Nuclear security

Nuclear security is the set of procedures, practices or other measures used to manage risks from nuclear weapons and other nuclear materials.

Evaluation

80,000 Hours rates nuclear security a "second-highest priority area": an unusually pressing global problem ranked slightly below their four highest priority areas.^[1]

Recommendations

In The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity, Toby Ord offers several policy and research recommendations for handling risks from nuclear weapons:^[2]

• Restart the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF).
• Take US ICBMs off hair-trigger alert (officially called Launch on Warning).
• Increase the capacity of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to verify nations are complying with safeguards agreements.
• Work on resolving the key uncertainties in nuclear winter modeling.
• Characterize the remaining uncertainties then use Monte Carlo techniques to show the distribution of outcome possibilities, with a special focus on the worst-case possibilities compatible with our current understanding.
• Investigate which parts of the world appear most robust to the effects of nuclear winter and how likely civilization is to continue there.