Skip to content
antoine-le-pwFbqEHKHDM-unsplash

Can Cluster Bombs Show Us How To Stop a Nuclear War?

The long fight to protect people from explosive remnants of war... and what it means for the future.

Words: Laicie Heeley
Pictures: Antoine LE
Date:
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • Despite being banned, anti-personnel landmines and unexploded submunitions still litter fields from Bosnia to Bangladesh. And mines are even being used in Ukraine. Does that mean the treaties that ban their use aren’t working? Experts say the story isn’t so simple, and that, actually, the treaties to ban these weapons have shown a new way[...]

Despite being banned, anti-personnel landmines and unexploded submunitions still litter fields from Bosnia to Bangladesh. And mines are even being used in Ukraine. Does that mean the treaties that ban their use aren’t working? Experts say the story isn’t so simple, and that, actually, the treaties to ban these weapons have shown a new way forward: One where norms stigmatize the return to these weapons and constrain even the biggest superpowers.

But what will it take to clean up the mess left behind? And can anti-nuclear activists repeat the party trick?

Listen and subscribe now on Apple PodcastsStitcherSpotifyPocket Casts, or wherever you get your podcasts to receive a new episode every two weeks.

Guests: Treasa Dunworth, Associate Professor of Law, University of Auckland; Matthew Breay Bolton, Professor of Political Science, Pace University; Sera Koulabdara, Executive Director, Legacies of War; Alex van Roy, Chief Operations Officer, FSD

Additional Resources:

How War Changes Land: Soil Fertility, Unexploded Bombs, and the Underdevelopment of Cambodia, Erin Lin, American Journal of Political Science

Political Minefields: The Struggle Against Automatic Killing, Matthew Breay Bolton, Bloomsbury Academic

Humanitarian Disarmament: An Historical Inquiry, Treasa Dunworth, Cambridge University Press

Legacies Library: Resources on the Secret War in Laos

Laicie Heeley

Editor in Chief

Laicie Heeley is the founding CEO of Inkstick Media, where she serves as Editor in Chief of the foreign policy magazine Inkstick and Executive Producer and Host of the PRX- and Inkstick-produced podcast, Things That Go Boom. Heeley’s reporting has appeared on public radio stations across America and the BBC, where she’s explored global security issues including domestic terrorism, disinformation, nuclear weapons, and climate change. Prior to launching Inkstick, Heeley was a Fellow with the Stimson Center’s Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program and Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Her publications include work on sanctions, diplomacy, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, along with the first full accounting of US counterterrorism spending after 9/11.

LEARN MORE

Hey there!

You made it to the bottom off the page! That means you must like what we do. In that case, can we ask for your help? Inkstick is changing the face of foreign policy, but we can’t do it without you. If our content is something that you’ve come to rely on, please make a tax-deductible donation today. Even $5 or $10 a month makes a huge difference. Together, we can tell the stories that need to be told.

album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • We’re about a year out from a presidential election, and former President Donald Trump is leading the Republican pack in spite of his supporters’ attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. The attack reflected the anger and violence that can be stoked by misinformation. But the issue of misinformation has become heavily politicized[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • When we say that we’re going to store something “in the cloud” it sounds like an ethereal place somewhere in the atmosphere. But the online cloud is generated by computer servers in data centers all over the world. Thousands of them. And AI is likely to ramp up demand. But data centers don’t employ a[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • Internet blackouts — when internet service is shut down in a country or region — have become much more common over the last decade. But who gets to decide when these disruptions are necessary? From thwarting political protests to preventing cheating on school exams, we’re diving into the who, what, and why of internet blackouts around the[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • It’s one of our biggest problems in 2023, and it can feel distinctly human. But it's not. All sorts of animals deal with all sorts of misinformation every day, including some of our oldest ancestors — like the humble fish. This week on Things That Go Boom, we exit the human world entirely to see[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • Greg is an artist whose clients include Magic the Gathering and Dungeons and Dragons. And much like a lot of the folks striking in Hollywood right now, he’s ticked off about AI. It’s a story we hear a lot these days: AI is having an impact on everything in our lives, and it’s killing creators’[...]
album-art

Sorry, no results.
Please try another keyword
  • In the age of Oppenheimer, nuclear weapons didn’t have much to do with computers. And, for a long time, most nukes were running on 1970s-era floppy disk systems. But as technology has advanced the US — and all the other nuclear weapons states — have started putting military communications, early warning systems, and even control of nuclear[...]

SIGN UP FOR OUR NEWSLETTERS