Ward Hayes Wilson is one of the most original minds working on nuclear weapons policy today. His first scholarly article was published in the foremost security studies journal in the world — Harvard’s International Security. His next article won the 2008 McElvaney Prize for the best essay on nuclear disarmament. His work has shaken the foundations of the nuclear weapons debate. He showed that atomic bombs did not force Japan to surrender and has challenged both the origins and efficacy of nuclear deterrence. Using fundamental challenges to established nuclear weapons thinking, he has created an entirely new approach to eliminating nuclear weapons.

He has spoken in 23 countries, at the Pentagon, the State Department, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Princeton, Georgetown, the Naval War College, the Sorbonne, Kings College London, Nagasaki University and many others. He bested Sir Lawrence Freedman in a Chatham House debate and turned a pre-debate majority in favor of nuclear weapons at the Cambridge Union into a three to one drubbing against.

His writing reaches across ideological boundaries. It has appeared in anti-nuclear journals like The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Nonproliferation Review, military journals like Parameters, Joint Force Quarterly and Revue de Défense Nationale, foreign policy journals like Survival and Foreign Policy, as well as in news media like the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and others.

His book It Is Possible: A Future Without Nuclear Weapons, has been endorsed by world leaders, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate, four-star generals, physicists, religious leaders, UN officials, activists and others. Richard Rhodes calls it a “stunning, breakthrough work.” Activist Emma Pike says, “If you only ever read one book about nuclear weapons, let it be this one. Easy to read, meticulously well-reasoned, it has an almost disarmingly straightforward answer for every conceivable challenge to the idea that a future free from nuclear weapons can exist. This guidebook for eliminating nuclear weapons will give even the most resolute cynic reason to hope that it is, indeed, possible.”

His book, Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, was endorsed by two Pulitzer-Prize-winning historians of nuclear weapons, recommended by four-star generals, praised by a former head of state and Nobel Peace Prize winner, and described as “brilliant, original, and important.”

Ward has published articles in anti-nuclear journals like The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Nonproliferation Review, in military journals like Joint Force Quarterly, Parameters, and Revue de Défense Nationale, in foreign policy journals like Survival, Foreign Policy, and Harvard’s International Security, in Ethics and International Affairs, The Diplomat, The Nation, The Chicago Tribune, The New York Times, The Boston Globe, The Wall Street Journal, UPI, The Nashville Tennessean,  and others. He has also been published overseas in France’s Slate, Costa Rica’s Diario Extra, Norway’s Dagbladet and Dagsavisen, and others.

Synopsis:

The SUU Eccles APEX presentation on February 20, 2025 featured Author and Executive Director of RealistRevolt, Ward Wilson. His presentation was titled, “The Shadow and the Light: Hope for Our Most Difficult Problem”.

Ward Wilson began his presentation very simply, “Our hardest problem, of course, is nuclear weapons”. He says there are three mysteries surrounding nuclear weapons, mysteries that “paradoxically are the key to unlocking how to eliminate nuclear weapons”. The first mystery is this: what kind of ultimate tool gets used once, and never used again? Ward Wilson questioned, “Aren’t the best tools the ones that you use all the time?” He pointed out the contradiction that “we say we rely on nuclear deterrence, we say we trust it, we think it’s safe, but apparently, in private, a lot of people in their hearts harbor doubts about whether nuclear deterrence is going to work.”

Ward Wilson shared the history of nuclear arms, beginning with the Manhattan Project, and the subsequent bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. “The Japanese surrendered in just four days. It was the proof, the absolute confirmation as if any were needed, that the bombs really did confer Godlike power on their possessors.” This belief only spread, and Wilson pointed out the key beliefs: nuclear weapons were decisive in war, the ultimate weapon capable of immense destruction, they guaranteed safety, and they would always exist. “We have lived with these beliefs for almost 80 years. They’ve shaped our thinking and served as the foundation of our policies. They are so familiar, so completely woven into the fabric of our lives that they seem axiomatic, unquestionable.”

He further broke down each of these beliefs, questioning their truth. Regarding decisiveness in war, he concluded that, “It is not realism to imagine that killing civilians can win wars.” About nuclear weapons being the ultimate weapon, he concluded that, “Nuclear weapons are simply too big and spread too much poison to be practical weapons of war. Militarily, they are effectively useless.” Of their safety guarantee, “It is not realism to rely for your security on a strategy that will inevitably end in catastrophe.” He ended, “If these first three… are myths, then the belief that there’s no way to get rid of them is also a myth.”

There is good news, though, which is that “if we can strip away the myths around them, we ought to be able to eliminate nuclear weapons and the danger of nuclear war”. Based upon this view, it is possible to be rid of nuclear weapons. Ward Wilson stated that what we can do is have faith, speak, and embrace reality. 

He finished by asking the audience to imagine a world without nuclear weapons. “It will not be a world without risk. It will not be a world without war, it will not be a perfect world, but it will be a world where we won’t be haunted in some corner of our brains by a fear that maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, but someday all that we have and all that we’ve built will suddenly be turned to smoke and ashes.”