Any Eisenhower in the room? – Dec. 2025

If you know the nuclear world, you know that “Atoms for Peace” was never only idealism. It was a strategic move by the US, exactly 72 years ago (8 Dec. 1953) at the start of the Cold War.

➡️ A few strategic goals often forgotten
• Limit growing Soviet influence
• Shape global nuclear norms before the USSR
• Use civilian cooperation to bring new states closer to the US
• Position the US as the key supplier of nuclear science + materials

🌐 And yet, this obvious strategic intent did not stop multilateral progress.
–> The result was the creation of shared rules, safeguards, and eventually the IAEA (1957), which is proof that national interests and global governance can advance together.

➡️ The speech had concrete impacts
• Higher US R&D budgets to support reactor exports
• Dozens of research reactors shared worldwide
• Creation of the IAEA in 1957 and the first safeguards
• Influence on several European national programs

✅ Today we enter a new period of tension between blocs, with several technology revolutions accelerating at the same time. But unlike the 1950s, we have no clear global governance effort for these new frontier domains.

Would global governance make sense for some of them? Which ones would need it most?
• AI safety + compute governance
• Critical minerals + strategic materials
• Semiconductors + lithography
• Biotechnology
• Quantum technologies

✅ And the real question behind my illustration: who today has the willingness and legitimacy to deliver such a global speech? Europe, the US, China?

Any Eisenhower in the room?

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