolution of nuclear risk over the last 10 years (01:03:41)
• The interaction between nuclear weapons and cybersecurity (01:10:18)
• The chances of humanity bouncing back after nuclear war (01:13:52)
• What we should actually do (01:17:57)
• Could sensors be a game-changer? (01:22:39)
• Biden Nuclear Posture Review (01:27:50)
• Influence of lobbying firms (01:33:58)
• What NTI might do with an additional $20 million (01:36:38)
• Nuclear energy tradeoffs (01:43:55)
• Why we can’t rely on Stanislav Petrovs (01:49:49)
• Preventing war vs. building resilience for recovery (01:52:15)
• Places to donate other than NTI (01:54:25)
• Career advice (02:00:15)
• Why this problem is solvable (02:09:27)

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