This course provides you with a critical understanding into the changing dynamics and global challenges surrounding the security implications of emerging technologies, as well as ongoing efforts at arms control.

Topics covered will include?the politics and security issues surrounding weapons of mass destruction (WMD), including nuclear, chemical, radiological, biological weapons; issues associated conventional arms and the arms trade; and the roles played by states, non-state actors, MNCs, and civil society in the addressing and exacerbating the tensions deriving from such weapons.

Topics will also extend to the debates and arm controls challenges presented by the emergence of new technologies, including: Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics; Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), such as drones; and the advent of Lethally Autonomous Weapons (LAWs) which raise ethical questions about the use (and misuse) of military power.

Additionally, other emergent technologies contributing to the complexity of security and arms control dynamics, including 3D printing, nanotechnology and quantum computing, bioengineering, and digitisation technologies, will also be explored.