Hi Angelina! Thanks for the great question! There are several government actors, like DTRA, the Minerva Research Initiative, and the STRATCOM Academic Alliance, that play an important role in the non-governmental nuclear security space, including with funding. Then there are the National Labs as well as FFRDCs and UARCs that receive government funding and often work on relevant issues. Then there are defense contractors that will provide funding to think tanks and organizations that just so happen to support the latest weapons systems.
But that funding isn’t really optimized for reducing risk from nuclear weapons. I also think it isn’t (as some advocates would have us believe) the evil plans of crazy war-mongers. Rather, it’s just bureaucratic actors pursuing their bureaucratic incentives, and the result is kind of muddled work that mostly just supports programs of record and the conventional wisdom.
So I think that’s where private philanthropy can really do a lot of good. I really like this quote from the recent Vox piece that Matt Gentzel and I wrote:
As James Scouras, a senior expert on the risk of nuclear war at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory recently wrote in response to the Founders Pledge report, philanthropy can help challenge “unimaginative, even wrongheaded and dangerous, government policies.” Nuclear risk, he writes, is “far too important to leave to the generals.”
also:
Philanthropists can devote resources to policy interventions intended to bear fruit beyond the current election cycle and to protect people regardless of what side of an international border they’re on. Without careful philanthropy, policy influence outside government becomes a contest between defense industry lobbying and under-informed activism.
This is the part that I think is in a sorry state. The MacArthur Foundation — previously the biggest funder in nuclear security — withdrew what amounted to about 32% of the field’s total funding, distributing the final grants this year. That leaves the field with funding somewhere around $30-$40 million a year. (The exact numbers here are less important than the order of magnitude — compare it to the numbers on any other major global problem, or even to the $100 million budget of the Oppenheimer movie). This is all happening against the background of an aging field and small talent pipeline, as well as new risks on the horizon (like China potentially quadrupling its arsenal). Then within that, the large funders are fairly homogenous in their worldviews, leading some very important issues to be doubly neglected.
I think there’s a general perception that nuclear security is highly professionalized and well-funded compared to other global catastrophic risks, and that had been partly true for a long time. For various reasons, I wouldn’t argue that nuclear security should receive more funding than biosecurity and risks from transformative technologies, for example. But we’re now in a place where a single wealthy donor could double the philanthropy on nuclear issues, and yet no one has stepped in! So all the changes to the risk landscape are going un-studied and I think we will look back with regret if this funding does not increase.
Hi Angelina! Thanks for the great question! There are several government actors, like DTRA, the Minerva Research Initiative, and the STRATCOM Academic Alliance, that play an important role in the non-governmental nuclear security space, including with funding. Then there are the National Labs as well as FFRDCs and UARCs that receive government funding and often work on relevant issues. Then there are defense contractors that will provide funding to think tanks and organizations that just so happen to support the latest weapons systems.
But that funding isn’t really optimized for reducing risk from nuclear weapons. I also think it isn’t (as some advocates would have us believe) the evil plans of crazy war-mongers. Rather, it’s just bureaucratic actors pursuing their bureaucratic incentives, and the result is kind of muddled work that mostly just supports programs of record and the conventional wisdom.
So I think that’s where private philanthropy can really do a lot of good. I really like this quote from the recent Vox piece that Matt Gentzel and I wrote:
also:
This is the part that I think is in a sorry state. The MacArthur Foundation — previously the biggest funder in nuclear security — withdrew what amounted to about 32% of the field’s total funding, distributing the final grants this year. That leaves the field with funding somewhere around $30-$40 million a year. (The exact numbers here are less important than the order of magnitude — compare it to the numbers on any other major global problem, or even to the $100 million budget of the Oppenheimer movie). This is all happening against the background of an aging field and small talent pipeline, as well as new risks on the horizon (like China potentially quadrupling its arsenal). Then within that, the large funders are fairly homogenous in their worldviews, leading some very important issues to be doubly neglected.
I think there’s a general perception that nuclear security is highly professionalized and well-funded compared to other global catastrophic risks, and that had been partly true for a long time. For various reasons, I wouldn’t argue that nuclear security should receive more funding than biosecurity and risks from transformative technologies, for example. But we’re now in a place where a single wealthy donor could double the philanthropy on nuclear issues, and yet no one has stepped in! So all the changes to the risk landscape are going un-studied and I think we will look back with regret if this funding does not increase.
Hope this answers your question!