Source: World Wide Web
The decision of the MacArthur Foundation, a well-known non-governmental organization in the United States, to stop providing financial support to organizations that oppose nuclear proliferation and the arms race has aroused the attention of the US media, which is not conducive to reducing the global nuclear threat and bringing the "bell of doom" closer to the time when the nuclear war broke out at 24:00 a.m.
The US "Politico" website reported on July 19 that the MacArthur Foundation decided to stop funding nuclear policy work, which posed a threat to those "voices" committed to controlling the outbreak of a new arms race, and the "Bell of Doom" was slowly approaching 24 midnight (a virtual clock indicating the extent of the world's nuclear threat, and 24 midnight symbolized the outbreak of nuclear war).
Screenshot of a report on the US "Politics" website
That's because a major agency that funded them is stopping funding them, hitting these arms control agencies that are trying to maintain their influence. For more than 40 years, the MacArthur Foundation, America's largest nonprofit organization, has been a major funder for many nonprofit research centers, academic programs, and grassroots organizations dedicated to curbing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and developing a new generation of arms control experts.
Since 2015, the MacArthur Foundation has allocated 231 grants to these "nuclear challenge" projects, totaling more than $100 million. In some cases, funding for individual institutions or projects is even more than half of the foundation's annual funding. But according to several veterans in the nuclear policy field, the MacArthur Foundation's recent conclusion that it failed to achieve its goals and decided to withdraw from the field could be "unfavorable" if there were no other sources of funding.
"This is a major blow to the field," said Joan Rolfing, chief operating officer of the nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative, which works to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The organization has been one of the biggest beneficiaries of the MacArthur Award. "It's now moving in the opposite direction to social needs." The official also said that while the MacArthur Foundation's funding is a tiny fraction of the agency's budget, the move has come too badly for a wider range of nuclear policy practitioners. "The threat of using nuclear weapons is increasing," she said. "This is one of the most dangerous periods in our history since the atomic bomb was built."
Citing a series of worrying trends, Rolfing said: "The 9 nuclear-armed states are complex; relations between nuclear-weapon states are tense; there are cyber vulnerabilities in nuclear systems; and the threat of nuclear terrorism continues to rise." She added that these "all create an extremely dangerous threat environment." "Now is the time to devote more resources to finding innovative solutions."
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Heads of other agencies working to reduce the global nuclear threat have similar concerns. "We are at a crossroads right now," said Emma Belcher, president of the Ploughshares Fund. "We really need a strong civil society to make independent analysis, to keep the public informed, and to hold the government accountable." The Ploughshares Foundation is another major non-profit organization focused on nuclear disarmament.
The MacArthur Foundation's surprise decision was published on its website in June, with little explanation. "We know that our decision to withdraw after 2023 will have broad implications for the nuclear field," the foundation replied to the Politics website in a Q&A statement. "It was a tough decision and we didn't make it haphazardly."
While the decision was based on a range of reasons, the foundation said it cited an assessment completed last year that concluded that it did not have enough "vision" to win the "big gamble" when it came to stopping the production of new nuclear bomb materials. However, the foundation stressed that it will not withdraw its investment immediately, but is advancing a three-year, $30 million operation called "Apex" to address these nuclear issues before it ends support in the field of nuclear challenges in the next two years. The foundation also said the main purpose of the final round of funding is to develop a more diverse pool of experts, reduce the security risks of nuclear energy, and "reconsider" long-held assumptions about how to contain nuclear conflicts. But "at the end of the 'Apex' grant in 2023, the MacArthur Foundation will withdraw from the nuclear field." The funds are expected to be used for a range of other policy efforts and issues supported by the foundation, from fighting climate change to education and public health.
This could be "scary" news for long-term beneficiaries of the MacArthur Foundation. Other organizations funded by the MacArthur Foundation include the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Monterrey Institute for International Studies. Some organizations rely on the Foundation for a large portion of their annual budgets. For example, the Washington-based Arms Control Association received a one-year grant of $400,000 from the MacArthur Foundation last fall, compared to the agency's total annual budget of $1.6 million. Daryl Kimball, the association's director, said he still hadn't figured out why it wouldn't change strategy if the MacArthur Foundation decided it couldn't achieve the goals it had set in the nuclear field.
"It would be a mistake to think that nuclear weapons no longer pose an existential threat to humanity," Kimball said in an interview. "It is more important than ever to invest in the efforts of civil society to halt and reverse the intensifying global arms race and thus return to the path to a nuclear-weapon-free world."
Robert Gallucci, a former head of the MacArthur Foundation and a former diplomat who helped ensure the safety of Russia's nuclear weapons after the Cold War, said the MacArthur Foundation's decision was "unwise and deeply regrettable." He also referred to "the continuing threat to States and international security posed by the possession and proliferation of nuclear weapons".
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Organizations that have been running the Doomsday Clock for decades have also relied on the MacArthur Foundation. The "doomsday clock" is an indicator of the risk of global destruction.
In addition, Rachel Bronson, CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who received a $700,000 grant from the MacArthur Foundation two years ago, also said: "The MacArthur Foundation grant is a big deal for us. "They helped us through some very difficult times and their departure was really disappointing." The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists was founded in 1945 by scientists involved in the development of the atomic bomb to educate the public about the risks of the nuclear age. Bronson added that the "Bell of Doom" is now 100 seconds away from 24:00 midnight, which is "the closest in the history of the 'Bell of Doom' to 24 o'clock."
Harvard's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs' Atomic Management Program will also be affected, with the MacArthur Foundation providing more than half of the project's total funding. Matthew Bonn, head of the project, said: "The MacArthur Foundation provides about 40 to 55 percent of non-governmental funding for research into nuclear policy. Without the macArthur Foundation's support, Bonn fears it would make the voices that have influenced Washington's nuclear policy for decades fade. He listed a number of decisions on nuclear policy influenced by NGOs, one of which was George W. Bush. The Global Threat Reduction Initiative, launched during the Administration of President W. Bush, which was strengthened during the Obama era, advocated the elimination of supplies of highly enriched uranium, a key raw material for the manufacture of atomic bombs, from fragile nuclear reactors around the world. Another example is the new U.S.-Russia Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, ratified by the U.S. Senate in 2010, which U.S. President Joe Biden and Russian President Vladimir Putin extended for five years in January.
"One reasonable reason is that if the MacArthur Foundation-funded non-governmental groups did not exist, the treaty might not be ratified," Bonn said. "If that happens, we will now be in a world where there are absolutely no restrictions on U.S.-Russian nuclear forces, for the first time in half a century."
Some even argue that nuclear arms control and disarmament organizations played an important role in ending the Cold War. More recently, organizations like the Arms Control Association and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists have also been on the "front lines" of nuclear arms reductions. For example, they have been pressuring the U.S. Congress to cut or eliminate the Air Force's new intercontinental ballistic missiles and overturn the U.S. decision in 2019 to deploy new low-yield nuclear warheads on nuclear submarines. Many of these programs have also produced generations of nuclear experts, including some in key positions on the U.S. National Security Council, the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the Department of Energy.
A notable example is Biden's nomination of Under secretary of state for arms control and national security, Bonnie Jenkins, who has been involved in projects at Harvard University's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
At the same time that the MacArthur Foundation decided to withdraw, other major funders in the nuclear field either withdrew their funding or cut back on funding levels, including the Ford Foundation, the Hewlitt Foundation, the Skol Foundation and the Elton Jones Foundation. "There is no obvious successor," said Luo Erfin, chief operating officer of the Nuclear Deterrence Initiative. "We will need to work to develop new relationships with funders and explain why this is important." Belcher, president of the Ploughshares Foundation, said more organizations need to rethink how they raise money. "Nuclear danger is increasing," she said. "I think looking for traditional foundations may not be the answer, I think it's a very attractive area, for those who haven't invested in this before, probably between businesses with more technical backgrounds, we can use a different way of financing than before."
"I think this is a real opportunity for investors who are smarter, more focused and even bolder," Belcher added. "The time is ripe to invest in this area."