The Hill

According to philosopher Nick Bostrom, a novel technological discovery may one day devastate human civilization. In Bostrom’s “vulnerable world” theory, only extraordinary interventions — such as unprecedented global cooperation or surveillance — can prevent a sufficiently dangerous new technology from ushering in civilizational collapse.

With key members of Congress suspecting that the U.S. already possesses such uniquely destabilizing technology, Bostrom’s hypothesis may soon be put to the test.

Legislation proposed by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and a bipartisan group of five other senators alleges that surreptitious government “legacy programs” have retrieved and are attempting to reverse-engineer UFOs of seemingly “non-human” origin. Although an influential member of the House successfully “killed” the most remarkable elements of the legislation late last year, Schumer and his Republican counterpart are not backing down.

At the same time, several House members stated last week that they consider the allegations of David Grusch, a former intelligence official who testified under oath about UFO retrieval and reverse engineering programs, to be credible.

At this juncture, leaving the plausible global implications of such a paradigm-shifting revelation unaddressed is irresponsible and, as Bostrom might argue, dangerous.

Let us assume, then, that the U.S. does indeed possess revolutionary UFO technology.

Let us also assume, as Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) appear to believe, that unprecedented secrecy has thus far prevented meaningful scientific understanding of the “exotic” technologies recovered.

A popular assumption holds that any official disclosure that humanity is not alone will unite the nations of the world by default. But this is by no means guaranteed.

On the contrary, a sudden public revelation that the U.S. possesses inconceivably advanced technology could be a uniquely destabilizing event.

China’s military, for example, relies heavily on espionage and the emulation of U.S. technology. Russia’s defense industry is in shambles, compounded by staggering losses in Ukraine. These nuclear-armed states would naturally fear the sudden injection of highly advanced UFO technology into a comparatively mature, sophisticated American industrial base for technical analysis and exploitation.

Russia or China would thus be motivated to engage in a range of destabilizing actions to hedge against the U.S. attaining an insurmountable strategic advantage. More worryingly, such states may seek to actively prevent the U.S. from developing paradigm-shifting military capabilities derived from UFO technology.

In this unstable geopolitical environment, several plausible scenarios could escalate rapidly into a devasting global conflict.

To complicate matters, key senators appear to suspect that some of America’s adversaries have also retrieved highly advanced UFO technology. Three military and intelligence officials, including Grusch, have alleged as much.

If true, the public disclosure of UFO technology by one state could ignite an arms race unparalleled in human history.

Let us assume, then, that a state successfully harnesses advanced UFO technology, enabling it to strike globally with impunity while rendering its adversaries’ military capabilities ineffective. That nation would have significant incentives to conduct a devastating “knock-out” attack before its rivals achieve similar breakthroughs. This, in Bostrom’s typology of “civilizational vulnerabilities,” is the “safe first strike” scenario.

To address the profound risks associated with the emergence of highly destabilizing technologies, Bostrom offers two primary remedies: “Global governance” and “preventive policing.”

In the context of our UFO-focused thought experiment, elements of both may be applied to, per Bostrom, “stabilize a vulnerable world.”

A “global governance” approach to the unique risks postulated here might see all UFO technology placed under strict multilateral control.

Scientific study and analysis would be conducted by multinational teams of experts. These teams would be compartmented and isolated from one another to prevent any one individual or team from gaining sufficient knowledge to wield the technology for nefarious or self-interested purposes.

Drawing on Bostrom’s “preventive policing” remedy, the scientists and experts involved in such a multinational study of UFO technology would also be subject to intrusive surveillance, monitoring and movement restrictions. This serves to mitigate the risk of any “cheating” or state-based espionage.

At the same time, continuous surveillance of the individuals with access to UFO technology might deter those who Bostrom describes as willing to “act in ways that destroy civilization even at high cost to themselves.”

For additional assurances and confidence-building measures, a global, multilateral approach may draw inspiration from the Treaty on Open Skies. The on-site inspection regimes that emerged from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency could also be instructive.

For example, should one state suspect another of surreptitiously studying or exploiting UFO technology outside of the multilateral scientific framework, an aggressive inspections framework, agreed by all participating nations and requiring a majority vote to enforce, could deter “cheating.”

Over time, as confidence grows among participating states, these necessarily harsh and intrusive conditions may be relaxed.

To be sure, such an unprecedented level of global cooperation would face significant barriers. But the unique civilizational threat posed by the presence of advanced UFO technology, should it indeed exist, may serve as a robust incentive to pursue the “global governance” envisaged by Bostrom.

Notably, UFOs and speculation about alien life have also played a small, yet fascinating, role in fostering global cooperation.

In late 1985, amid seemingly insurmountable tensions between the U.S. and Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan met his new Soviet counterpart, Mikhail Gorbachev, for the first time. Between tense back-to-back meetings, Reagan privately asked Gorbachev a lighthearted question about whether an attack “from outer space” might unite the world’s two nuclear-armed superpowers. Gorbachev responded in the affirmative, leading to an ice-breaking chuckle and a budding friendship between the two leaders.

Three years and three summits later, a beaming Reagan warmly embraced Gorbachev in Moscow’s Red Square as Soviet-U.S. tensions eased.

Reagan and Gorbachev’s close partnership ultimately afforded Gorbachev the latitude to enact the sweeping reforms that ushered in a peaceful end to the most perilous era in human history.

Reagan also invoked the unifying potential of “non-human intelligence” publicly. Speaking before the United Nations in 1987, the Gipper pondered “how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world.”

Marik von Rennenkampff served as an analyst with the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, as well as an Obama administration appointee at the U.S. Department of Defense.