ANU wins US funding for submarine and nuclear strategy research

This project will ask vital questions about whether new technologies for finding submarines could change nuclear strategy, especially in Asia. The Australian National University's (ANU) National Security College (NSC) has won a Carnegie Corporation of New York grant of more than half a million dollars (USD 450,000) to fund major research into how new technologies for detecting submarines will impact nuclear weapons strategies in Asia. The grant was one of eight awarded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, from a field of 55 bids worldwide. It will cover the two-year research project involving partners in Australia, India, the United Kingdom and the United States and consultations with experts in China, France, Norway and Japan. The project's principal investigator and Head of the NSC Professor Rory Medcalf said the project will build on his previous research on the risks of arms racing and crisis escalation involving the Chinese and Indian nuclear-armed submarine programs. "This project will ask vital questions about whether new technologies for finding submarines could change nuclear strategy, especially in Asia," Professor Medcalf said. "Basically, we want to know whether disruptive changes in maritime technology will increase or lower the risks of nuclear war.