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When activists, diplomats, nuclear war planners, and religious actors use similar words when talking about nuclear weapons, do they mean the same thing? Do the citizens of the world know the demands that nuclear weapons are making of them? What are the actual drivers behind increasing nuclear weapons packages? And what assumptions do we carry with us while thinking about nuclear weapons that we should be questioning?

The ANU International Relations Society\\u2019s Kaitie Wickham will be talking to Science Po\\u2019s Professor Beno\\xeet Pelopidas, one of France\\u2019s premier experts on nuclear weapons.

Beno\\xeet runs the Nuclear Knowledges program, which is the first independent research program on the nuclear phenomenon in France. I won\\u2019t go through all of the accolades to his name, but the highlights include: previously having held the Chair of Excellence in security studies at Sciences Po (France\\u2019s most highly ranked and prestigious social sciences university); being an affiliate of the Centre for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford; and he has been awarded three international prizes for his research, as well as a grant by the European Research Council.

If you have any questions or comments about the podcast, you can get in touch with Beno\\xeet at: benoit.pelopidas@sciencespo.fr. You can also learn more about the Nuclear Knowledges program on Twitter (@NKowledges) or online: https://www.sciencespo.fr/nk/en.

The book recommendations mentioned is The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner by Daniel Ellsberg.

And Kaitie\\u2019s recommendation of where to start if you want to read some of Beno\\xeet\\u2019s papers: \\u201cThe unbearable lightness of luck: Three sources of overconfidence in the manageability of nuclear crises,\\u201d by Beno\\xeet Pelopidas in the European Journal of International Security. If you want a link to a free copy of the paper, click here, and for a forthcoming follow-up on luck click here. Finally, for a 16-minute expos\\xe9 on the dilemma of the public intellectual, click here.

We hope you enjoy the discussion!