Melissa Parke, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, is urging world leaders to reject nuclear deterrence in favor of dialogue, diplomacy, and disarmament as conflicts multiply and nuclear rhetoric resurfaces in international politics.Speaking to Vatican News on the sidelines of the Global Nobel Laureates Assembly on Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear War at Borgo Laudato Si’ in Castel Gandolfo, Parke challenged the premise of deterrence itself.
She argued that lasting peace cannot be built on the threat of mass destruction.“I think it’s inherent in the word deterrence, which has as its root the word ‘terror’,” she said. “Is that the way we want to live? Do we want to live in a war-shaped world? Or do we want to live in a world that’s about love, cooperation and getting on with each other? Because that is the true basis of humanity, I think.”The limits of deterrenceParke said recent conflicts have exposed the limits of deterrence as a security strategy. Pointing to the wars in Ukraine and Iran, she said nuclear weapons “have not delivered peace” and “haven’t prevented war.”
“They have been strategically irrelevant, extremely dangerous and extremely expensive, but strategically irrelevant,” she said. Yet, she warned, they continue to “sit in the background and create an existential threat to humanity for every moment they continue to exist.”A growing nuclear threatAccording to Parke, the current global security climate is marked by “an absolute lack of trust,” with conflicts involving nuclear-armed states unfolding alongside the breakdown of arms control agreements, renewed nuclear threats, and a new nuclear arms race.
“What we’re seeing is this very sky-high risk of the use of nuclear weapons,” she said, warning that the integration of artificial intelligence into military systems is exacerbating that danger. Rather than continuing down a path of militarization, Parke called for “a new way of thinking” based on “dialogue rather than confrontation, diplomacy rather than militarization, and disarmament rather than proliferation.”