Playing for Time on the Edge of the Apocalypse: Maximizing Decision Time for Nuclear Leaders
Dr. Christopher Ford • November 11, 2010
This paper explores debates over nuclear weapons "de-alerting" and other challenges. It is also available here, from Hudson Institute.
Paper Presented to the Conference on “Nuclear Deterrence: Its Past and Future”
Hoover Institution
(November 11, 2010)
Synopsis
This paper surveys post-Cold War disputes over the “de-alerting” of nuclear weapons, outlining critiques made of the launch-on-warning capabilities – and what are alleged to be the de facto launch-on-warning policies – of the United States and Russia, as well as the deterrence-focused counter-narrative that has developed in response to these arguments. It offers an analysis of such debates as an expression of a dynamic tension within nuclear command and control systems between “Type A” risks of nuclear use (advertence) and “Type B” risks of nuclear accidents (inadvertence) – a tension that can be further understood with reference to theories of organizational behavior informed by Complexity Theory insights into the “fitness” of complex adaptive systems.
Exploring the potential Type A and Type B implications of various proposed measures for reducing nuclear risks, the author suggests that the policy stalemate created by the need for tradeoffs between deterrent value and accident risk- reduction can perhaps be broken by focusing less upon de-alerting per se and more upon the challenge of maximizing the effective decision-time available to national leaders in a nuclear crisis – a broader discourse of which de-alerting debates are merely a subset.
In this article in Volume 1, Issue 3 of the Missouri State Univeristy's online journal Defense & Strategic Studies Online (pp. 1-89), Dr. Christopher Ford, John Schurtz, and Erik Quam offer a detailed analytical account of how cybernetic theories of social control developed by the scientist Qian Xuesen and his disciples were adopted by the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party and are today critical to understanding the Party’s domestic governance and foreign relations. You can see the whole issue on DASSO's website here , read the Ford/Schurtz/Quam article here , or use the button below to access a PDF of the article.
Below are the prepared remarks upon which Dr. Ford based some of his contributions on a panel on “Tech for War or Tech for Peace? Science, Innovation, and Emerging Technologies in a New Geopolitical Era” at a conference in Reykjavik, Iceland, on May 22, 2025, sponsored by the Arms Control Negotiation Academy (ACONA) and the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF).
Below is the prepared text upon which Dr. Ford based his opening remarks on May 21, 2025, when moderating the opening panel – entitled “NATO and Allied Perspectives on Multi-Domain Operations: A Common Understanding or Diverging Views?” – at the conference on Multi-Domain Operations sponsored by NATO’s Supreme Allied Command Transformation (ACT) in Ankara, Türkiye. (His remarks consisted only of his personal views, and do not necessarily represent those of anyone else.)
Below is the text upon which Dr. Ford based his remarks on a webinar organized by the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) on April 28, 2025.
Below is the prepared text upon which Dr. Ford drew in making his informal remarks on April 21, 2025, at the biennial nuclear policy conference held by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. You can find a video of the panel discussion here .
Below is the text upon which Dr. Ford drew in making his informal remarks to a March 13, 2025, workshop as part of the “Future of Arms Control Project” sponsored by the Geneva Graduate Institute’s Centre on Conflict, Development & Peacebuilding (CCDP).
The National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) published Dr. Ford's paper " Struggling with The Bomb: Competing Discourses in the Nuclear Disarmament Movement" in February 2025, as the second paper in Volume 5 of its Occasional Papers series. You can find Dr. Ford's paper on NIPP's website here , or use the button below to download a PDF.
Dr. Ford and Lord Nigel Biggar published their essay on " Rebutting Sino-Russian Political Discourse and Getting Rights Right" in the Winter 2025 issue of Defense & Strategic Studies Online (DASSO). You can find the DASSO homepage here , read the full second issue of DASSO here , access the Ford/Biggar essay online here , or use the button below to download a PDF of the essay.
Below is the text upon which Dr. Ford based his remarks to a conference at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory on February 20, 2025.
Below is the text upon which Dr. Ford based his remarks on February 18, 2025, to a Track 2 dialogue with Russia on Military Risk Reduction in Europe.