NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND AUTONOMOUS SYSTEMS: EVEN CLOSER TO MIDNIGHT?

"We are 90s from midnight". On January 24th, 2023, for the first time in history, the "Doomsday Clock" reached its closest threshold to midnight since its creation. The war between Russia and Ukraine and the risk of a nuclear escalation of the conflict, intentional, accidental, or miscalculated, constitute a fundamental point for the establishment. It is also vital to consider disruptive innovations' weight in this determination.

While the conflict in Eastern Europe amplified the possibility of using nuclear weapons (tactical nukes – in operational terms on the battlefield, and strategic – considering the strain of the nuclear regime among the nuclear powers), it has also validated the relevance of high-tech weapons. Both sides use armed drones and precision-guided munitions as significant disruptive resources in the conflict's conduct and management. That indicates the continuous development of new military technologies and the need to assess their impact on strategic relations between countries.

In this way, in addition to the current conflict serving as a backdrop, this Policy Brief seeks to extrapolate its thresholds, intending to gather initial information about disruptive military technologies, namely, nuclear weapons and Lethal Autonomous Weapon Systems (LAWS), alerting to the risk (of catastrophic effects) of their joint use.