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So you know when
you're doubled over in pain
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and you're wondering, is it your appendix
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or maybe you ate something funny.
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Well, when that happens to me,
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I call my friend Sasha --
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Sasha is a doctor --
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and I say, "Should I rush
to the nearest emergency room
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in a panic?
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Or am I OK to relax and just wait it out?"
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Yes, I am that annoying friend.
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But in September 2017,
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friends of mine were suddenly calling me
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for my professional opinion,
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and no, I'm not a doctor,
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but they were asking me
questions of life and death.
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So what was going on in September of 2017?
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Well, North Korea was suddenly
and scarily all over the news.
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Kim Jong-un had tested missiles
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potentially capable of hitting
major US cities,
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and President Trump had responded
with tweets of "fire and fury."
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And there was a real concern
that tensions would escalate
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to a potential war
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or even nuclear weapons use.
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So what my friends were calling and asking
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was, should they panic
or were the OK to relax?
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But really, they were asking me
a fundamental question:
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am I safe?
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While I was reassuring them that,
no, they didn't need to worry just yet,
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the irony of their question dawned on me.
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What they hadn't really thought about
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is that we've all been living
under a much larger cloud for decades,
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potentially a mushroom cloud,
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without giving it much thought.
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Now, it's not surprising
that friends of mine
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and many others like them
don't know much about nuclear weapons
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and don't think about them.
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After all, the end of the Cold War,
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the United States and Russia,
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tension abated,
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we started dismantling nuclear weapons
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and they started to become
a relic of the past.
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Generations didn't have to grow up
with the specter of nuclear war
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hanging over their heads.
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And there other reasons people don't like
to think about nuclear weapons.
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It's scary, overwhelming.
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I get it.
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Sometimes I wish I could have chosen
a cheerier field to study.
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Perhaps tax law would
have been more uplifting.
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But in addition to that,
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people have so many other things
to think about in their busy lives,
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and they'd much prefer to think
about something over which
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they feel they have
some semblance of control,
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and they assume that other people,
smarter than they on this topic,
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are working away to keep us all safe.
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And then, there are other reasons
people don't talk about this,
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and one is because we, as nuclear experts,
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use a whole lot of convoluted
jargon and terminology
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to talk about these issues:
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CVID, ICBM, JCPOA.
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It's really inaccessible
for a lot of people.
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And, in reality, it actually sometimes
I think makes us numb
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to what we're really talking about here.
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And what we are really talking about here
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is the fact that,
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while we've made dramatic reductions
in the number of nuclear weapons
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since the Cold War,
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right now there are almost 15,000
in the world today.
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15,000.
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The United States and Russia have
over 90 percent of these nuclear weapons.
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If you're wondering, these are
the countries that have the rest.
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[China, France, India, Israel,
North Korea, Pakistan, United Kingdom.]
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But they have far fewer,
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ranging in the sort of
300-ish range and below.
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Adding to this situation is the fact
that we have new technologies
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that potentially bring us new challenges.
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Could you imagine one day
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countries like ours and others
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potentially ceding decisions
about a nuclear strike to a robot
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based on algorithms?
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And what data do they use
to inform those algorithms?
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This is pretty terrifying.
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So adding to this
are terrorism, potentially,
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cyberattacks, miscalculation,
misunderstanding.
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The list of nuclear nightmares
tends to grow longer by the day.
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And there are a number of former officials
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as well as experts
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who worry that right now
we're in greater danger
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than we were in various points
in the Cold War.
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So this is scary.
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What can we do?
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Well, thankfully,
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we don't have to rely on
the advice from the 1950s.
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We can take some control,
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and the way we do that
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is by starting to ask
some fundamental questions
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about the status quo
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and whether we are happy
with the way it is.
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We need to begin asking
questions of ourselves
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and of our elected officials,
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and I'd like to share
three with you today.
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The first one,
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it's how much nuclear risk
are you willing to take or tolerate?
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Right now, nuclear policy
depends on deterrence theory.
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Developed in the 1950s, the idea
is that one country's nuclear weapons
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prevents another country
from using theirs.
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So you nuke me, I nuke you,
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and we both lose.
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So, in a way, there's a stalemate.
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No one uses their weapons
and we're all safe.
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But this theory has real questions.
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There are experts
who challenge this theory
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and wonder, does it really work
this way in practice?
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It certainly doesn't allow
for mistakes or miscalculations.
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Now, I don't know about you,
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but I feel pretty uncomfortable
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gambling my future survival,
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yours, and our future generations,
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on a theory that is questionable
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and doesn't allow any room for a mistake.
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It makes me even more uncomfortable
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to be threatening the evaporation
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of millions of people
on the other side of the Earth.
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Surely we can do better for ourselves,
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drawing on our ingenuity
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to solve complex problems
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as we have in the past.
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After all, this is a man-made,
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human-made --
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I shouldn't say man,
because women were involved --
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a human-made problem.
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We have human solutions
that should be possible.
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So next question: who do you think
should make nuclear decisions?
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Right now, in this democracy,
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in the United States,
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one person
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gets to decide whether or not
to launch a nuclear strike.
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They don't have to consult with anybody.
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So that's the president.
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He or she can decide,
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within a very limited amount of time,
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under great pressure, potentially,
depending on the scenario,
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maybe based on a miscalculation
or a misunderstanding,
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they can decide the fate
of millions of lives:
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yours, mine, our communities.
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And they can do this
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and launch a nuclear strike,
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potentially setting in motion
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the annihilation of the human race.
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Wow.
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This doesn't have to be
our reality, though,
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and in fact in a number of other countries
that have nuclear weapons, it's not,
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including countries
that are not democracies.
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We created this system. We can change it.
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And there's actually a movement
underway to do so.
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So this leads me to my third question:
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what do your elected officials
know about nuclear weapons,
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and what types of decisions
are they likely to take on your behalf?
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Well, Congress has a very important
role to play in oversight
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and interrogating
US nuclear weapons policy.
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They can decide what to fund,
what not to fund,
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and they represent you.
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Now, unfortunately,
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since the end of the Cold War,
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we've seen a real decline
in the level of understanding
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on Capitol Hill about these issues.
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While we are starting to see
some terrific new champions emerge,
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the reality is that the general
lack of awareness
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is highly concerning,
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given that these people need to make
critically important decisions.
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To make matters worse,
the political partisanship
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that currently grips Washington
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also affects this issue.
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This wasn't always the case, though.
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At the end of the Cold War,
members from both sides of the aisle
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had a really good understanding about
the nuclear challenges we were facing,
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and worked together
on cooperative programs.
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They recognized
that nuclear risk reduction
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was far too important to allow it
to succumb to political partisanship.
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They created programs
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such as the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative
Threat Reduction Program,
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which sought to lock down and eliminate
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vulnerable nuclear material
in the former Soviet Union.
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So we need to return to this era
of bipartisanship,
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mutual problem-solving,
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that's based on understanding
and awareness about the challenges we face
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and the real nuclear dangers.
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And that's where you come in.
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Public pressure is important.
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Leaders need a constituent base to act.
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So create that constituent base
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by asking them some simple questions.
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Ask them, what do you know
about nuclear weapons?
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Do you have a nuclear expert
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on your staff?
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Or, if not, do you know
somebody you could refer to
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if you need to make an important decision?
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Start to find out what they believe
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and whether it aligns
with your own views and values?
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Ask them, how would you choose
to spend US national treasure?
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On a new nuclear arms race,
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or another national security priority
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such as cybersecurity or climate change?
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Ask them, are you willing
to put aside partisanship
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to address this existential threat
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that affects my survival
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and your constituents' survival?
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Now, people will tell you nuclear policy
is far too difficult to understand
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and complexed and nuanced
for the general public to understand,
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let alone debate.
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After all, this is national security.
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There needs to be secrets.
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Don't let that put you off.
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We debate all sorts of issues that are
critically important to our lives.
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Why should nuclear weapons
be any different?
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We debate health care,
education, the environment.
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Surely Congressional oversight,
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civic participation that are
such hallmarks of US democracy,
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surely they apply here.
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After all, these are cases of life
and death that we're talking about.
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And we won't all agree,
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but whether or not you believe
nuclear weapons keep us safe
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or that nuclear weapons are a liability,
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I urge you to put aside
partisan, ideological issues
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and listen to each other.
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So I'll tell you now what I didn't have
the guts to tell my friends at the time.
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No, you're not safe,
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and not just because
of North Korea.
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But, there is something
you can do about it.
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Demand that your elected representatives
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give you answers to your questions
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and answers that you can live with
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and that billions of others
can live with too.
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And if they can't,
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stay on them until they can.
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And if that doesn't work,
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find others who are able
to represent your views,
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because, by doing so, we can begin
to change the answer to the question,
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"Am I safe?"
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(Applause)