DIAS, TALITA DE SOUZA; HAKMEH, JOYCE; MESSMER, MARION

From the document: "Many states are becoming more interested in nuclear energy as a means to help achieve environmental goals, economic development and energy security. A declaration by 25 countries - including the US, the UK and Canada - during the COP28 UN [28th Conference of Parties to the United Nations] Climate Change Conference in December 2023 exemplified this trend, announcing an ambition to triple nuclear energy capacity by 2050 as part of efforts to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions and limit global warming. The commitment emphasized not only the potential role of nuclear energy in supporting sustainable development but also the consequent importance of maintaining safety, sustainability, security and non-proliferation standards in the civil nuclear industry. As growth in the use of nuclear energy would imply that more nuclear power plants will come into operation, considerations of safety and security in the civil nuclear industry - including around cybersecurity, the specific subject of this paper - are likely to become more critical than ever. Since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there has been a notable shift in many Western countries' energy security strategies. [...] This surge in interest can be attributed in part to nuclear energy's reliability, resilience and low carbon footprint. [...] However, any expansion of nuclear capabilities also brings new challenges, particularly in cybersecurity. Cyber operations targeting civil nuclear systems have been reported worldwide. Such operations pose significant risks, with potential harms including information theft, equipment malfunction, disruption of energy supplies, environmental damage and health impacts. The risks are prevalent both in peacetime and during conflicts."

ROYAL INSTITUTE OF INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS. JUL, 2024.

By Kwong, Jamie

From the document: "Climate change could have mission-altering impacts on the U.S. nuclear deterrent. This paper examines the range of climate change challenges and threats that could detrimentally affect each leg of the U.S. nuclear triad in different and increasingly serious ways. In doing so, the paper helps to advance broader, ongoing efforts to account for climate change in U.S. national security policies. It also aims to inform and help initiate a larger conversation about the vulnerabilities of all nuclear weapons programs to climate change. Gaining greater clarity about these vulnerabilities now is essential to mitigating the worst effects of climate change on nuclear weapons in the future."

Washington. Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. 2023. 52p.

By Klare, Michael T.,

From the document: "Increasingly in recent years, advanced military powers have begun to incorporate and rely on new kinds or new applications of advanced technologies in their arsenals, such as artificial intelligence, robotics, cyber, and hypersonics, among others. The weaponization of these technologies may potentially carry far-ranging, dangerous consequences that expand into the nuclear realm by running up the escalation ladder or by blurring the distinction between a conventional and nuclear attack. Arms control, therefore, emerges as a tool to slow the pace of weaponizing these technologies and to adopt meaningful restraints on their use. This report examines four particular new kinds or new applications of technologies-- autonomous weapons systems, hypersonic weapons, cyberattacks, and automated battlefield decision-making--and proposes a framework strategy aimed at advancing an array of measures that all contribute to the larger goal of preventing unintended escalation and enhancing strategic stability."

Washington, D.C.. Arms Control Association. 2023. 76p.

By Macdonald, Bruce W.; Freeman, Carla P. (Carla Park), 1962-; Mcfarland, Alison

From the document: "Strategic competition between the United States and China is intensifying in the domain of outer space. [...] This report spotlights three sources of instability in space that merit immediate attention because of the growing risks they pose to space security specifically and to global security more broadly[.] [...] The report is organized as follows: It begins with a discussion of how the space environment is changing and the ways in which global space governance has failed to keep pace with those changes. It then considers China's activities in this evolving environment and key dimensions of US-China competition in space, along with the risks that attendant dynamics pose to global stability. The report looks in turn at each of the three drivers of instability in this context. The report concludes with recommendations geared toward US policymakers for actions that can be taken unilaterally, as well as in cooperation with other space powers, to strengthen space governance and mitigate the risks of a congested, debris-strewn, or entangled space environment."

United States Institute Of Peace . 2023. 28p.