Will the project "Off-Ramps: Averting Near Nuclear Use in Crisis and War" receive receive any funding from the Clearer Thinking Regranting program run by ClearerThinking.org?

Below, you can find some selected quotes from the public copy of the application. The text beneath each heading was written by the applicant. Alternatively, you can click here to see the entire public portion of their application.

Brief project description

Nuclear weapons persist as an anthropogenic existential threat to humankind and the risk of limited nuclear use, and wider general nuclear war is greater today than at any point since the Cold War. The danger remains that as long as the nuclear possessors lack the ability to pivot (off-ramp) from nuclear use during the critical stages of a crisis and in war, they may be tempted, or feel compelled to use nuclear weapons to ensure regime survival, win the war, or manipulate shared risks in a brazen attempt to bolster aggressive opportunities for aggrandisement. 

Notwithstanding what some nuclear strategists profess, nuclear use can never be localised or limited, and the consequences of a broken nuclear taboo remain too worrisome to contemplate and accept. Given the increasing frequency of clashes between nuclear possessor states, the critical need for off-ramps, as a mechanism to de-escalate from the nuclear option, whilst also not giving into aggression, is a complex objective and challenge that is mission critical to planetary survival. 

Currently, ‘off-ramps’ remains an abstract concept with no agreed upon definition. Frequently referenced as a key characteristic of the Cuban Missile Crisis, its innate value lies in its ability to de-escalate from near-nuclear use during periods of acute nuclear tension and heightened risk. 

This project will develop an authoritative, practical framework and toolkit to assist policy practitioners in planning ‘nuclear off-ramps’ to avert nuclear weapons use during a time of tensions or conflict. Development of this policy resource will give mankind a vital life-line to segue into safety during critical phases, and in doing so, curtail the erroneous need for leaders to consider the actual use of nuclear weapons. No tool like this exists, although the need to pioneer this tool holds promise for achieving outsized global impact.

Expected outcomes

Outcome 1: This project will encapsulate know-how for decision-makers on how to side-step from near nuclear use during a crisis and in war, thereby averting the domino effect leading to full nuclear commitment — the wider and full use of strategic nuclear weapons. 

Outcome 2: Possessor states will leverage nuclear off-ramp planning and its detailed know-how as a mechanism to ensure conflict between nuclear rivals is permanently capped at the conventional (non nuclear) level during an acute crisis and in war. Until now, no tool like this has been conceived or pioneered; its ability to save millions of lives speaks to the need for its creation. 

Outcome 3: This project will integrate and embed other subject matter experts within the nuclear community and contribute to the development of new communities of practices. This is needed to help overcome the nuclear communities’ tendency to stove-pipe research and function within a bubble; wider inclusivity and participation from a range of experts, and especially from other disciplines is necessary for advancing cutting-edge research and making new discoveries, with the ultimate aim of improving our understanding of nuclear weapons as a 'wicked problem'. As a massively scalable project, new ideas will germinate and flow from nuclear off-ramps, thus ensuring that knowledge is constantly refined and improved upon.

Here you can review the entire public portion of the application (which contains a lot more information about the applicant and their project):

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LzNzaEVE5Vkz0XMeJTjJ3HPDDLJc_MPQ9tWRBVrUoBE/edit