Author: jennyjohnston

The Scholar

Emma Belcher grew up in Australia at a time when anti-nuclear movements in that country were flaring—an experience that shaped both her perspectives on nuclear weapons and her career. An early interest in nuclear policy led her to Tufts University’s Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, where she earned a PhD in international security with a focus on weapons of mass destruction. While there, she also served as a research fellow at the Belfer Center’s Project on Managing the Atom. Belcher’s academic career took a surprise turn, though, when she was presented with the opportunity to join the MacArthur Foundation, where she now directs the nuclear challenges program. Here, she shares how being an Aussie informs her work, and how she’s working to find common ground—even among unlikely partners—in service of ending the nuclear threat.

Q  How did you get started doing this work?

 You know how people remember where they were when a big event happens, like JFK’s death or 9/11? I remember the room I was in when I learned about nuclear weapons. I was 14, sitting in social studies class. I remember being astonished by the damage they could do. To be honest, I was appalled and awed at the same time. The logic of deterrence and mutually assured destruction seemed kind of brilliant, even though it was horrific. This was toward the end of the Cold War, but growing up in Australia I hadn’t heard much about it. At 14, I was shocked by the state of the world.

At the end of high school, though, I got interested in Cold War history. At university I did an arts degree and studied politics, history, and languages—specifically, Russian and Arabic. I also became interested in the ethics of the use of force. Questions about nuclear weapons and whether they conformed to the laws of war started to grip me. My first job out of university was in public affairs at the Australian Embassy in Washington, DC. Then, just as I’d decided to go to grad school and get more involved in policy, 9/11 happened. That tragedy solidified my interest in weapons of mass destruction, and the possibility of nuclear terrorism brought new urgency to my work. Ultimately, I did a master’s in law and diplomacy at Tufts University, and after working as an adviser in Australia’s Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet, returned to Tufts to complete a PhD in international relations, with a focus on weapons of mass destruction.


“QUESTIONS ABOUT NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND WHETHER THEY CONFORMED TO THE LAWS OF WAR STARTED TO GRIP ME.”


While at Tufts, I also had a research fellowship at the Belfer Center at Harvard, at the Project on Managing the Atom, which is still funded by MacArthur. I was part of a cohort of PhD students from a range of institutions working on similar topics. We learned from one another in ways that we couldn’t at our own institutions, where there weren’t a lot of other people working on the same topic. I remember I could always go to my friend Tom, who is a physicist, and ask him if my ideas made sense from a physics perspective, and I could help him see his work through an international security lens. That experience taught me the importance of being in community with people who are working on similar issues but from different perspectives. Of course, that’s the premise behind N Square as well.

Q  How did you get into philanthropy?

A  When I finished my PhD, I did a post-doctoral fellowship in nuclear security at the Council on Foreign Relations. While there, I got a call from the head of the Managing the Atom project. He said that MacArthur was looking for a nuclear program officer. I had never thought about a position in philanthropy, which isn’t established in Australia in the same way that it is in the US. At first I thought it sounded kind of boring. How hard could it be to give away money? How was a PhD going to help with this? But the more I talked with people, the more I realized how interesting it was. The research skills I had developed were helpful in analyzing the quality of proposals. I realized philanthropy could combine my academic interest in nuclear policy with a more practical policy focus.


“HOW HARD COULD IT BE TO GIVE AWAY MONEY? HOW WAS A PHD GOING TO HELP WITH THIS?”


Q  Do you think you have a different perspective on nuclear security because you didn’t grow up in the United States?

A  I think it gives me a sense of how nuclear weapons in the United States are viewed by outsiders, which is something that can get a bit lost here. Growing up in Australia, there was a strong nuclear disarmament movement, particularly in the ’70s and ’80s. I was in high school when the French were doing their testing in Mururoa Atoll, and we were up in arms. Seeing the impacts of nuclear testing and fallout on people and on the environment was quite formative. At the same time, I also understand the issues and the concept of deterrence and how difficult it can be to imagine a world without nuclear weapons. In the US, many people on both sides of the issue are deeply entrenched in their positions; they’re not willing to talk with each other in a meaningful way. As a funder it is crucial to see both perspectives and support constructive dialogue.

The Delltones performing at an anti-nuclear rally, 1983. Photo by Ian Wilson; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0/deed.en

Q  MacArthur is one of the few foundations with a specific grantmaking program to reduce the nuclear threat. Why aren’t more foundations funding this issue?

A  When the Cold War ended, many people assumed that the threat was over. The US and Russia dismantled a great number of weapons. At the height of the Cold War there were between 60,000 and 70,000 nuclear weapons, and it’s down to around 14,000 today. People thought these weapons would become a relic of the past, and with a number of other important issues rising to the surface their attention was diverted away. But now these issues are back with a vengeance—and we need to rally more people to invest in finding solutions. Foundations are collectively investing around $40 million in nuclear policy, versus nearly $1 billion a year in climate issues. So we’re hoping to bring more funders back into the field and new ones to it—and to help everyone recognize this as a dangerous, existential threat. A nuclear event could happen very quickly with very little warning.

Q  What has MacArthur been funding in this area?

A  Our grantmaking has been focusing on trying to make sure that members of Congress and their staff have a good understanding of contemporary nuclear issues. Just as we’ve seen funding levels drop since the end of the Cold War, we’ve seen a similar drop in general awareness about the nuclear threat in Congress. Champions like Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar have retired or are no longer with us. We are starting to see new champions emerge, which is promising. There’s now a bipartisan nuclear security working group on the Hill, co-chaired by Republicans Jeff Fortenberry and Chuck Fleischmann, and Democrats Bill Foster and Ben Ray Luján. We provide funding for fellows to serve as advisors on nuclear topics. They don’t work on legislation, but they’re embedded in both chambers as a resource for members. We also support experts who provide technical and practical advice to government officials here and in other countries on how best to solve a range of nuclear problems.

Q  How has being part of a nuclear security funder collaborative—which is funding N Square—advanced your work?

A  Each funder in the collaborative brings something different to the table. Our differences complement each other and help us explore the potential for overlap. Being part of a funder collaborative is also about sharing risk. Being “in it together” means we can make venture-style investments without having a failure devastate any one of our portfolios. It also sends a signal that a group of us are interested in funding more innovation and creativity in the field. We hope it helps many more individuals and foundations see themselves as having something to contribute here. Nuclear weapons can seem like this big secret national security topic, which makes the issue uninviting for some. If we could start to change some minds and have people see where they do fit in, even if they don’t have a nuclear background, that’s valuable.

Q  In a recent TED talk, you outlined a set of questions that everyone should be asking right now about nuclear security and nuclear weapons. What sorts of questions were on your list?

A  I put that list together as a way to help people begin to work past fear or a sense of being overwhelmed and instead start doing something to ensure that this issue gets the attention it deserves—questions like, How much nuclear risk are you willing to take? Or, Who should be responsible for nuclear weapons decision-making? For example, in the US, having one person, the president, decide the fate of millions of people without any requirement to consult with anybody seems particularly undemocratic. Also, What do your elected officials know about nuclear weapons, and what decisions are they likely to make on your behalf? Members of Congress represent their constituents, but right now there isn’t a constituency for nuclear issues. We need to create it. We need our elected officials to understand these issues, because they’re voting and making decisions about our future.


“RIGHT NOW THERE ISN’T A CONSTITUENCY FOR NUCLEAR ISSUES. WE NEED TO CREATE IT.” 


Q  Can nuclear security be depoliticized? Is there room for compromise?

A  Everyone can agree that we need total security around weapons and nuclear material, and nobody wants to see nuclear terrorism. So that’s a starting point. Over the next several decades, about $1 trillion is projected to be spent on nuclear weapons, which is a lot of money. Even where you don’t get bipartisan support on some of these bigger issues, we might see unusual partners coming together around shared goals, even if they’re coming at them from different perspectives. That is, while disarmament is seen as a liberal imperative, fiscal conservatives are less likely to support a massive modernization effort, given the associated cost. Where there is room for bipartisanship, we’ve got to push for it.

Q  What do you think the nuclear field will look like in 10 years?

A  I think it will look significantly different. We’re seeing increased diversity at the early career and even mid-career stages—and we’re actively working to foster more of it. N Square is providing young, diverse, talented people with new opportunities to engage in the field. If we take that out 10 years, we’re going to see much more diverse representation in the field. That’s critical because these issues affect everyone; everybody needs a voice. So I’m optimistic because I’m seeing this change happening and I’m seeing people demand it. I’m also seeing people who’ve been in the field for a while support these changes. They’re lending their gravitas and experience to this in a way I might not have expected. That’s been a fantastic development.

Q  What would the future look like if everything goes well?

A  We would see greatly reduced nuclear risk, greater creativity, innovation, and excitement around this issue, and a sense that people can create positive change. I’d like to see us pulled back from the brink of disaster. But we’re only going to get there through approaches to problem-solving that are creative, inclusive, and innovative.


Top photo, from left to right: Michelle Dover, Emma Belcher, and Eric Schlosser speak at Ploughshares Fund Chain Reaction 2019. Story thumbnail and top photo: Drew Altizer Photography

The N Square DC Hub Launches

We are thrilled to announce the launch of the N Square DC Hub—and with it, an active N Square presence right in the heart of Washington, DC.

In many ways, the DC Hub is the physical manifestation of N Square’s vision and mission, providing a widening community of experts with a home base and a process for learning, collaboration, and developing breakthrough ideas for reducing the nuclear threat. Operating out of WeWork in Chinatown (777 6th Street NW)—an interactive workspace that matches the diverse, collaborative atmosphere that N Square aims to inspire—the DC Hub will offer a range of programs, events, and gatherings designed to serve the needs and goals of this growing community.

“The DC Hub answers a demand that we’ve heard—primarily from early to mid-career nonproliferation professionals in DC—for a place outside their day-to-day workspace where they can connect with each other, build community, and explore new ideas,” says Erika Gregory, N Square’s managing director.

While the N Square Innovators Network—now nearly 100 fellows strong—offers experts from around the world opportunities to work together on novel teams to prototype ideas for ending the nuclear threat, the DC Hub will bring this spirit of innovation and breakthrough collaboration directly to DC, where the US policy, advocacy, and nuclear nonproliferation communities are most concentrated. “Over the past few years, N Square has shown it can bring together smart, creative people with different skills and perspectives to produce inspiring work,” says Carl Robichaud, program officer in international peace and security at the Carnegie Corporation of New York and an N Square founding funder. “Now, with a presence in DC, N Square can better connect with practitioners and expand its impact.”

The DC Hub will be a gathering space not just for nuclear experts but for a range of other professionals—from brand strategists and artists to engineers and technologists—interested in nuclear issues and eager to energize the field with new perspectives and ideas. “Part of serving this community means bringing nontraditional approaches and voices to the space,” says Dr. Sara Kutchesfahani, a nuclear expert with 15 years in the field who will serve as the DC Hub’s director. “We want to engage people from many different backgrounds in solving nuclear issues. Just leave your suit jackets at home, come to the Hub, and get creative.”

In building out the DC Hub and its programming, N Square will have a powerful partner—one uniquely suited to integrate the types of resources that the DC community is asking for. PopTech, one of the world’s leading conveners of global thinkers and leaders, will serve as a primary strategic partner for programming and community development, tapping its own diverse network to bring new voices and new approaches to the conversation. Says Leetha Filderman, president of the PopTech Institute: “We’re committed to creating interactive programming that benefits those in the field, as well as helping those outside the field gain a deeper understanding how to engage in what is perhaps the most significant global threat facing humanity right now.” 

The PopTech partnership is made possible through a generous grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. “Carnegie is stepping up to play a catalytic role in amplifying the collaborative potential of this partnership,” says Filderman. “Their commitment demonstrates the power of forward-thinking philanthropic investment that leverages and builds upon early success.”

N Square has already hosted a few events at the DC Hub, including a listening party for the season premiere of the nuclear-themed podcast Things That Go Boom and a fireside chat about blockchain, featuring Innovators Network fellow Rob Baker from the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative. This fall, the DC Hub will start hosting monthly events—everything from scenario workshops on the future of nuclear threat to skill-building sessions on creative problem-solving and diverse-team development.

But much of the DC Hub’s programming has yet to be set—and that’s intentional. “We hope the DC community will consider the Hub their own space and actively help us shape it to their needs,” says Gregory. “We heard you, and we’re here in service of your ideas. We’re looking forward to doing this together.”

To learn more about upcoming events at the DC Hub, contact Sara Kutchesfahani at sara@nsquarecollaborative.org.


photos by Trevor Holden for the N Square Innovation Summit at RISD

A Nobel Peace Prize. Now What?

It’s hard winning a Nobel Peace Prize in the fast-paced internet age. When the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) won the award in 2017 for its leading role in getting the United Nations to adopt the world’s first treaty to ban nuclear weapons, sudden name recognition and a frenzy of media attention followed. “Nobody even knew who we were before that,” admits Beatrice Fihn, the Swedish activist who serves as ICAN’s executive director. Once they did, the expectations were intense. “Two months after Oslo, people said, ‘Well, that didn’t lead anywhere. You haven’t disarmed a single country yet!’” says Fihn. The media swarm moved elsewhere. “It was pretty disorienting. But we didn’t win the prize by being in the spotlight.”

They really didn’t. ICAN is a coalition of roughly 550 nongovernmental organizations in 100 countries helping to promote the treaty, administered and governed by the UN, and build public support for the abolition of nuclear weapons. But the team coordinating that work is tiny—only a handful of people toiling in a modest office in Geneva, Switzerland. Fihn, now 37, is one of the oldest on staff. “No celebrities, no powerful politicians,” she says. “Just a bunch of 30-year-olds taking on the biggest countries in the world.”

Being millennials may explain their ability to spark global action around nuclear weapons eradication like the world hasn’t seen in decades. ICAN has brought fresh eyes and fresh energy to a problem that has long plagued disarmament activists: how to transform public and political disengagement into active support for abolition. But their success also has a lot to do with Fihn herself. The ICAN head isn’t interested in just drumming up support for the eradication of nuclear weapons. Rather, she wants to knock the foundation out from under the argument that they have any place in the world, rendering support for them nonsensical.

“The actual problem is that people still think these are valuable weapons. So you have to attack the basic, fundamental part of it,” Fihn says. “Is it acceptable to threaten to mass-murder civilians? No, it’s not. It’s crazy.” For Fihn, challenging that acceptability is the key to sparking new movement around the issue. And the best way to do that, she says, is to make nuclear weapons a humanitarian issue rather than a geopolitical one, shifting the inhumanity of these weapons to the center of the nuclear debate. “When you explain what these weapons do,” says Fihn, “suddenly they make no sense.”


“the actual problem is that people still think these are valuable weapons. so you have to attack the basic, fundamental part of it.”


ICAN isn’t the first organization to set its sights on drawing global attention to nuclear weapons’ catastrophic human consequences. But the ICAN campaign has been particularly, even singularly, effective at expanding the audience of people who are listening. They’ve drawn new attention not just to the fallout from Hiroshima and Nagasaki but to the human impacts of the thousands of nuclear test explosions that have taken place around the world since, as well as the continued health and environmental threats posed by unstable nuclear waste. In the age of #MeToo and Black Lives Matter, they’ve also managed to connect their campaign with other social movements that share a common cause. “Nuclear weapons are another example of the powerful forcing something on people without power,” says Fihn.

She thinks that how nuclear weapons have been talked about until now has made them easier to accept—and she doesn’t read that as an accident. “There’s been an intentional creation of a conversation on nuclear weapons that excludes regular people, so that if you’re not a 60-year-old white security expert, and if you don’t know all the acronyms and all the details, it’s too complicated for you, so don’t even bother,” Fihn says. Telling human stories helps people see nuclear weapons as what they are—not magic, just weapons. “They aren’t a strategy. They aren’t a security theory,” she says. “They’re just big, radioactive bombs that mass-murder civilians, which means they violate the laws of war. And what do we do with weapons that violate the laws of war? We ban them.”

This human-centered framing also helps puncture another myth—that global security somehow relies on nuclear weapons. “It moves deterrence from a theory into a scenario,” says Fihn. “Are they saying that my country’s strategy is to use me and my family and my city as a human shield for their security? I’m basically deterrence. It’s putting up your own civil population and saying, ‘I dare you to wipe out my cities because then I’ll wipe out your cities.’ Are we comfortable with that?” Adds Fihn: “The whole point of the campaign and the whole point of the treaty is to create something new in this field by reasoning with people.”

ICAN campaigners celebrate.
Courtesy of ICAN, credit Ralf Schlesener

In 2013 and 2014, ICAN convened a series of conferences on the humanitarian impacts of nuclear detonations. Those conferences led to UN treaty negotiations, then to 122 countries voting in favor of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Since then, 70 countries have taken the next step to become signatories on the treaty—despite ongoing pressure by the nuclear weapons states, which have been working hard to stop the treaty’s progress. “Oh, they are furious,” says Fihn. Each country that signs the treaty then has to ratify it—a bureaucratic process involving parliaments, debate, and domestic legislation that can sometimes take years. But ratifications keep trickling in every month. So far, 23 countries have ratified the treaty. When that hits 50, it will become binding international law.


 “THE WHOLE POINT OF THE CAMPAIGN AND THE WHOLE POINT OF THE TREATY IS TO CREATE SOMETHING NEW IN THE FIELD BY REASONING WITH PEOPLE.”


There is still ample resistance to the treaty—and even to the argument that we need one. “I’m always told by serious men that I’m being too emotional or too irrational,” Fihn says, not just for focusing on the human costs of nuclear weapons but for wanting to eradicate them at all. “If you’re in favor of weapons, you’re automatically assumed to be strong and rational, whereas negotiations and diplomacy are weak. I think that’s very gender coded and extremely dangerous.” Before the Trump era, Fihn sometimes had trouble getting people to see that coding—or, relatedly, how nuclear weapons have come to serve as a proxy for male power run rampant. “People would say, ‘I don’t see the gender perspective,’” says Fihn. “And then Trump says, ‘My button is bigger than yours.’ And they were like, ‘Oh, yeah, I can see it now.’”

One of Fihn’s best counterpunches? Methodically exposing the companies involved in producing nuclear weapons, then making them answer for it. “There is a lot of big money in keeping nuclear going,” says Fihn—some $116 billion in government contracts to private companies at last count, according to ICAN’s latest annual Don’t Bank on the Bomb report. And it’s not just the usual suspects. Honeywell, known for its air conditioners and kitchen appliances, is on the list. So are Airbus, Boeing, and Bechtel. Many customers and investors have no idea that their dollars are helping fund nuclear weapons.

“That’s the plan, to make it controversial,” Fihn says. “If we talk publicly about them helping create weapons of mass destruction meant to murder civilians and wipe out whole cities, then it becomes really uncomfortable to defend that investment.” In some cases, the exposure has forced companies to change course. ICAN has also helped pressure pension funds to divest from nuclear weapons producers—including the largest fund in the Netherlands, which previously had $1 billion invested in these companies. “Cut off the resources, make it harder,” explains Fihn. “We have to stigmatize every part of it.”

Beatrice Fihn (in blue) speaking to Tribeca Disruptors in May 2019.
Courtesy of ICAN, credit Eric Espino

Fihn’s not worried what enraged executives think about her full-court-press tactics. Or what Donald Trump and Justin Trudeau think about them either. “In the arms control movement, we’ve been so focused on the top, thinking that we just need the right arguments to convince the right leader, and that’s not how change happens,” says Fihn. “They’re never going to do the right thing. It’s difficult to do the right thing.” What compels leaders to act, she thinks, is culture shift. “With same-sex marriage, you could almost never believe that could happen a couple years ago, but now it is the new norm,” Fihn explains. “When norms shift, politicians follow. Suddenly it just tumbles and then people don’t accept anything else but change.”


“THERE’S NOT GOING TO BE A MAGIC FIX. WE JUST HAVE TO TAKE SMALL STEPS OVER AND OVER AGAIN, LOOKING FOR NEW OPPORTUNITIES AND THEN MOVING THERE.”


Provoking that kind of tumble, she says, will require a groundswell of public support for denuclearization. “Those in power stand no chance against the people when the people actually want something. So we have to get people to want this,” says Fihn. Every march, protest, and divestment matters, she says. So does city- and state-level legislation banning nuclear weapons, which is on the rise, and continued international campaigning for the UN ban treaty. When Fihn was growing up in Sweden in the 1980s, niche campaigns like Doctors Against Nuclear Weapons and Nurses Against Nuclear Weapons were springing up everywhere. “They even had Hairdressers Against Nuclear Weapons,” she says. It’s the kind of attitude and organizing Fihn wants to help stimulate and re-inspire now, in this new age. She also sees artists and other creatives as vital to creating culture shift, and hopes to work with more of them. Recently, a Japanese gardener contacted Fihn. He’d bred a new rose, named it ICAN, and planted in the Hiroshima rose garden, as both a project and a protest. “I love that,” says Fihn. “It’s that feeling that whoever you are, whatever your profession, you can do something about this issue.”

Fihn admits that this work can feel slow and hopeless some days. “There’s not going to be a magic fix,” she says. “We just have to take small steps over and over again, looking for new opportunities and then moving there.” But endurance has its rewards. “It feels we’re losing big battles, but we’re winning so many battles as well,” adds Fihn. “Yes, things are really bad in the United States, but St. Lucia just signed the treaty, and that’s amazing.”

A happy next decade for Fihn? Getting a majority of countries to sign the ban treaty, including a few NATO countries, and maybe seeing one or two states rid themselves of nuclear weapons. But even then, she says, her work wouldn’t be done. “To be honest, I’m not one of those people who thinks this issue is the most important in the world. Because for me this is not about nuclear weapons. It’s about equality and justice.” And there is no end to the struggles she could join on that front. “I’d tackle another easy issue,” Fihn jokes. “There are so many fights.”


Top photo: Courtesy of ICAN, credit Jo Straube; Thumbnail photo: Courtesy of ICAN, credit Eric Espino

Richard Branson Goes Nuclear

It’s December 13, 2018, and Richard Branson is gobsmacked. Jaws drop, tears flow, and friends cheer as VSS Unity—a suborbital, manned, rocket-powered spacecraft built by Virgin Galactic—makes its first trip to space. The vessel was named by Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and nuclear weapons abolitionist. It embodied his belief that nations seem capable of cooperating in space “in a way we can only envy on Earth.” In homage to Hawking, the Unity logo includes an image of Hawking’s eye.

A few days later I open my email to discover an invitation to join Richard Branson and a group of his colleagues and friends at a convening hosted by the Branson family foundation, Virgin Unite, and their Australian partner Igniting Change.

It’s an understatement to say that I too am gobsmacked.

ENSEMBLE

In 1980 I left California to study theater. I did a year at NYU followed by four years in the drama division at the Juilliard School. I graduated with excellent training from a prestigious institution and a path of open doors.

Decades later, however, I know that the most important element of that experience had more universal value: when a diverse and well-trained ensemble performs to its fullest potential the effect is transformative. That’s true whether the ensemble looks like a gang of educators designing schools that serve all students or like a transdisciplinary team tackling dangers related to nuclear weapons.

“The fundamental driver of our success at Virgin has, and will always be, our people working together,” Branson once said. Maybe he’d seen this power too.

So that’s what I decide to talk about with Richard Branson and his crew.

KINSHIP

In March 2019, I find myself speaking to the most remarkable collection of people. Presenting just before me is Graça Machel, the Mozambiquan freedom fighter and campaigner for the rights of children and women, cofounder of The Elders, an international group of leaders working together for peace, justice, and human rights. After me will be Victor Ochen. Formerly a refugee in Uganda, Victor is founder of the African Youth Initiative Network and a crusader for human rights and justice. “My heart swells with joy to see Ochen as one of the new hopes for Africa,” Archbishop Desmond Tutu once said.

Erika Gregory, left, and Graça Machel, cofounder of The Elders

The people in this room bring many kinds of resources. Some have vast wealth and the desire to use it for good. Others have not a penny but possess the courage to do work the rest of us would never dare do. Others are with us because they are global connectors and collectors of extraordinary people; they have dedicated themselves to the notion that good people who feel meaningfully connected to one another and to a shared purpose can accomplish what others consider impossible.

The thread that unites us, from Richard through to his professional and personal families, and from them to those of us assembled, is the power of big ideas. We are gathered, in fact, to determine how we can act in concert—as an ensemble—in service of those big ideas.

One of these ideas is that by 2045—the 100th anniversary of the creation of nuclear weapons—the world will no longer rely upon them for global stability.

OPPORTUNITY

Of course, I hit the usual talking points that everyone rolls out when they describe the nuclear threat landscape. That 14,000 nuclear weapons still exist. That the chance of an accident or a deployment has possibly never been higher. That the population working to make sure these things don’t happen is aging and dwindling, even as the threat becomes more complex.

I’d covered all of this in my 2016 TED talk as well, but my one regret about that talk is what I didn’t say. I focused on the threat when the real story is the opportunity. To envision a world that is more resilient and better equipped to manage conflict and to deter bad behavior precisely because we have moved beyond nuclear weapons. To begin an inspirational new chapter in the evolution of human affairs by declaring the year 2045 as the end of the nuclear weapons century. To build alliances and strengthen movements by understanding the points of intersection between nuclear dangers and climate change, social justice, and healthier democracies.

Ironically, given that preventing the spread of nuclear weapons involves ensuring that energy is used only for productive purposes, there are too few channels for the release of creative energy in the field of nuclear arms control. Funding is competitive, organizational structures hierarchical, the culture staid. One of the most significant opportunities in front of us is to unleash the energy contained in the hearts and minds of the brightest young people working on nuclear disarmament, nonproliferation, and security—the “heirs apparent” to this challenge— so they don’t leave the field in frustration after just a few years.

I tell the group that at a time when formal big systems are struggling to get a purchase on nuclear threats—diplomatic channels between the nuclear superpowers are nearly nonexistent—ensembles are making a comeback. I describe how the N Square Innovators Network—an unconventional, transdisciplinary network of technologists, game designers, nuclear policy experts, diplomats, and Hollywood filmmakers—is taking up the charge. Working in small, nimble teams and facilitated by skilled designers, these innovators are bringing esprit de corps to a field that could use it.

Small teams have long been good vehicles for problem-solving where big systems stumble, and this is not a new idea when it comes to nuclear weapons. The Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction program, for example, enabled the Russian and US scientific communities to cooperate even as the Soviet Union fell. Unemployed Russian scientists—rather than going to other countries to help them build nuclear weapons—helped to downgrade weapons-usable nuclear material so it could be used to power light bulbs instead.

So it might not be a stretch to say that the future of humanity depends on our ability to understand and to replicate the dynamics of small teams powered by big ideas.

INNOVATION

People love concrete examples. So I describe for Richard Branson and the group what it can look like for small but diverse teams to innovate the ways we talk about, teach about, and problem-solve around nuclear threat.

It looks like a mix of nuclear security experts and artists applying the methods of human-centered inquiry and design to awaken, or create, a constituency that understands how to exert pressure on nuclear decision-makers. It looks like N Square fellows—from Apple, MIT, the Skoll Foundation, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, among others—developing new methods for exposing false or misleading information about nuclear activities and making accurate and trusted information more universally available. It looks like an equally unconventional team tackling the question: How might we make the power imbalance surrounding nuclear weapons a personal issue for influential communities?

Then I pose a different question: What if the nuclear security field became one of the brightest sources of creativity and innovation on our planet? This question activates people in the room; I can feel them paying close attention, leaning in to the possibilities.

“EXCEPTIONAL PEOPLE COME FORWARD”

One evening toward the end of our time together, Richard reflects on his life. He talks about his family, he shows a touching short film about Virgin Galactic’s recent triumph. As he tells his grandchildren in the film, “Virgin Galactic has shown that when you set off on challenging but important adventures, exceptional people come forward to join the journey, who are consistently by your side and on your side. People who share your dreams and people who help make them reality.”

This, clearly, is the animating idea behind our gathering: to build a community of adventurers and pioneers eager to tackle the world’s greatest challenges together. Important ideas attract exceptional people who make the most significant contributions when they go beyond the ordinary, seeking to amaze themselves and others.

Now, as Richard says in his blog post, it’s time for that community of adventurers to turn their attention to the nuclear threat.

Creating a world free from nuclear weapons is the realm of the visionary and the iconoclast, but for some reason too few people like Richard Branson have set their sights on nuclear weapons. More than their financial resources we need their guidance and their grit, their networks, and their leadership. We need their optimism and appetite to do what others can’t even imagine. We need them to use their influence to do what government leaders have been unwilling or unable to do.

We’re excited by who else might join us on this path; who will invest in transforming the field by flooding it with new talent and new ways of working on an issue that all of us have a stake in; and how many other innovators, artists, experts, investors—and iconoclasts—will step up to light the way.


photos by Eric Rojas

Responsible Disruption

How can we encourage an atmosphere of collaboration and responsible disruption in the nuclear security field? By ensuring that all feel empowered to contribute. In my mind, the first barrier to that empowerment is whether or not you see yourself and your ideas as legitimate. Given that legitimacy is in many ways a product of public opinion, part of the mission is to influence the way the public considers who is a legitimate voice on nuclear issues and what ideas are both credible and justified.

In the nuclear security space, we often equate the most dominant voices with the most legitimate voices. Whether we are talking about the military, the scientific community, or the highest level of government, experience and ideas from these perspectives have been held up as the most authoritative and thus the most valuable.

Culturally, the architecture of the current world order, one that positions nuclear weapons at the center of global dominance, was set up by a small number of powerful men from the U.S., Europe, and the former Soviet Union. When we think about key players in the Cold War—whether scientists like Oppenheimer or Fermi, national leaders like Truman or Churchill, or generals like Eisenhower and Groves—their maleness and whiteness are among their most obvious unifying features.

However, like the stories we’ve told ourselves about the U.S. space race or the history of computing in America, the fact that the celebrated contributors in nuclear security are often very male and very white is a function more of our neglect of detail than it is a reality of who has historically contributed. Just as we saw with the blockbuster film Hidden Figures, women and people of color have a long history of contribution to key moments in American and global history. But this oversight, in the best case, or intentional erasure, in the worst, contributes to the image we have in our minds about who this space belongs to.


“THE FACT THAT THE CELEBRATED CONTRIBUTORS IN NUCLEAR SECURITY ARE OFTEN VERY MALE AND VERY WHITE IS A FUNCTION MORE OF OUR NEGLECT OF DETAIL THAN IT IS A REALITY OF WHO HAS HISTORICALLY CONTRIBUTED.” 


If we were to step outside the narrowness of the established history that centers men of European descent as the stewards of our collective security future, we would recognize that we too have stories that can be used as vehicles for the inspiration and engagement of a broader demographic around nuclear weapons. Take, for example, the Calutron Girls. These women, many of them fresh from high school between the ages of 18 and 25, were responsible for operating the uranium enrichment machines in Tennessee that produced the fuel for the first atomic bombs in WWII. Outside of a book published in 2013 on their work, their story as women at the center of war-fighting efforts has gone largely underreported and underappreciated. Measured against the impact of films like Hidden Figures—which grossed over $200 million worldwide while reframing the protagonist not as a powerful white man but as a technically brilliant group of black women—it becomes clear that the public is interested in a reexamination of the past that acknowledges their contributions and establishes these disciplines as their own.

“The Calutron Girls,” Oak Ridge, Tennessee, 1944

Similarly, the role of creative expression in shaping the public consciousness of nuclear weapons issues cannot be ignored. The film The Day After is a useful illustration of this point. Watched by over 100 million people in 1983, this film explored the realities of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. It gave the American public, and those that viewed it in the Soviet Union, a common starting point to probe their governments about what was being done to protect against this exchange. Distinguished policymakers and thinkers in this space were called to the carpet by journalists to speak plainly about alternatives to war and ways to infuse stability into what was then a very unstable situation.

Some say the film influenced Ronald Reagan’s evolution from a hard-lined nuclear arms control skeptic into a president that would sign one of the most consequential nuclear arms control agreements, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty—which Russia is violated and the Trump administration just ended. If we fast-forward to today, many of the same signs of instability are once again present, and the American public is hungry for a way to understand these issues and influence the thinking of their leaders. Mediums like film, podcasting, and radio are positioned to bring nuclear weapons out of the abstract and explore the human consequence of the policies we have pursued in the past and are entertaining today.

If there were one thing to take away from the question of how to overcome the barrier of legitimacy on the road to empowerment, it would be the importance of a complete and correct record of our nuclear history. Knowing that women and people of color have an established legacy of contribution relieves us of the pressure of being the first down this path. Knowing that creatives have long helped both the American public and policymakers think about the implications of their actions means we have a foundation to build from. What we need to do now is build new frames and tools that help us understand the world as it is today, and may be tomorrow.


“KNOWING THAT CREATIVES HAVE LONG HELPED BOTH THE AMERICAN PUBLIC AND POLICYMAKERS THINK ABOUT THE IMPLICATIONS OF THEIR ACTIONS MEANS WE HAVE A FOUNDATION TO BUILD FROM.”


It is true that the world is different than it was during the Cold War, and it is justified to question if the frameworks we used to understand the dynamics of deterrence are appropriate to use now. Is the vocabulary appropriate for a world with multiple nuclear powers, whose actions in the nuclear space affect not only their main rivals but others in this multipolar world? How can we think about security in a way that accounts for the new dynamics of climate change, and the role it will play in introducing instability? In many ways, the problems we face are messier than what our predecessors had to navigate, and the solutions will require thinking that accounts for much more.

We are poised to do that thinking. Professional, cultural, and gender diversity among the individuals working toward these solutions will allow us to look at the risks and consequences of nuclear war through lenses beyond traditional government, scientific, and military perspectives. I encourage everyone who enters the nuclear security space to see it as their own, and know that their voice is legitimate and necessary in the way we think about nuclear policy and the impact of nuclear weapons development and possible use. We must all be generous with our expertise—and open to seeing the issues in new ways.

Mareena Robinson Snowden is a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an N Square Fellow. This piece was adapted from remarks she gave to the N Square Innovators Network in November 2018.


top photo: Trevor Holden for the N Square Innovation Summit at RISD

The Diplomat

Bruce Lowry has the nuclear field surrounded. With a background in foreign policy, tech, communications, and philanthropy, he brings a broad professional toolkit to the challenge of reducing nuclear threats. At the Skoll Global Threats Fund and now at the Skoll Foundation, Bruce has spearheaded efforts to identify and explore new ways to make the world safer from the risks of nuclear weapons, primarily by identifying and funding fresh collaborative approaches to solving decades-old problems. N Square is one such approach. In this brief interview, Bruce talks about what his time in the Foreign Service and the tech world taught him about how innovation happens, why nontraditional philanthropic approaches to the nuclear threat are sorely needed, and why he remains optimistic about the prospects of a nuclear-free future.

Q  How did you end up at the Skoll Foundation?

A  It was a circuitous path. After studying international relations in college and in graduate school, I went into the Foreign Service for almost 14 years, working on a variety of projects, including nuclear safety. I left in 1999 and went into tech for about a decade. Then I started looking for opportunities to reenter the global policy world, but without having to leave the Bay Area. That’s how I landed at the Skoll Foundation. At the time, Jeff Skoll was creating a separate project called the Skoll Global Threats Fund, which aimed to tackle a handful of the biggest wicked problems facing humanity, including climate change, pandemics, and nuclear nonproliferation. Given my foreign policy background, I ended up overseeing Skoll Global Threats’ nuclear nonproliferation work, and that included N Square. When Skoll Global Threats Fund sunsetted at the end of 2017, I brought this work back into the Skoll Foundation.

Q  How have your Foreign Service and tech-sector experiences influenced your career in philanthropy?

A  Both taught me a lot about innovation and the conditions that can either encourage or stifle it. The Foreign Service gave me insight into how hard it is to innovate from within the government in any systematic way. The Foreign Service runs foreign policy at the direction of political leadership, and Foreign Service contacts and networks carry over even when administrations change. There is value in that continuity and in institutional memory—but it also can discourage experimentation. I was in the Foreign Service during the Cold War, and while I wasn’t working on nuclear weapons policy directly, I did work on G7 issues after the Chernobyl incident. There was a lot of conversation about how to put a sarcophagus over the Chernobyl reactors that were still leaking—and yet that didn’t happen until 2016. That’s how long it takes to get stuff done in government. Even when government is willing, they are slow to commit to trying something completely new.


“I SAW THE POWER OF CROWDSOURCING AND OF EMBRACING NEW WAYS OF APPROACHING OLD CHALLENGES, AS WELL AS THE VALUE OF AN OLD ORGANIZATION TRYING TO DO NEW THINGS IN A FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT WAY.”


In the tech sector, I worked for a company that sold security, network, and management software. It was not tremendously dynamic, but then they decided to get into open source. This was a company known for its “if it’s not invented here it’s no good” syndrome, so its move toward commercializing open source was a big pivot. It exposed me to open source communities and developers who had very different views on how software gets built. While the software itself wasn’t relevant to nuclear nonproliferation, I saw the power of crowdsourcing and of embracing new ways of approaching old challenges, as well as the value of an old organization trying to do new things in a fundamentally different way.

Photo credit – Skoll Foundation

Q  You helped start N Square. We’ve asked other founding funders what attracted them to the idea. What about you?

A  The conversation around N Square came pretty early after the launch of Skoll Global Threats. I had been talking to Megan Garcia, who was working on nuclear threat at Hewlett and was keen on bringing innovation into the arena. Philip Yun at Ploughshares was also interested. Because Skoll Global Threats was brand new, we didn’t have an established approach to nuclear issues. So it was easy for us to say that we wanted to explore new approaches.

The biggest nuclear funders at the time were Hewlett, Carnegie, MacArthur, Ploughshares, and Skoll. We came together for a series of conversations about innovation in this area, recognizing how much of the work focused on reducing the nuclear threat was quite traditional. A lot of NGOs had been working on this issue for a long time. We saw that there were interesting developments in other arenas where people were taking advantage of new platforms, new technologies, and new approaches. So we retained IDEO, a Bay Area design firm, to take us through an innovation process. How could we think about introducing innovation to this field? What would that look like? What had been tried in analogous areas that might be relevant? That process ultimately led to the creation of an innovation collaborative, which we called N Square.


“HOW CAN BRILLIANT PEOPLE INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE FIELD GET INVOLVED IN INNOVATING NEW APPROACHES TO NUCLEAR CHALLENGES?” 


Q  While your goal is to bring innovation to the nuclear field, this collaborative approach to philanthropy is its own kind of innovation. What were some of the early challenges of committing to a five-headed funding approach?

A  All five funders had their own remit and their own way of doing things. We all had distinctly different processes for monitoring and evaluation. But we had to create a different, dynamic, and iterative process for N Square because we didn’t know what we didn’t know. We didn’t know what innovation might be the most successful or what we could achieve in a specific timeframe. So early on, everybody got comfortable with the idea that we would have to do things differently. We agreed to retain a developmental evaluator, who worked with us from the beginning to keep strategic questions in focus. That was really helpful. The whole point was that we wanted to do something that would reduce nuclear risk. There was a lot of debate about framing the work around nonproliferation or disarmament, but the effort was designed to surface new players and new ideas around reducing nuclear risk, and we weren’t going to prejudge what those were. We acknowledged it, we were okay with it, and we built it into the process.

In the early stages there was a lot of experimentation. We put seed money into a variety of activities designed to explore what might engage people. As time went on, we saw that some things were more successful than others and started narrowing down what seemed to be working. We engaged with both nuclear sector experts and folks from outside the sector. We listened carefully, and if they chose to disengage, we tried to understand why. When they were interested in doing more, we tried to suss out what that might look like and how we could support it. As a funder collaborative, we also had to identify if people were engaging because they were genuinely interested in the issue, or if they were just participating because there was an implied promise of funding. We relied on feedback, seeing where the enthusiasm was landing, and listening to what people were saying they needed in order to stay engaged. Those were the things that helped us better understand was working and what wasn’t.

Q  Eventually, this experimentation led you to the idea of creating a more formal N Square network. What was the goal of that?

A  The latest incarnation of N Square is going deeper with a group of N Square fellows over a period of time on very specific work, with N Square serving as a convener and hub. This direction emerged very much in response to the question of agency. How can brilliant people inside and outside the field get involved in innovating new approaches to nuclear challenges? Many of our fellows are doing very cutting-edge work around the world but have never thought about this issue at all. So the N Square Innovators Network invites new members into a community of practice that comprises both incumbent nuclear nonproliferation players and newcomers to the space, while making sure that all see real value in their participation. So far this is going well—our first cohort is finishing its projects and our second cohort is just getting started. A challenge that remains is making clear connections between N Square activities and the ultimate outcome of reducing nuclear risk. But I think we’re moving more into that direction now.

Photo credit – RISD

Q  In the meantime, you’re also helping to inspire other organizations and networks to take on this issue in ways that are independent of N Square. When you first sat down with the other four funders, you probably never imagined that the Rhode Island School of Design, for example, would somehow get involved.

A  No, but I think that’s a credit to the idea. And it’s another way that we can gauge success. One measure is whether there are partners whom we’ve touched and connected with at some level who have run with the issue. RISD has embraced this idea that everyone—even a well-known design school—can contribute to innovations that lessen the nuclear threat. They are now creating nuclear-focused classes on trust and verification. We’d love to have even more of these kinds of relationships with organizations or networks that embrace this work. PopTech has certainly done it, elevating the nuclear theme in their convenings. The Lear Center is injecting more realistic themes in Hollywood portrayals of nuclear weapons, which may lead some people to think differently about nuclear issues. We’ve had less success in building out relationships to technology companies. There are individuals who are interested and engaged but there’s no organizational partner able to play a similar role to RISD or PopTech. At least, we haven’t identified that partner yet.

Q  What do you think the nuclear threat field will look like in 10 years, and what could the future look like if everything goes well?

A  I’m optimistic. I think there are a number of factors that could gradually reduce the perception that nuclear weapons are essential to our security. One is the diminishing role of these weapons in military strategy. They are not war fighting weapons, and they are unusable in the conflicts that we face today. Having nuclear weapons doesn’t help you win in Syria. And when something isn’t useful or helpful, costs issues come into sharper focus. And we’re already seeing this, with new House Armed Services Committee members set to challenge the Trump administration on the proposed modernization of the nuclear space because it’s so costly. I’m hopeful that we’re at the beginning of a rising recognition that these weapons aren’t all they’re made out to be.

 

 

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