Blundering toward catastrophe

 Gillian Tett interviews Rafael Grossi, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency: 

...Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine has put civilian nuclear plants in the line of fire; meanwhile Vladimir Putin has repeatedly threatened to use nuclear weapons. "This is worrying because it normalises this," Grossi admits with masterly understatement. "In the past, this was quite taboo, but now people talk about tactical nuclear weapons like something which could be contained or permissible." Grossi also faces a nuclear-armed North Korea, rising tensions between India and Pakistan, both nuclear powers, and his "biggest preoccupation": Iran. Lunch with the FT, 'Financial Times', 7 June 2025

The taboo against threatening the use of nuclear weapons has been broken.  It now appears inevitable that, unless we are determined to establish long-term nuclear peace, the taboo against their use will also break. There are few incentives not to threaten use of nuclear weapons, and plenty of incentive to acquire them. We need to offer meaningful and effective incentives for people to do everything they can to deter the acquisition and use of nuclear weapons.     

For many of our social goals, one difficulty is reliably monitoring progress toward their achievement. That certainly applies to the Social Policy Bond concept - but not in the case of nuclear peace. Use of a nuclear weapon that kills, say, more than 500 people, or that creates a serious electromagnetic pulse, is something that we could unequivocally detect. There are other reasons why maintaining nuclear peace would be an ideal goal for the Social Policy Bond concept:

•     existing initiatives don't seem to be working,
•     the goal is long term, and
•     the goal is likely to require a multiplicity of diverse, adaptive approaches. 

There are bodies, including the IAEA, that are working toward nuclear peace either as their main activity or indirectly, but they are typically short of resources and - relatedly - have little financial incentive to succeed. 

Given that a nuclear conflict is one of the worst scenarios imaginable, dwarfing even our serious, urgent social and environmental problems, it's worth exploring new approaches to nuclear peace. I don't know a way out of any impending nuclear conflict, but what I can propose is that we offer incentives for people to find such ways. Rather than leave everything to the politicians, ideologues, military men and the war-gamers, or even the well-meaning, dedicated professionals at bodies such as the IAEA, we could encourage the issuing of Nuclear Peace Bonds that would be redeemed only when there has been a sustained period of nuclear peace. Backers would contribute to the funds for redemption of the bonds, which would occur only when nuclear peace, defined as, say, the absence of a nuclear detonation that kills more than 500 people (or a serious electromagnetic pulse) has been sustained for three decades. The bonds could be backed and issued by any combination of governments, international organisations, non-governmental organisations and philanthropists, and their funds could be swelled by contributions from the public.

Nuclear Peace Bonds could run in parallel with existing efforts. Indeed, it's likely to channel more resources into those existing bodies whose activities are most promising. It would also encourage new approaches, the precise nature of which we cannot and need not know in advance.

A Nuclear Peace Bond regime would reward those who achieve peace, whoever they are and however they do so. It’s an admittedly novel approach, but the relevant question is 'what is the alternative?'. The Doomsday Clock is currently at 89 seconds to midnight.