Zia Mian's guest appearances

Zia Mian

Science History Podcast

CTBTO Faces

Sound Discussion

Insights

Sheldon Whitehouse

Brian Greene

Francis Fukuyama

Tim Robbins

Nina Khrushcheva

John Turturro

Valerie Jarrett

Parag Khanna

Ellen Burstyn

James Doty

Julia Ebner

Kishore Mahbubani

James Stavridis

Tom Patterson

Esther Dyson

OwlTail

Dr. Zia Mian is co-director of Princeton's Program in Science &amp; Global Security. We talk about the implications of the Iran Deal today, what would happen if a nuclear weapon were dropped, and who the major threats are.

Threat of Nuclear Weapons (with Dr. Zia Mian)

Zia Mian - physicist, nuclear expert and co-director of Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security - evaluates today’s nuclear arms threat, in conversation with Ambassador Cameron Munter.Mian stresses the importance of focusing not just on long-term processes to shift the global narrative on nuclear weapons, but also to address the current circumstances that pose a discernible risk - such as India/Pakistan, and U.S. relations with Iran or South China Sea tensions.The discussion also delves into climate change prediction models, which indicate that a very limited regional nuclear conflict would have an incredibly destructive impact. “Even use of 50 nuclear weapons each between India and Pakistan, a third of their nuclear arsenals, could lead to catastrophic fires that would cloud the sky across most of the world, and produce a catastrophic failure of agriculture and ecosystems that would last for more than 20 years.”“As we begin to see these inadvertent and unexpected dangers of regional nuclear crisis, the urgency of intervention becomes greater, but the problem of intervention has become harder because of decades of neglect for other geopolitical and geo-strategic reasons,” Mian concludes.

Zia Mian - physicist, nuclear expert and co-director of Princeton University's Program on Science and Global Security - evaluates today’s nuclear arms threat, in conversation with Ambassador Cameron Munter. Mian stresses the importance of focusing not just on long-term processes to shift the global narrative on nuclear weapons, but also to address the current circumstances that pose a discernible risk - such as India/Pakistan, and U.S. relations with Iran or South China Sea tensions. The discussion also delves into climate change prediction models, which indicate that a very limited regional nuclear conflict would have an incredibly destructive impact. “Even use of 50 nuclear weapons each between India and Pakistan, a third of their nuclear arsenals, could lead to catastrophic fires that would cloud the sky across most of the world, and produce a catastrophic failure of agriculture and ecosystems that would last for more than 20 years.” “As we begin to see these inadvertent and unexpected dangers of regional nuclear crisis, the urgency of intervention becomes greater, but the problem of intervention has become harder because of decades of neglect for other geopolitical and geo-strategic reasons,” Mian concludes.

Zia Mian: Assessing the Nuclear Danger