Nuclear risk, American hubris and great-power competition
In this interview with Project Syndicate, Harvard professor Joseph S Nye, Jr calls for restoring the credibility of the US nuclear umbrella, highlights the role of non-governmental agencies in international relations, and worries that the US will play its cards poorly vis-a-vis China
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PROJECT Syndicate: In your new memoir, A Life in the American Century, you describe implementing US President Jimmy Carter’s policy of ensuring that plutonium formed from uranium in nuclear reactors was not reprocessed and reused.
Is there a comparable rule or initiative that could help mitigate nuclear risks today, when, as you recently wrote, “conditions seem especially dire”? What are the most glaring gaps in current non-proliferation efforts?
Joseph S Nye, Jr: The beginning of the 1970s was marked by widespread fear of oil shortages and the belief that the world did not have enough uranium to power all the nuclear reactors we would need to replace the oil. We were headed for an economy based on plutonium – a weaponisable material.
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