On Tuesday 4th September, the University of Birmingham hosted the Third Annual Symposium on “The Challenges to Trust Building in Nuclear Worlds” entitled “Trust, Cooperation and the Global Nuclear Future”.
Building on the success of previous years, the symposium aims once again to bring together early career researchers, established academics and practitioners working in the fields of trust research and/or nuclear politics. The event was designed to facilitate interaction between all three groups while also enhancing collaboration between researchers across various social scientific disciplines such as international relations, psychology, and sociology.
The conference was jointly hosted by the Institute for Conflict, Cooperation and Security (ICCS) of the University of Birmingham and the Intelligence, Security and Strategic Studies group (ISSS) of University of Leicester.
See related content in the POLSIS blog’s Security Studies research agenda series.
Opening remarks
Professor Nicholas Wheeler
Panel 1: Conceptualising Trust and Arms Control
Nick Ritchie (York), “’Nuclear weapons, value and legitimacy”
Heather Williams (KCL), “The trust spectrum: options and prospects in arms control”
Jason Douglas (Cork), “Deterrence and trust building amongst nuclear rivals”
Michael Urban (Oxford), “Operationalizing Trust; a first cut at identifying the micro-level mechanisms of trust building”
Panel 2: Nuclear Alliances and Strategic Bargains
Daniel Salisbury (KCL), “Trust in the UK-US nuclear relationship: the Trident purchase 1978-1982”
Hugh Chalmers (RUSI), “Trust among friends: nuclear confidence-building in NATO”
Vincent Keating (Durham) and Jan Ruzicka (Aberystwyth), “An unlikely trusting relationship? The United States and Japan since 1945”
Panel 3: Challenges to Nuclear Cooperation in Asia-Pacific
Andrew Futter (Leicester) & Ben Zala (Birmingham), “Trust, cooperation and the Asia-Pacific nuclear balance”
Nicola Horsburgh (Oxford) & Kate Sullivan (Oxford), “Explaining India & China’s small nuclear arsenals”
Francesca Giovannini (Oxford), “Indonesia & Singapore: rivalry and ASEAN regional nuclear cooperation”
Panel 4: Trust and Current Nuclear Challenges
David Cliff (VERTIC), “Trust and nuclear warhead dismantlement verification”
Matthew Moran (KCL) & Christopher Hobbs (KCL), “Exploring the role of trust in Iranian nuclear diplomacy”
Patricia Shamai (Portsmouth), “Nuclear terrorism and trust: understanding the significance of the categorization of WMD”
Ingmar Zielke (KCL), “Doomed to failure: US-Russia BMD cooperation”
Roundtable: Trust, Cooperation and the Global Nuclear Future
Wyn Bowen (KCL)
Patricia Lewis (Chatham House)
Paul Schulte (KCL)
