ONN Nulcear Forecast

Can Humanity Achieve a Century of Nuclear Peace? Expert Forecasts of Nuclear Risk

Open Nuclear Network

A Programme of PAX sapiens

151 participants,110 nuclear experts, & 41 superforecasters

INFO

Years of Experience for Expert Participants

Question

10%

5%

INFO

1%

If a nuclear catastrophe is defined as an event that causes over 10 million deaths, what's your estimated probability of such an event occurring by 2045, considering current geopolitical, technological, and environmental factors?

This study investigated views on 23 different policies. Six of them are general policies.

Other Policies

03

Introducing structured review mechanisms within nuclear-armed states to identify and address accidental launch risks.

Failsafe Reviews

02

A robust, cyber-attack-secure communication network for all nuclear-armed states.

Multilateral Crisis Communications

01

Risk Reduction Policies

Major Risk Factors

Russia-NATO Conflict

High-Risk Regions

Proliferation Concerns

INFO

Future Directions

• Expand diversity in geographic and professional perspectives.
• Explore decision-maker-specific concerns

Future Goals

• Participants primarily from the USA, Western Europe, and South Asia.
• Limited representation from government and military backgrounds.

Identified Limitations

Contact Information

Karim Kamel

kpirnavskaia@paxsapiens.org

kkamel@paxsapiens.org

Kseniia Pirnavskaia

Full Report

Seen as the highest-risk adversarial domain, with a 26% likelihood of causing a nuclear catastrophe if one were to occur.

Russia-NATO

Introducing structured review mechanisms within nuclear-armed states to identify and address accidental launch risks is estimated to reduce the likelihood of a nuclear catastrophe. Experts predict this policy could lower risk by 20%, while superforecasters estimate a 10% reduction

Failsafe Reviews

Experts estimate a 5% likelihood of nuclear catastrophe by 2045—half the public’s perception but significantly higher than the superforecasters’ estimate.

This research, the largest systematic survey of nuclear risk experts to date, assesses the probability of a nuclear catastrophe (defined as an event causing over 10 million deaths), identifies key risk pathways, and evaluates the impact of various policies aimed at reducing these risks.

The general public perceives a 10% risk of nuclear catastrophe by 2045—double expert estimates and ten times higher than superforecasters.

Experts also identified Korean Peninsula (20%), India-Pakistan (19%), Israel-Iran (14%), and China-USA (13%) as significant potential flashpoints.

Other High-Risk Regions

Superforecasters estimate just a 1% chance of nuclear catastrophe by 2045, significantly lower than the estimates of experts and the perceptions of the general public.

General policies

INFO

The possibility of nuclear weapon acquisition by new states, like Iran, or by non-state actors, was seen as a significant risk escalator.

Proliferation Concerns

Explore decision-maker-specific concerns, including:

• Crisis communication strategies.
• Nuclear arsenal management impacts.

A robust, cyber-attack-secure communication network for all nuclear-armed states could reduce the risk of a nuclear catastrophe by 25% according to a median expert; the median superforecaster thought it would reduce risk by 15%.

Multilateral Crisis Communications