Philanthropy, Nuclear Nonproliferation, and Threat Reduction Paul Rubinson February 2021
Philanthropy, Nuclear Nonproliferation, and Threat Reduction Paul Rubinson February 2021 In this essay, I analyze several case studies that illustrate the role of philanthropy in promoting nuclear nonproliferation and threat reduction and examine the evidentiary bases behind their claims of impact. The influence of social movements, activism, public opinion, and philanthropy on national security policy is notoriously difficult to measure: policymakers are reluctant to credit outsiders for fear of looking weak, while accounts of social movements are often written by participants or by people sympathetic to movements’ goals. Furthermore, when sources do credit philanthropy with achieving nonproliferation or threat reduction, their assertions are most often vague or difficult to verify. Nonetheless, these sources, flawed as they are, offer evidence that philanthropy has influenced threat reduction (including nuclear nonproliferation) and highlight the need for continued research on the subject. This essay proceeds chronologically, covering threat reduction from the early 20th century through the Second World War, then Cold War nonproliferation, and lastly post–Cold War nonproliferation and threat reduction. The final section covers in detail the activities of the Ploughshares Fund and the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and looks closely at philanthropy’s influence on the Iran nuclear agreement of 2015. Activists, philanthropists, and ordinary citizens have dedicated a tremendous amount of time and money to nuclear arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. Although observers tend to lump arms control and disarmament together, they are distinct: arms control aims to limit the use or number of nuclear weapons, whereas disarmament aims to eliminate nuclear weapons from arsenals and has therefore been exceedingly rare.
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