Nuclear command-and-control in the Millenials era

Abstract: Peter Hayes will talk about the risk of nuclear war and complexity. In a February 2015 report (Peter Hayes, "Nuclear command-and-control in the Millenials era", NAPSNet Special Reports, February 17, 2015, http://nautilus.org/napsnet/napsnet-special-reports/nuclear-command-and…), he stated that “very few leaders or even strategic scholars pay attention to the new complexity of the operating environment in which national nuclear command-and-control systems operate, or the new characteristics of the command-and-control systems and their supporting CISR systems that may contribute to the problem of loss-of-control and rapid escalation to nuclear war.”

“Today, the underlying ground is moving beneath the feet of nuclear-armed states. The enormous flow across borders of people, containers, and information, and the growth of connectivity between cities, corporations, and communities across borders, is recasting the essential nature of security itself to a networked flux of events and circumstances that no agency or state can control. The meta-system of nuclear command-and control systems has emerged in this new post-modern human condition.” The report can be accessed here.

About the speaker: Peter Hayes is Honorary Professor, Center for International Security Studies, Sydney University, Australia and Director, Nautilus Institute in Berkeley, California. He works at the nexus of security, environment and energy policy problems. Best known for innovative cooperative engagement strategies in North Korea, he has developed techniques at Nautilus Institute for seeking near-term solutions to global security and sustainability problems and applied them in East Asia, Australia, and South Asia. Dr. Hayes has worked for many international organizations including UN Development Programme, Asian Development Bank, and Global Environment Facility. He was founding director of the Environment Liaison Centre in Kenya in 1975. He has traveled, lived, and worked in Asia, North America, Europe and Africa.