King's College London

Amid this deteriorating international security environment and polarised political climate, the Disarmament and Deterrence programme aims to build bridges between various stakeholders within the NPT.  To that end, the programme has brought together policymakers, researchers and civil society groups from around the world to identify shared interests and objectives related to arms control, disarmament and nuclear risk reduction. The programme leverages this diverse, global body of experts to develop concrete policy recommendations for policymakers.  

In addition to hosting multi-stakeholder dialogues to foster cooperation, the Disarmament and Deterrence programme engages with and supports parallel governmental efforts, such as the US-led initiative on Creating an Environment for Nuclear Disarmament (CEND - Principal Investigator Dr Heather Williams serves as a civil society facilitator at CEND meetings) and the Stockholm Initiative of the Swedish government. 

The programme convenes transatlantic deterrence dialogues with American and European partners to review current transatlantic perspectives on conventional and nuclear deterrence and to explore new factors and thinking which can help lay the foundation for future deterrence policy.  

 

By bringing together current and former officials, experts, and civil society stakeholders from nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear weapons states around the world, project workshops and conferences have helped to foster respectful dialogue and mutual understanding among NPT members, and between supporters and critics of the TPNW.  

The constructive approach to dialogue at project workshops has revealed broad support among NPT members and stakeholders for efforts to bridge the divisions that have been a source of significant international discord in recent years. Agreement also emerged on the need to address the challenges from emerging and maturing military technologies that might exacerbate existing risks and disrupt risk reduction strategies in the coming years. 

Research Outputs

• Heather Williams, ‘CEND and a changing global nuclear order,’ European Leadership Network commentary, February 18, 2020. 

• Lyndon Burford, ‘Can Nuclear Disarmament Strengthen Global Security? Building a Cycle of Trust,’ New Zealand Centre for Global Studies, January 20, 2020.  

• Lyndon Burford, ‘British policy on the three ‘pillars’ of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty,’ written evidence (NPT0043), submitted to the inquiry into The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Nuclear Disarmament, U.K. House of Lords, Select Committee on International Relations, London, February 19, 2019.  

• Lyndon Burford, Oliver Meier, Elisabeth Suh, and Heather W. Williams, eds. (2019), ‘Meeting in the middle: Opportunities for progress on disarmament in the NPT.’ Centre for Science and Security Studies, King’s College London & SWP, Berlin, December. This multi-author policy report emerged from a conference that CSSS co-hosted with SWP Berlin in May 2019: Towards the 2020 NPT Review Conference: Exploring Common Ground.

• Lyndon Burford, ‘U.K. leadership for constructive dialogue on nuclear disarmament responsibilities’ part of a collection of written evidence (NPT0032) from CSSS experts, submitted to the inquiry into The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and Nuclear Disarmament, U.K. House of Lords, Select Committee on International Relations, January 18, 2019. 

• Lyndon Burford, ‘A Global Commission on Military Nuclear Risks,’ European Leadership Network commentary, June 25, 2019.  

• Lyndon Burford, ‘Sidetrack or Kickstart? How to Respond to the US Proposal on Nuclear Disarmament’(with Oliver Meier and Nick Ritchie), Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, April 19, 2019.  

• Amelia Morgan and Heather Williams, ‘Nuclear Responsibility: A New Framework to Assess U.S. and Russian Behaviour’ European Leadership Network Policy Brief, June 2018. 

• Heather Williams, ‘The nuclear order and emerging technologies,’ Centre for Science & Security Studies, February 2024.