Ward Hayes Wilson (born April 26, 1956) is an American researcher who is the executive director of RealistRevolt, a grassroots advocacy organization in the Chicago area. He lives and works in Glenview, Illinois.

Ward Hayes Wilson is a writer at “the forefront” of debates about the value and utility of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence.^[1][2][3][4] He has been a senior fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, BASIC (the British American Security Information Council), and the Federation of American Scientists.^{[citation needed]}

Wilson is best known for his argument that the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki did not force Japan's surrender at the end of World War II.^[5] Winner of the $10,000 Doreen and Jim McElvany Nonproliferation Challenge in 2008,^[6] Wilson uses realist arguments to challenge existing ideas about nuclear weapons. His arguments have appeared in anti-nuclear journals he Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ^[7] and Nonproliferation Review,^[8] in military journals Joint Force Quarterly ^[9] and Parameters,^[10] in foreign policy journals Foreign Policy ^[11] and International Security,^[12] and in the New York Times,^[13] the Los Angeles Times,^[14] and The Nation.^[15]

Wilson received a grant in 2010 to write, travel, and speak on nuclear weapons issues.^[16] He presented arguments that challenge accepted ideas about nuclear weapons in 23 countries including at the Pentagon; the French National Assembly; the United Nations; the Scottish National Parliament; the U.S. State Department; Harvard; Stanford; Princeton; Georgetown; Yale; the Sorbonne; the U.S. Naval War College; King's College London; Hamburg University; Nagasaki University; University of Pretoria; the Mexican Foreign Ministry; the Belgian Parliament; the National Assembly of Costa Rica; Aberystwyth University, Wales; and Chatham House, London^[17]

Wilson launched his book Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons at an event at the United Nations in February 2013.^[18] He launched his second book It Is Possible: A Future Without Nuclear Weapons at the United Nations in 2023.^[19]

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• RFK Fellow, The Robert Kennedy Memorial Foundation, 1981.
• Doreen and Jim McElvaney Prize, which included a $10,000 award for the best essay on nuclear weapons worldwide in 2008.

• Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013. Review.
• "Strengthening Nonproliferation", British American Security Information Council, October 2013
• "Rethinking the Utility of Nuclear Weapons,” Parameters, 2013.
• "Myth of Nuclear Necessity," op-ed, The New York Times, January 13, 2013.
• “The Myth of Nuclear Deterrence,” Nonproliferation Review, 2008.
• “The Winning Weapon? Rethinking Nuclear Weapons in Light of Hiroshima,” International Security, 2007.

• Doomsday Clock