How Climate Change Challenges the U.S. Nuclear Deterrent

Abstract: The United States is undertaking an extensive modernization campaign to ensure its nuclear weapons can deliver the deterrence mission for decades to come. While motivated at least in part to address a changing geostrategic environment, how much do these plans account for a changing geophysical environment? Specifically, how will climate change affect the capacity of U.S. nuclear systems to support the nation's deterrence mission? This presentation will discuss the range of climate change challenges and threats that could detrimentally affect each leg of the U.S. nuclear triad and offer recommendations for how the United States can better prepare for, mitigate, and adapt to these challenges.

Bio: Jamie Kwong is a fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Her research focuses on public opinion of nuclear weapons issues; threats climate change pose to nuclear weapons; and multilateral regimes including the P5 Process, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Jamie completed her PhD in War Studies at King's College London, where she studied as a Marshall Scholar. Her dissertation examines U.S. public opinion of North Korea's nuclear weapons program.