SIPRI had an active and engaged presence at this year's Munich Security Conference, 16-18 February.
SIPRI hosted a roundtable discussion, entitled ‘Emerging Technologies: Time to Reboot Arms Control?’, which considered the risks to peace and security posed by new technologies and what potential solutions or avenues for cooperation states can work towards.
Whereas traditional arms control experts have a tendency to look at discrete items, such as tanks, nuclear weapons and missiles, technological change demands a more interdisciplinary approach to agree on definitions, what forum to deal with this, and what kind of concrete policy recommendations are needed.
The closed session was attended by cybersecurity, data and humanitarian law experts, as well as key representatives from governments, intergovernmental organisations, think tanks and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
Dan Smith, SIPRI Director, along with Dr Sibylle Bauer, Director of the SIPRI Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-Proliferation Programme, chaired the session with key interventions from Ambassador Jan Eliasson, Chair of the SIPRI Governing Board. They also engaged in bilateral discussions and with the media throughout the conference, speaking with Al Jazeera, CBC, NPR, SRF, among others.
Explore SIPRI’s work on emerging military and security technologies.
Read Dan Smith’s Security Brief for The Security Times, ‘Whither Arms Control?’.
See some of Dan Smith’s reflections on the conference in the latest episode of Peace Points:
