Conveners
Nuclear Weapons in a Changing World: From Deterrence to Arms Control
- Sanne Verschuren (Boston University)
Description
This panel focuses on the interplay between military technology and global security – and how scholars study it. Emerging technologies are unquestionably shaping the ways in which policy makers, military, and industry do security and defence. New developments in artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, additive manufacturing, hypersonics, quantum computing, and space technology are projected to have transformative – even disruptive – effects on strategic stability, military innovation, defence economics, and the conduct of warfare. Most new military technology is dual use and has commercial origins, widening the spectrum of threats and actors with access to technology thanks to cheaper alternatives to military-grade systems. This trend affects the relations among commercial interests (private companies), scientific thought leaders (epistemic communities), those who weaponize technology (militaries), and those who develop technology policy (political leaders). Research on designing key principles for global technology governance and standards for military applications of emerging technologies is in high demand, while the dynamics between old and new technologies on the battlefields is still poorly understood. At the same time, how we study military technology requires more methodological rigor. Responsible forecasting is yet to moderate exaggerated expectations about military technology’s capabilities, inclinations to technological determinism, and strategic overkills. This panel invites submissions that theoretically and conceptually advance our understanding of how military technology changes the security environment. It encourages diversity in scientific disciplines (political science, sociology, economy, history, philosophy), theories, and methods, since the panel primarily aims to facilitate dialogue between scholars interested in how politics and technology interact.
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Tyler Bowen (United States Naval War College)11/06/2026, 13:00Military Technology 1Paper Abstract (Closed Panels)
How does China’s nuclear modernization affect U.S. nuclear strategy? What are the crisis bargaining and crisis stability implications of the emerging nuclear balance between the United States and China? How might the nuclear balance evolve over time? This paper addresses these questions. I argue that by building more hardened targets, China is imposing a damage-limitation tradeoff on the...
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Mr Tahir Azad (Department of Politics & IR, University of Reading, UK)11/06/2026, 13:10Military Technology 1Paper Abstract (Closed Panels)
Recent hypersonic weapon technology advances have changed military power, challenging conventional and nuclear warfare distinctions. Hypersonic glide vehicles and cruise missiles, promoted as precision, speed, and deterrence, are compressing decision-making timelines, circumventing missile-defence architectures, and blurring strategic stability-underpinning escalation thresholds. This paper...
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Jennifer Erickson11/06/2026, 13:20Military Technology 1Paper Abstract (Closed Panels)
The horrific physical, medical, and environmental effects of nuclear weapons underpin long-standing ideas about nuclear deterrence, as well as challenges to their legitimacy and legality. Yet while US planners anticipated the bomb’s immense physical destruction in Japan 1945, they paid little attention to its probable medical and environmental effects. Instead, it was news reports about...
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Samuel Seitz (University of Oxford)11/06/2026, 13:30Military Technology 1Paper Abstract (Closed Panels)
Arms control is traditionally conceptualized as a cooperative undertaking, reducing risk and obviating the need for wasteful expenditure. But arms control can also be employed for competitive ends, shaping competition in ways that asymmetrically advantage certain parties. While previous literature has identified individual examples of competitive arms control within certain cases, the full...
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