The Normandy P5 initiative is inspired by the Normandy Manifesto for World Peace, which was issued at Caen, Normandy on 4 June 2019 by six thought leaders, including four Nobel Peace Laureates, from different parts of the world. It calls for saving humankind from an apocalypse which might be caused by weapons of mass destruction including nuclear, biological, genomic, chemical, and lethal autonomous weapons, at a time of erosion of global values, rise of ultra-nationalism and the danger of gradual surrendering of human control on deadly weapons to machines. The initiative is convened by Strategic Foresight Group (SFG), Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), and Normandy for Peace Initiative of the Region Normandy.

The paper underscores the urgent need for strategic arms risk reduction dialogue between the P5 countries at a time when the strategic communication between the West and Russia as well as between the US and China has been suspended. However, the unfortunate deterioration of the last months should not prevent us from creating a soft infrastructure of ideas for a reformed global security architecture. The alternative is to allow the cold wars between big powers to trigger an incident or accident that could end human civilization.