Nuclear disarmament FAQs

  • Nuclear weapons are an urgent and immediate threat to humanity’s survival. Russia and the United States keep thousands of nuclear weapons on high alert, ready to launch in minutes, so every hour of every day, global nuclear war is never more than an hour away. If you care about the survival of humanity, you should care about nuclear weapons.

    The nuclear threat also intersects with critical issues like climate change. Beyond the hundreds of millions of people who would be killed immediately in a large-scale nuclear war, the resulting ‘nuclear winter’ – i.e. catastrophic global climate change – would lead to crop failures that could kill billions of people around the world from starvation alone, including in countries not involved in the war.

    And climate change is making nuclear war more likely, by increasing the frequency of flooding events that disrupt the systems used to manage nuclear weapons, and increasing political instability in ways that could lead to violent conflict and escalation to nuclear war. So if you care about climate change, you should care about nuclear weapons.

  • As of 2022, there are nine nuclear-armed states with a total of almost 13,000 nuclear weapons – China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States. Russia has the largest arsenal of nuclear warheads, followed closely by the United States. Together, Russia and the United States possess almost 90% of all nuclear weapons.

    To understand the scale of the nuclear threat today, check out this 60-second video: The Global Nuclear Arsenal.

  • Nuclear deterrence is the practice of threatening adversaries with nuclear weapons, on the assumption it will deter them from attacking you with nuclear weapons or with a devastating non-nuclear or potentially, cyber attack. Nuclear-armed states and their allies regularly claim that making nuclear threats “guarantees” international peace and security.

    In reality, archival research shows that on multiple past occasions, it was pure luck that prevented the use of nuclear weapons, not nuclear deterrence. So the hyperbolic claim that nuclear weapons “guarantee” peace and security is false.

  • If deterrence fails and nuclear war occurs, there would be catastrophic humanitarian, ecological, and financial consequences around the world. As a result, the 189 countries that are members of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) have expressed their “deep concern at the continued risk for humanity represented by the possibility that these weapons could be used and the catastrophic humanitarian consequences that would result from the use of nuclear weapons.”

    There are multiple complex, interdependent risk factors that could trigger a use of nuclear weapons, and those risk factors are increasing in number and type: a new multi-polar nuclear arms race; cyberattacks that could disrupt the control systems for nuclear weapons, leading to accidental or unintended nuclear war; and the increasing ‘entanglement’ of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons systems and military doctrines, which could lead to confusion and conflict escalation.

    Experts using the climate modelling techniques of the International Panel on Climate Change estimate that even a ‘limited’ nuclear war using around 100 Hiroshima-sized bomb – less than 0.5% of the global arsenal – could kill up to 2 billion people due to severe climatic disruption and its dramatic impacts on the production of core food crops like wheat, corn and rice.

  • Two main international agreements address the issue of multilateral nuclear disarmament: the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear Ban Treaty).

    In theory, disarmament is one of three ‘pillars’ of the NPT, along with nonproliferation (stopping the spread of nuclear weapons) and advancing the ‘peaceful’ uses of nuclear energy. But in reality, nuclear deterrence is the ‘ghost pillar’ at the heart of the NPT, influencing every decision that the five nuclear-armed NPT members make (China, France, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom). The NPT members have never collectively agreed on any legitimate role for nuclear deterrence, but whenever the nuclear armed states face a choice between pursuing their NPT disarmament obligations and maintaining deterrence, they consistently prioritize making nuclear threats.

    The Nuclear Ban Treaty, unlike the NPT, explicitly rejects the claim that nuclear weapons contribute in any way to security, or that there is any justification for having, threatening, or using nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Building on a long history of humanitarian disarmament that has banned other indiscriminate, inhumane weapons like chemical and biological weapons, landmines, and cluster munitions, the Nuclear Ban Treaty calls for the elimination of nuclear weapons; prohibits its members from providing any support for nuclear deterrence; and creates so-called ‘positive obligations’, requiring members to assist nuclear survivors and support environmental remediation in areas under their jurisdiction contaminated by nuclear testing and use.

  • Efforts by nuclear armed states to advance multilateral disarmament have been stalled since 1996 – the last time the main negotiating body, the Conference on Disarmament, could agree on a programme of work. In fact, today we are seeing the opposite of disarmament, with the nine nuclear-armed states (China, France, India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States) all engaged in a new nuclear arms race. All nine are either modernizing or expanding the size of their arsenals, or both.

    The 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) is the oldest international agreement, and the one with the most members, that addresses the issue of multilateral nuclear disarmament. In theory, disarmament is one of three ‘pillars’ of the NPT, alongside nonproliferation (stopping the spread of nuclear weapons) and advancing the ‘peaceful’ uses of nuclear energy. But in reality, nuclear deterrence is the ‘ghost pillar’ at the heart of the NPT, influencing every decision that the five nuclear-armed NPT members make (China, France, Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom).

    In other words, though the NPT membership has never collectively agreed that nuclear deterrence has any legitimate role, whenever the nuclear armed states face a choice between advancing disarmament (i.e. getting rid of nuclear weapons) and maintaining deterrence (i.e. continuing to make nuclear threats), they consistently ignore their disarmament obligations.

Web3 FAQs

  • Web3 is the next generation of the internet – cryptocurrencies, NFTs (unique digital tokens), and other applications built on blockchain technology (more on blockchain below!). Web3 makes possible a new kind of individual financial sovereignty. It allows networks of individuals around the world to connect, coordinate, and cooperate financially, without needing a central authority or trusted third party.

    In principle, Web2 made it possible to share data with each other in a ‘decentralized’ way, through direct, peer-to-peer exchanges of information – emails, photos, videos etc. In reality of course, control of people’s online data and the financial value it created mostly went to centralized corporations – Facebook, Twitter, Google etc., resulting in power being centralized in a very small circle of elites.

    Thanks to blockchain technology, Web3 enables individuals to share not only data, but also financial value in a decentralized, peer-to-peer manner, without needing intermediaries like banks and nation states – though just like Web2 that’s truer in theory than in practice, as Web3 applications often have centralized aspects.

    Nevertheless, Web3 makes it technically possible for individuals to own, control, and directly monetise their data. That, in turn, makes it possible to design systems in which people who don’t trust or even know each can nonetheless work towards common financial goals, creating financial incentives for global cooperation. This begs the question – if we could design an economic system based on developing and trading in the tools needed to verify the absence of nuclear weapons and threats, could we make peace profitable?

    For more on Web3, see Web3: in a nutshell, by Eshita.

  • Blockchain is the technology that makes Web3 possible. It is a digital tool uniquely suited to facilitating large-scale cooperation in low-trust environments – like the international system.

    This is due to several factors, including –

    1) In blockchain networks, it’s possible for participants to share power, collectively making rules and decisions, while maintaining multiple, identical copies of a shared ledger that records the history of transactions within the network. This stops anyone from changing the rules or the ledger without first achieving consensus.

    2) The way that blockchains store data makes it near-impossible to tamper with the shared transaction ledger in secret, deterring attempts to cheat and creating a definitive source of shared ‘truth’ that participants can trust without needing to trust each other.

    3) Blockchains can reward rule-compliant behavior by issuing tokens—i.e. cryptocurrencies—that are redeemable for national currencies. This makes it possible to design systems that financially incentivize specific types of cooperation, like demonstrating the peaceful nature of a nuclear program, or helping verify the dismantlement of nuclear arsenals.

    Thanks to the ability of blockchain to both facilitate and financially incentivize cooperation in low-trust, adversarial environments, PATH Collective believes this tools could help to advance international cooperation on issues such as climate action, ecological restoration, and nuclear disarmament,

  • Cryptocurrencies are digital tokens created and issued by a blockchain to reward users for supporting the healthy functioning of the related network. They could be issued, for example, for facilitating transactions that comply with the network rules, or for helping verify that others are also following the rules.

    If a community of users values a specific cryptocurrency – as proof of their membership, to contribute to network governance, or because the cryptocurrency can be exchanged for national or ‘fiat’ currencies – its issuance can be used to incentivize specific types of cooperation within the network.

    Helium is an example of a cryptocurrency that uses such incentives to create real-world /IRL services that go ‘beyond the blockchain’. The low-carbon Helium blockchain issues Helium Network Tokens (HNT) to reward participants for helping to create public wireless networks. In this way, Helium built the world’s largest wireless network, aka ‘The People’s Network’, suited to low-power, low-data devices common in the Internet of Things. Helium is now beginning deployment of a 5G network that is also owned and operated by ‘the people’ – hence its nickname, ‘the people’s network.’

  • An important risk in Web3, like all digital technologies, is the potential for coded bias. This is when the algorithms that manage so much of modern life have biases hidden in their code, making it near-impossible for non-experts to undo those biases. The result is that the injustices of the past and present get entrenched in the digital systems of the future, whether deliberately or unintentionally (i.e. because the person who wrote the code couldn’t anticipate the needs of diverse users).

    Today, Web3 is a bit of a demographic monoculture. A survey published in November 2021 found that only 16% of NFT creators are women, and experts from UN Women note that the Web3 world is “mostly men from developed economies that seem to outnumber not only women, but also other diverse populations.” This lack of diversity makes the risk of coded bias especially significant in applying Web3 to humanitarian disarmament, because many of the communities most impacted by nuclear harms, such as indigenous communities, people of color, and women, also have very limited representation in Web3 today.

    To prevent coded bias, whether based on race, gender, sexuality, religion, ability or any other factor, PATH Collective believes it is essential to take an inclusive, intersectional approach to developing new technologies in service of humanitarian disarmament. We need to actively address the hierarchies of wealth, power, and privilege that shape global nuclear governance today. A diverse, representative body of humanitarian disarmament supporters must have seats at the technology table and an equal say in its decisions and outcomes.

  • NFT stands for ‘non-fungible token’. ‘Fungible’ means interchangeable, like cash: any dollar has the same properties and value as any other dollar, so it is fungible. (Cryptocurrency units are also fungible.) But things like houses and (most) artworks are unique, or non-fungible. NFTs are unique digital items that are registered and traded on a blockchain. They are most often used to assign ownership of artworks, but they can also be used for other things.

    NFTs used to be fringe, but they’re rapidly entering the mainstream of sports, culture, and social media. In 2021, the total value of NFT sales on Ethereum, the main blockchain used to trade them, was the equivalent of US $44 billion. In 2020, the US National Basketball Association launched NBA Top Shot NFTs, ‘digital basketball collectibles’ that are the modern equivalent of trading cards. The sale and resale of Top Shots generated US $700 million in their first season. And individual NFTs from popular collections like CryptoPunks or Bored Apes sometimes sell for millions.

    Like most things, of course, the perceived financial value of NFTs depends in large part on the commitment of the surrounding community to the non-financial values that unite them. So just like the dotcom bubble, much of what is currently being built in Web3, including the sometimes ludicrous sales prices of NFTs, will probably not survive the next crash. But in the humanitarian context, there is a passionate community of people around the world who want to advance justice and disarmament. PATH Collective believes there is a role for NFTs to help our community do that.