Engaging the Physics Community in Nuclear Threat Reduction

The threat posed by nuclear weapons has been well-known, well-articulated, and well-studied for 70 years. Most importantly, a network of international agreements has slowed proliferation and led to dramatic reduction in the number of warheads in the US and Russia. Despite these advances, the grave threat persists and is arguably getting worse – a result of weapons spread to nine nations, the appearance of non-state actors, the threat of cyber attacks against weapon systems, weapons modernization over the coming decades, withdrawal from treaties, potential new tactical weapons, and government discussions of reducing the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons. Yet, this issue is largely ignored by the public. Physicists have a special relation to nuclear arms and, if organized, can add an influential voice to the effort to reduce the threat. There are many threat reduction steps that the physics community can encourage, such as de-alerting, adoption of policies of no-first-use and no launch-on-warning, reduction of global weapons-usable materials and much more. An initiative is being formulated to engage and activate the US physics community to this end.