March 22, 2021
William Potter and Hanna Notte
On March 16-18, 2021, the Track II Institute for Citizen Diplomacy and the Esalen Institute convened an online conference entitled, “The Third Bomb and How to Prevent It.” This three-day event featured remarks by CNS Founding Director Dr. William Potter and CNS non-resident scholar Dr. Hanna Notte, alongside former Governor of California Jerry Brown, Head of the Centre for International Security at the Primakov National Research Institute (IMEMO), Alexey Arbatov, and Sr. Fellow Emeritus at CISAC, Dr. Siegfried Hecker.
Dr. Potter identified a number of the most pressing proliferation challenges and steps that were required in order to mitigate the risks of nuclear use, especially those related to accidents, misperceptions, and miscalculation.
Hanna Notte considered the prospects for a return to implementation of the Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA) under the Biden administration, against the backdrop of recent normalization between Israel and a number of Arab states (“Abraham Accords”). She also reflected on broader obstacles to nuclear disarmament and the development of a collective security system in the Middle East region, suggesting that sustainable efforts to that end require meeting regional actors’ core security needs, as opposed to an approach relying on technical confidence-building measures alone.
