Nuclear Issues

The study of existential risk — the risk of human extinction or the collapse of human civilization — has only recently emerged as an integrated field of research, and yet an overwhelming volume of relevant research has already been published. To provide an evidence base for policy and risk analysis, this research should be systematically reviewed. In a systematic review, one of many time-consuming tasks is to read the titles and abstracts of research publications, to see if they meet the inclusion criteria. The authors show how this task can be shared between multiple people (using crowdsourcing) and partially automated (using machine learning), as methods of handling an overwhelming volume of research.

Joseph Nye writes that some decoupling of interdependence is likely, particularly in areas related to technology that directly affect national security. But will Washington and Beijing go too far?

It seems unlikely that Russia will again possess the resources to balance U.S. power in the same way that the Soviet Union did during the four decades after World War II. But declining powers merit as much diplomatic attention as rising ones do. Joseph S. Nye worries that the United States lacks a strategy to prevent Russia from becoming an international spoiler.

The competition between the United States and China will decide the continent's fate—and one of them has a head start.

The Government of Japan has announced that its prestigious Order of the Rising Sun, Gold and Silver Star will be awarded to John P. Holdren, Co-Director of the Belfer Center's Science, Technology, and Public Policy Program and former Assistant to the President for Science and Technology during the Obama administration. Holdren will receive the award for his "contributions to strengthening relations between the two countries in science and technology."