This House Believes Nuclear Weapons Have Made the World Safer | Cambridge Union

Thursday 25th January 2024 at 8:00pm in the Debating Chamber.

Following an intense atomic race between Nazi Germany and America, the Second World War ended in an atomic cloud of ash and glass.

Through the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan capitulated to America, and an intense atomic race kicked off between the Soviet Union and the United States. Yet millions did not die in a war between the USSR and the USA; despite a 40-year duel, the USSR dissolved without war. Fukyama's dream did not come true; however, history has not ended, and nuclear proliferation with a rising China, an unstable USA and a recalcitrant Russia, the thin balance between deterrence and annihilation is once again on show.

Are nuclear weapons preventing direct conflict between superpowers and saving us from the fate of those in the 1910s or 30s, or are we sleepwalking towards atomic annihilation?

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Proposition:

PROFESSOR HEW STRACHAN

Professor Hew Strachan is a noted military historian and scholar, as well as a fellow of the British Society and the British Academy. A long-time professor both at Oxford and now at St Andrew's, Professor Strachan's main work has concentrated on the First World War, but he has written on an extensive range of military historical subjects, including on the Napoleonic Wars and Waterloo.

PROFESSOR PAUL SCHULTE

Paul Schulte is a nonresident senior associate in the Carnegie Nuclear Policy Program and at Carnegie Europe, where his research focuses on the future of deterrence, nuclear strategy, nuclear nonproliferation, cyber security, and their political implications. He previously served as director of proliferation and arms control for the UK Ministry of Defence, and as UK commissioner on the UN commissions for Iraqi disarmament, UNSCOM and UNMOVIC.

TOM PATE

Tom Pate is a third year student readin History at King’s College. He is the Chairman of the Cambridge University Conservative Association for Lent Term. He won the right to speak through process of audition.

Opposition:

WARD WILSON

Ward Wilson is a Senior Fellow and director of the Rethinking Nuclear Weapons project at the British American Security Information Council (BASIC), a think tank focusing on nuclear disarmament. Mr Wilson has worked extensively with the United Nations to highlight risks of nuclear conflict, including through his book, Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, which was published to widespread acclaim in 2013.

FLORIAN EBLENKAMP

Florian Eblenkamp is the advocacy officer for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, a group that won the Noble Peace Prize in 2017. With an academic background in complex statistics, Mr Eblenkamp has worked throughout his life on campaigning for the abolition of nuclear weaponry, including advocacy at the European Commission.

REBECCA JOHNSON

Rebecca Johnson has been a lifelong campaigner against nuclear weapons. A member of the Greenham Common Camp which protested nuclear weapons in the 1980s, Ms Johnson has devoted her life to opposing nuclear weaponry, including by founding the Acronym Institute for Disarmament Diplomacy and co-founding the International Campaign to Abolish nuclear weapons. She is also an author on the threats of nuclear weaponry.

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