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Events Archive

  • May 28, 2025
    Ray Acheson, "The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Theatre of the Absurd"

    Reporting on the key issues raised and ignored at the 2025 Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee.

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  • May 8, 2025
    Karen Hallberg, "The Russell-Einstein Manifesto at 70: scientists advancing peace and global security"

    Marking 70 years since the Russel-Einstein Manifesto, and discussing Pugwash's current challenges and opportunities with the new secretary general.

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  • April 16, 2025
    Yangyang Cheng, "Xinjiang, China’s Nuclear Borderland and Colonial Frontier"

    All Chinese nuclear tests of the past 60 years have taken place in the Uyghur homeland of southeastern Xinjiang. How does the development and maintenance of this test site connect China's nuclear history with the current situation in that region?

    Read More
  • April 2, 2025
    Seyed Hossein Mousavian, "U.S.-Iran Relations Since the JCPOA, the Current Crisis, and What May Come Next"

    An investigation into Iran's current nuclear file and the current critical juncture in U.S.-Iran relations.

    Read More
  • March 19, 2025
    Hui Zhang, "China's Nuclear Weapons: Nuclear Testing and Warhead Miniaturization"

    Examining new sources to give a comprehensive account of China's recent nuclear weapons development.

    Read More
  • February 26, 2025
    Matthew Hartwell, "The United States and the Civil Defense Gap in the Cold War"

    Examining US population protection policies of the 1970s to see how leaders leveraged vulnerability gap narratives to advance diverse political and strategic objectives.

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  • February 19, 2025
    Christopher Lawrence, "The Irreducible Uncertainty of Counterforce Attacks"

    A case study to illuminate how the technical complexities of advanced weapon systems defy prediction in real-world situations and produce irreducible uncertainties for counterforce positions.

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  • February 12, 2025
    Thomas Fraise, "The Anti-democratic Effects of Nuclear Weapons on Democratic States and Societies"

    Investigating the anti-democratic changes that arise from the pursuit of nuclear weapons.

    Read More
  • December 11, 2024
    Nick Ritchie, “Irreversibility and Nuclear Disarmament”

    What does irreversibility mean when applied to nuclear disarmament, and what are the challenges involved?

    Read More
  • December 04, 2024
    Nuclear Dread: Nuclear Weapon Issues and the Second Trump Administration

    What are the concerns and challenges for nuclear weapon policies under the second Trump administration?

    Read More
  • November 20, 2024
    David Meyer, How to Save the World: Learning from Citizen Engagement on Nuclear Weapons

    What lessons can be learned from the history of nuclear activism to inform effective citizen engagement today?

    Read More
  • November 13, 2024
    Matthew Evangelista, Alternatives to a “Nuclear Umbrella” for Ukraine after the Russian War?

    What alternatives to extended nuclear deterrence might be available to Ukraine following the war?

    Read More
  • October 30, 2024
    Ray Acheson, Confronting AUKUS

    How are Australian activists mobilizing in response to various risks posed by AUKUS?

    Read More
  • October 23, 2024
    Ryan Snyder, Assessing Conventional Attacks Against Nuclear Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Silos

    How vulnerable are silo-based missiles to attack by modern conventional weapons?

    Read More
  • October 9, 2024
    Malte Göttsche, Reconstructing the Nuclear Past to Enable a Nuclear-weapon-free Future

    Exploring the history and impact of the German Nuclear Archaeology Lab at Aachen.

    Read More
  • September 25, 2024
    Neta Crawford, Does Nuclear Winter Change Everything? The Strategic, Moral and Legal Implications of Nuclear Winter

    Climatic effects from nuclear weapons use raise questions of discrimination and proportionality which are key to the laws of war. What are the implications for nuclear weapon states?

    Read More
  • September 18, 2024
    Kelsey Davenport, Negotiating Proliferation Risks: The Politics and Consequences of U.S. Support for Saudi Nuclear Development

    What are the implications of the ongoing U.S.-Saudi talks on a nuclear deal that may support uranium enrichment technology and nuclear power transfer to Saudi Arabia?

    Read More
  • September 11, 2024
    Li Bin, Revisiting a No-First-Use Treaty for Nuclear Weapons

    China has pledged not to use nuclear weapons first under any circumstances and is urging other nuclear weapon states to make the same commitment. Can such a treaty be substantive and verifiable?

    Read More
  • May 15, 2024
    Cole Smith

    Hollywood Goes Nuclear: Using Movies to Engage the Public on Nuclear Weapon Issues

    How Can Nuclear Movies Help People Question Nuclear Deterrence and if these Weapons Really Provide Security?

    Read More
  • May 08, 2024
    Edward Geist

    Artificial Intelligence and Nuclear Warfare

    What impacts could we expect from artificial intelligence on the evolution of nuclear strategy in coming decades?

    Read More
  • May 01, 2024
    David Cullen

    Increasingly Unsustainable – Britain’s Nuclear Weapons Program and its Challenges

    How much trouble is Britain facing in its efforts to sustain and upgrade its nuclear arsenal?

    Read More
  • April 17, 2024
    Stewart Prager

    Mobilizing a New Generation of Scientists to Confront Nuclear Dangers: The Physicists Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction

    How are physicists organizing to face the threat of nuclear weapons?

    Read More
  • April 10, 2024
    Sanne Verschuren

    Arming for Future Wars: The Politics of Weapons Procurement

    Why and how do states faced with a similar threat environment choose to develop different weapon systems as response?

    Read More
  • April 03, 2024
    Astrid Kause

    Psychological Responses to the Danger of Nuclear War – Time for a Post-Cold War Reassessment

    What can psychology learn and teach us about how people perceive the risks of nuclear weapons, and how they may act to address these risks?

    Read More
  • March 20, 2024
    Sharon Weiner
    and Moritz Kütt

    Rationality Under Attack: Testing the Assumptions of Decision Making in a Nuclear Crisis

    Can a US president be expected to rationally consider costs and consequences when confronted by the threat of an incoming nuclear attack?

    Read More
  • March 06, 2024
    George Perkovich

    Challenges of Reviving Nuclear Arms Control

    Can arms control decision-makers overcome pressures from domestic politics, interest groups, new technologies, and multi-party strategic competition?

    Read More
  • February 28, 2024
    M.V. Ramana

    Hiroshima in India

    How did politicians and scientists in India engage with the early years of the nuclear age between Hiroshima and the Cuban Missile Crisis?

    Read More
  • February 21, 2024
    Lucie Genay

    Living, Dreaming, Fearing, Fighting, and Keeping Silent in the Shadow of the Pantex Plant

    How has a nuclear weapons factory become an important part of the everyday lives of local communities in Texas?

    Read More
  • February 14, 2024
    Sheldon Garon

    The Global War on Civilians, 1905-1945

    How did it become common practice to fight wars by the systematic aerial bombing of cities and starving of civil populations?

    Read More
  • January 31, 2024
    Michael Fischerkeller, Strategic Theory comes to Cyberspace

    Is there an alternative to cyberwar, deterrence and coercion as a basis for strategy in cyberspace?

    Read More
  • December 13, 2023
    Edwin Lyman, Confronting the Myths and the Risks of High-Assay Low Enriched Uranium

    Will the production of high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU) make nuclear power more efficient and can it be used to make nuclear explosive devices?

    Read More
  • December 06, 2023
    Martin Hellman, Assessing the 2023 US National Academies Study “Risk Analysis Methods for Nuclear War and Nuclear Terrorism”

    What are the strengths and weaknesses of the first phase of the National Academies study that aims to asses nuclear war and nuclear terrorism risks?

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  • November 15, 2023
    Fiona Cunningham, "Why is China Changing its Nuclear Forces?"

    What is driving the modernization and the build-up of the Chinese nuclear arsenal?

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  • November 8, 2023
    Jaganath Sankaran, "Rockets, Missiles, and Drones as Instruments of Fear and Coercion"

    Why are rockets, missiles and drones so effective at coercing targeted states, and how do they damage their strategic aims?

    Read More
  • November 1, 2023
    Alexei Arbatov, "The Ukrainian Crisis and Strategic Stability"

    If a nuclear escalation is avoided, how will Russia and the U.S. resume their dialogue on arms control after the conflict in Ukraine?

    Read More
  • October 25, 2023
    Almudena Azcárate Ortega, "Verification And Monitoring in the Age of Dual-Natured Space Systems"

    What is the difference between dual-use and dual purpose space systems, how to define space weapons and how to regulate them?

    Read More
  • October 11, 2023
    Neta C. Crawford, "The DOD, Military Emissions, and Climate Change War"

    The U.S. Department of Defense is the world's largest institutional greenhouse gas emitter. How can the military revise its grand strategy to break the link between national security and fossil fuels?

    Read More
  • October 4, 2023
    Elisabeth Roehrlich, "Science, Safeguards, and Diplomacy: The Making of the International Atomic Energy Agency"

    The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is on a mission of sharing nuclear knowledge while seeking to deter nuclear weapon proliferation. How does it confront such a counterintuitive mandate?

    Read More
  • September 27, 2023
    Andrew Futter, “Towards a Third Nuclear Age”

    How does the emerging nuclear age differ from earlier periods of nuclear competition and what key drivers and dynamics shape this more complex nuclear environment?

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  • September 20, 2023
    Tom Stefanick, "Artificial Intelligence, the Logic of Uncertainty and the Future Survivability of Nuclear-Armed Submarines"

    How developments of new sensors and uncrewed undersea vehicles infused with artificial intelligence algorithms impact anti-submarine warfare and the survivability of ballistic missile submarines?

    Read More
  • September 13, 2023
    Rose McDermott, "The Psychology of Nuclear Brinksmanship"

    How do psychology and human emotions influence decisions of leaders of nuclear weapon states, including the use of nuclear threats and shaping of nuclear strategy?

    Read More
  • September 6, 2023
    Joshua Frank, “The Hanford Nuclear Reservation: The History and Political Economy of an Atomic Wasteland”

    The Hanford Site opened in 1943 as part of the Manhattan Project, created to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons. Today, it is the most expensive environmental cleanup job in the world and the most toxic place in America.

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  • June 30, 2023
    Tamara Patton, "Imagining Security Beyond Deterrence and Militarism; Indigenous Pursuits of Justice as Security in Oceania"

    Indigenous perspectives may offer an alternative imagination of security based on justice to contest the dominance of deterrence and militarism.

    Read More
  • April 26, 2023
    Morton Halperin, "Towards prohibiting use and threat of use of nuclear weapons under all circumstances"

    What are the next steps towards the prohibition of the use and threat of use of nuclear weapons, and how such prohibition could be made unconditional, uniform and legally binding?
     

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  • April 19, 2023
    Lodovica Clavarino, "Italian Physicists and the Bomb: Edoardo Amaldi’s Network for Arms Control and Peace"

    How did the Italian community of physicists led by Edoardo Amaldi contribute to nuclear disarmament and peace during the Cold War?

    Read More
  • April 12, 2023
    Jessica Rogers and Matt Korda, "Strategic Arms Control after the New START Treaty"

    Russia is no longer participating in the New START nuclear arms control treaty. What is the future of US-Russian strategic arms control?

    Read More
  • April 5, 2023
    Sizwe Mpofu-Walsh, "Nuclear weapon-free zones in the global nuclear order"

    What are Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zones (NWFZs), what challenges has the African NWFZ faced and what is its significance within the larger nuclear order?

    Read More
  • March 29, 2023
    Casey Huegel, "Fernald and the Environmental Movement Against U.S. Nuclear Weapons Production"

    How a grassroots environmental movement against a nuclear fuel processing plant forced the Department of Energy to take notice and task a cleanup operation.

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  • March 22, 2023
    Thomas MacDonald, Tracking Adversary Mobile Missiles from Space

    Can a new generation of remote sensing technologies, including satellite-based radar systems, detect and track Russian and Chinese mobile missile launchers?

    Read More
  • March 08, 2023
    Mariana Budjeryn, “Do We Have a Choice?” The Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine

    After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukraine transferred its nuclear weapons to Russia and acceded to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Why did Ukraine ultimately choose the path of nuclear disarmament?

    Read More
  • March 01, 2023
    Renata H. Dalaqua, Feminist Foreign Policies, Arms Control and Disarmament

    What are the challenges to having a greater gender balance in forums dealing with arms control, non-proliferation and disarmament, and how to operationalize a feminist foreign policy?

    Read More
  • February 22, 2023
    Matias Spektor, The Public and Elite Politics of Nuclear Latency: Some Evidence from Brazil

    How does nuclear latency challenge nuclear non-proliferation and what are the views on the acquisition of nuclear weapons in Brazil?

    Read More
  • February 15, 2023
    Alex Wellerstein, The First Atomic President: Resolving the Paradoxes of Harry Truman

    What was Harry Truman's influence on U.S. nuclear history, what did he know and didn't know about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki?

    Read More
  • February 8, 2023
    Stephen Schwartz, Why a Triad? The Growth, Composition and Modernization of the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal

    Why was the U.S. nuclear triad system created, what shaped the nuclear buildup in the Cold War and what is driving the current nuclear arsenal modernization?

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  • December 7, 2022
    Pavel Podvig, Rethinking the relevance, utility, and future of nuclear weapons and of the international nuclear order

    Have the 21st century and the war in Ukraine exposed the limits of nuclear weapons and the international nuclear order?

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  • November 30, 2022
    Lyle Goldstein, Russian Military Weakness, US Threat Inflation, and the Nuclear Paradox

    Russia’s military failures in Ukraine are demonstrating a weakness of their conventional military power. This may result in a growing reliance on their nuclear arsenal, but should also make the United States and NATO re-evaluate the Russian security threat.

    Read More
  • November 16, 2022
    Tong Zhao, The US National Defense Strategy, Nuclear Posture and Missile Defense Review 2022: A view from Beijing

    The new US National Defense Strategy is focused on increasing strategic rivalry with China in the Asia-Pacific and globally. How will this affect strategic stability and international security?

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  • November 09, 2022
    Richard Garwin, My Seven Decades of Science “Advising” – and Lessons Learned

    What has Richard Garwin learned over his long career and from his experiences of advising the government and bringing issues to the public?

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  • October 26, 2022
    Jeff Hughes, The US-Russia Megatons-to-Megawatts HEU Deal: History and Challenges

    How did highly enriched uranium from Soviet nuclear weapons end up providing electricity to the United States for over 20 years?

    Read More
  • October 12, 2022
    Itty Abraham, Revisiting India’s Nuclear Weapons and Ballistic Missile ‘Strategic Enclave’

    How has India’s nuclear weapon and missile program transformed over 30 years into a military-industrial-media complex?

    Read More
  • September 28, 2022
    David Cortright, Reducing Nuclear Dangers: Lessons from the Nuclear Freeze Movement

    What can antinuclear activism in the Cold War teach us about countering nuclear dangers today?

    Read More
  • September 21, 2022
    Serhii Plokhii, Nuclear Power and Human Arrogance: Revisiting the World’s Worst Nuclear Disasters

    The history of six major accidents sheds light on political, social and cultural sources of the risks of nuclear power.

    Read More
  • September 14, 2022
    Jana Baldus, Caroline Fehl and Sascha Hach, Nuclear Justice: Redressing Past Harm and Reforming Institutions

    Can the idea and practices of nuclear justice help redress past nuclear harms and prevent future nuclear weapon use and testing?

    Read More
  • September 07, 2022
    Seyed Hossein Mousavian, Nuclear diplomacy with Iran: The struggle over the JCPOA and what comes next

    As the US and Iran struggle to restore the 2015 nuclear deal, what are the key issues and prospects for success or failure?

     

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  • May 18, 2022
    David Wright, Arms Races, Missile Defense, and the Future of Arms Control

    Do arms control measures increase US security and constrain arms racing, and what would be the implications of limiting missile defense development?

    Read More
  • May 11, 2022
    Nuclear Princeton -- Radioactive Waste, Princeton, & the Navajo Nation

    Indigenous students from the Nuclear Princeton project examine the harmful impacts on the Navajo community and environment of Princeton research.

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  • May 04, 2022
    Robert Jacobs, The Global Hibakusha

    The nuclear age has involved the radiation contamination of a global population, of bodies, and of lands powerless to prevent this exposure.

    Read More
  • April 27, 2022
    Carmen Wunderlich, WMD Compliance and Enforcement in a Changing Global Context

    Regimes for the control of weapons of mass destruction have been seen as important elements in the global order. This order is currently in transition, however, with possibly far reaching implications for the regimes.

    Read More
  • April 20, 2022
    Laura Considine, Nuclear Policymaking, Storytelling, and the Limiting of Imagination and Action: A Study of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty

    The nuclear narratives accompanying nuclear weapons politics do not simply reflect nuclear policy contests but shape them, limiting how we can imagine our nuclear future.

    Read More
  • April 13, 2022
    Robert Kelley, Lessons Learned from Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament Verification Cases

    How is nuclear verification done in practice and what challenges do nuclear inspectors face in the field?

    Read More
  • April 6, 2022
    Zoe Gastelum, Teaching Computers to Recognize Imagery for International Nuclear Safeguards

    Can computers be trained to see safeguards relevant objects given the scarcity of available images and how might this work?

     

    Read More
  • March 30, 2022
    Alexander Kmentt, The Ukraine-Russia-NATO-US conflict and its implications for nuclear arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament

    Beyond the humanitarian tragedy and risks of intentional or inadvertent use of nuclear weapons and escalation, what are the implications of the Ukraine war for the multilateral nuclear disarmament and nonproliferation regime?

    Read More
  • March 23, 2022
    Edwin Lyman, Judging the Safety, Security, and Environmental Impacts of “Advanced” Nuclear Reactors

    Are planned new nuclear reactor designs any safer, more secure, less costly or risk-prone than current reactors?

    Read More
  • March 16, 2022
    Carlo Patti, Brazil in the Global Nuclear Order

    As a state capable of going nuclear that chose not to, what has been Brazil’s experience with the domestic and international politics of nuclear states and markets, nonproliferation, and disarmament?

    Read More
  • March 2, 2022
    Herbert Lin, Cyber Threats and US Nuclear Weapons

    How will increasing integration of digital technologies in US nuclear command, control, and communications affect cyber-vulnerabilities and nuclear crisis and nuclear war risks?

    Read More
  • February 23, 2022
    Daniel Deudney, The Nuclear-Political Question Revisited

    As the world faces a renewal of hostile competition among some nuclear-armed states, what kind of international security theory may help identify political arrangements capable of forestalling large-scale nuclear violence?

    Read More
  • February 9, 2022
    Pavel Podvig, Russia, the United States, NATO expansion, and European security

    What are Russia’s options in the struggle with the United States and NATO over the expansion of NATO military infrastructure in Europe and future membership?

    Read More
  • February 2, 2022
    Benoît Pelopidas, Rethinking Nuclear Weapons Choices

    Liberal-democratic states with nuclear weapons make policy choices and justify them in ways that work to limit effective public understanding and debate about policy alternatives.

    Read More
  • January 26, 2022
    Wilbert van der Zeijden, On Civilian Harm: Violent Conflict and the Lives of Civilians

    What steps can be taken to mitigate some of the many kinds of harms that war afflicts on civilians, and what lessons do current efforts to lessen civilian harm hold for nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament policy?

    Read More
  • December 14, 2021
    George Perkovich, What to Expect from the Biden Nuclear Posture Review

    What feasible changes in the principles, goals, and policy underlying nuclear strategy, doctrine, and force planning could be considered as part of the U.S. Nuclear Posture Review to reshape the purpose of and reduce the role of nuclear weapons?

    Read More
  • December 08, 2021
    Lora Saalman, Deterring the United States: China's Advances in Multidomain Deterrence and their Impact on U.S.-China Strategic Stability

    What do China’s expanding nuclear forces and military space, cyber, and artificial intelligence capabilities and changes in its strategic posture mean for its relationship with the United States?

    Read More
  • December 01, 2021
    Melissa Hanham, Using Open-Source Intelligence to Verify a Future Agreement With North Korea

    Verifying the denuclearization of North Korea could benefit from information not derived from classified sources or methods and available for civil society analysis to supplement inspections and build confidence.

    Read More
  • November 10, 2021
    Rob Goldston, Bilateral strategic stability: What the United States should discuss with Russia and with China

    At their June 2021 summit, Presidents Biden and Putin agreed that the United States and Russia will begin an integrated bilateral strategic stability dialogue to lay the groundwork for future arms control and risk reduction measures.

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  • November 3, 2021
    Sébastien Philippe and Frank N. von Hippel, The AUKUS Nuclear-Submarine Deal

    The AUKUS deal to provide nuclear-powered submarines to Australia would be the first ever transfer of nuclear submarine technology and weapon-grade material for use in a military application to a non-nuclear weapons state.

    Read More
  • October 27, 2021
    Gordon Adams, Revisiting the Iron Triangle: The Politics of National Security Decisions

    In the United States, national security spending constitutes more than half of all federal discretionary spending. Decisions on the national security budget are the consequence of a complex, highly political process.

    Read More
  • October 13, 2021
    Wael Al Assad, Towards a Middle East Weapons of Mass Destruction Free Zone: History, Lessons Learnt, and Prospects

    The UN has launched a diplomatic process to achieve a Middle East zone free of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. 

    Read More
  • September 29, 2021
    Matt Korda, A Closer Look at the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent

    The Pentagon is currently planning to replace its current arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) with a brand-new missile force, known as the Ground-Based Strategic Deterrent (GBSD).

    Read More
  • September 22, 2021
    Lynn Eden, Planning for the Impossible: A Nuclear War That Cannot Be Won and Must Never Be Fought

    The United States for many decades has been developing plans to prepare for and “prevail” in a large-scale nuclear war.  

    Read More
  • September 15, 2021
    Seyed Hossein Mousavian. What next for the JCPOA?

    A key challenge for Iran's new President, Ebrahim Raisi, will be the talks with the United States and other countries on the future of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

    Read More
  • September 8, 2021
    Micah Lowenthal, Lessons from 40 Years of International Science and Security Dialogues

    For 40 years, the US National Academy of Sciences Committee on International Security and Arms Control has held security dialogues with the Soviet Academy of Sciences and then with peers in China and India.

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  • June 9, 2021
    Gregory Kulacki, Nuclear Weapons in the Taiwan Strait

    What insights does the 1954-1958 Taiwan Strait Crisis offer for current concerns of a US, China, and Taiwan conflict turning into nuclear war?

    Read More
  • May 26, 2021
    Malcolm Chalmers and William Walker, The Nuclear Implications of an Independent Scotland

    A referendum on Scotland’s independence is now possible, opening up the question of the future of UK nuclear weapons, all of which are based there.

    Read More
  • May 19, 2021
    Rose Gottemoeller, Negotiating the New Start Treaty: Lessons for the Future of US-Russian Arms Control

    The lead U.S. negotiator of the 2010 New START agreement with Russia explains how it was won and what it means for the future of nuclear arms control.

    Read More
  • May 5, 2021
    Daryl Kimball, Opportunities For Nuclear Policy Reforms Under The Biden Administration

    The election of President Biden has opened up possibilities for arms control advocates to reduce nuclear threats and budgets.

    Read More
  • April 28, 2021
    Bernadette K. Cogswell, Remote Sensing of (Clandestine) Plutonium Production Reactors Using Antineutrino Detectors

    Could state of the art and proposed antineutrino detector technologies see clandestine nuclear reactors at distances of tens of kilometers or more.  

    Read More
  • April 21, 2021
    Alex Wellerstein, Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States

    The totalizing secrecy that the atomic bomb appeared to demand was potentially incompatible with American science and democracy, and always contested.

    Read More
  • April 7, 2021
    Jayita Sarkar, Sophia Poteet, Ariana Thorpe, Cristina Rivera Morrison, Caitlin Meyer, Sydney Pickering - Race and Radioactivity: Global Interconnectedness Across Nuclear Sites

    The sites of nuclear weapons tests, reactors and uranium mining are marked by disenfranchisement individuals and communities of color of those lands.

    Read More
  • March 31, 2021
    Andy Stirling and Phil Johnstone, Civil and Military Nuclear Infrastructures: Hidden Industrial Interdependencies

    Nuclear energy policy debates in countries possessing or pursuing nuclear arms or military nuclear propulsion often conceal interdependencies between civil and military nuclear infrastructures.

    Read More
  • March 26, 2021
    Moritz Kütt, Ivan Stepanov and Sharon K. Weiner - Nuclear War Without ICBMs: Still MAD?

    Simulations of nuclear exchanges involving a U.S. arsenal with and without Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles question whether such ICBMs are necessary for deterrence.

    Read More
  • March 24, 2021
    Rebecca Davis Gibbons, The P5 and the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: How Great Powers Contest Norms

    The US, France, Britain, China, and Russia have dismissed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons while also trying to block it and pressuring allies and partners to oppose it as way to counter a norm against possessing nuclear weapons.

    Read More
  • March 17, 2021
    Sebastien Philippe, Nabil Ahmed, Tomas Statius, An Investigation of French Nuclear Weapon Testing in Polynesia

    French nuclear weapons tests in Polynesia harmed the environment and the health of local people and of French veterans and these consequences need to be acknowledged and addressed.

    Read More
  • March 10, 2021
    Ray Acheson, Nuclear Weapons and the Continuum of Violence

    Nuclear weapons can be seen as part of a continuum of violence along with systems of militarism, racism, and patriarchy that manifest as contemporary structures of white supremacy, the carceral system, and border imperialism among others.

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  • March 3, 2021
    Igor Moric, Satellite-based tracking and monitoring: applications for nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, and hypersonic missiles

    Can the new generation of commercial imaging satellites offer new possibilities for nonproliferation and disarmament monitoring and how well can new US military satellites track hypersonic missiles?

    Read More
  • February 24, 2021
    Kjølv Egeland & Benoît Pelopidas, European nuclear weapons - again?

    The French president in 2020 proposed that France’s nuclear arsenal serve as the basis for a European collective nuclear force. His case for a European nuclear force goes back half a century and continues to reappear, like a zombie that can never be finally put to rest.

    Read More
  • February 17, 2021
    Daniel Deudney, Dark Skies: Space Expansionism, Planetary Geopolitics and the Ends of Humanity

    Most thinking about space reflects geographic misperceptions, slanted geopolitics, misleading analogies and utopian anticipations. Actual space activities have increased the likelihood of nuclear war and amplified global closure and vulnerability. Further expansion should be limited.

    Read More
  • February 10, 2021
    Seyed Hossein Mousavian. New Structure for Security, Peace, and Cooperation in the Persian Gulf

    This seminar, based on a new book, will explore the conflicts between Iran and its Persian Gulf neighbors, especially Saudi Arabia, and offer a roadmap to overcoming this challenge to regional and world peace through a new collective regional security and cooperation framework.

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  • February 3, 2021
    Sarah Bidgood, US and Soviet Pursuit of Radiological Weapons and its Implications

    Along with nuclear weapons, the United States and Soviet Union pursued radiological weapons during the 1940s and 1950s. The talk will explore how these programs emerged, what they reveal about military innovation in both the US and USSR, and how the weapons were abandoned.

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  • January 27, 2021
    Michael Klare, A Strategy for Reducing the Escalatory Dangers of Emerging Technologies

    Advances in artificial intelligence, robotics, cyberspace, remote sensing, and electronics are being put to military use before society understands the risks and can control this weaponization. This talk will offer a framework for restricting the military use of these technologies.

    Read More
  • January 22, 2021
    Richard Falk, The Long Struggle to Prohibit Nuclearism: From Hiroshima to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

    The entry into force on 22 January 2021 of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons is a dramatic step forward. Prohibition is but a stepping stone to phased and verified nuclear disarmament, alone capable of realizing the vision of a world freed from the menace of nuclear weapons.

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  • December 16, 2020
    Emma Belcher, Nuclear Policy Choices under the Biden Administration: Moving Beyond Nuclear Policy Restoration to a Nuclear Policy Reformation

    With the election of Joe Biden as President, it is possible to save the 2010 New START Treaty and the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, and to make progress on other nuclear policy reforms. But too narrow a focus on immediate threats and incremental gains may be a distraction from changing nuclear policy in a more holistic way.

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  • December 9, 2020
    Jana Wattenberg, Women and the Bomb: Feminist and Gender Perspectives on Nuclear Weapons

    The nuclear weapons field is often portrayed as one of the most gendered areas of international security and particularly hostile for women, who are seen as underrepresented in the field and potentially able to bring qualitative change to the policy space.

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  • December 2, 2020
    Elayne Whyte, Lessons and Perspectives From the Negotiation and Adoption of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons

    This talk, based on a forthcoming personal account, will offer reflections by the president of the diplomatic conference convened under the auspices of the United Nations on the process of negotiating and adopting the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, fulfilling an aspiration as old as the United Nations.

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  • November 25, 2020
    Tamara Lilinoe Patton, Blind Spots: Satellite-Imaging Technology and the Politics, Strategy and Verification of Nuclear Arms Control

    This talk seeks to explain the role of U.S. satellite-imaging technology innovation in domestic and international politics during arms control negotiations with the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War.

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  • November 18, 2020
    Martin J. Sherwin, Gambling With Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette From Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1945-1962

    In a major new book, Gambling With Armageddon, Martin Sherwin revisits the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which many consider to have been the closest the US and USSR came to nuclear war during the Cold War. In this talk, Sherwin challenges traditional narratives of the crisis by drawing attention to the role of technology and luck in creating and preventing a catastrophe.

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  • November 11, 2020
    Nuclear Princeton: Indigenous Students’ Exploration of Princeton’s Nuclear Legacies

    As part of the Nuclear Princeton project, Native-American undergraduate students affiliated with the student groups, Natives at Princeton, and Native Nations in the United States, investigate the impacts of the nuclear age on Native Nations in the United States and Princeton’s role in helping shape this age.

     

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  • Wednesday, November 4, 2020
    Laura Manley, Improving Science and Technology Capacity in the US Congress

    This talk will focus on how lawmakers obtain the information they need to make decisions about the many policy issues in which science plays a role. By understanding more about the capacity of Congress to access, interpret, and use information on science and technology, we can better understand how to improve its science and technology advisory system.

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  • Wednesday, October 28, 2020
    Thomas B. Cochran, Lessons Learned by a Public Policy Advocate

    The talk seeks to convey some of the lessons Dr. Cochran learned during his 40 years of public policy advocacy on issues related to civil nuclear power, nuclear nonproliferation, and nuclear arms control issues.

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  • October 21, 2020
    Alexander Kmentt, The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons: How It Was Achieved and Why It Matters

    The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will enter into force in January 2021 as the first international legal instrument to ban the production, possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons.

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  • October 14, 2020
    Christopher Chyba, New Technologies & Strategic Stability

    This presentation analyzes a technology's potential to significantly affect stability along three axes: the pace of advances in, and diffusion of, this technology; the technology's implications for deterrence and defense; and the technology's potential for direct impact on crisis decision-making.

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  • October 7, 2020
    Anne Stickells, Assessing U.S. Permissive Action Link policies

    This presentation explores when the US has decided to share information on the nuclear weapon safety feature known as Permissive Action Links (PALs) with foreign countries and the importance of the U.S.’s relationships with foreign countries, legal concerns, advances in technology, and the fear of nuclear accidents.

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  • September 30, 2020
    William Burr, The Confrontation with Pakistan Over Uranium Enrichment, 1978-1979

    This presentation will focus on the 1978-1979 period when senior U.S. government officials realized how far Islamabad had gone in acquiring gas centrifuge technology and that they could not stop Pakistan from eventually building the bomb.

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  • Wednesday, September 23, 2020
    Anaïs Maurer, ‘Aita Atomi: Antinuclear Activism in French (Occupied) Polynesia

    This talk examines the cultural, artistic, and literary impact of nuclear colonialism in French (occupied) Polynesia through the lens of the songs, paintings, and novels by Mā‘ohi activists.

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  • Wednesday, September 16, 2020
    Cameron Tracy, Modeling the Performance of Hypersonic Boost-Glide Missiles

    The capabilities of hypersonic weapons remain uncertain and controversial. Based on a computational model of hypersonic missile flight, this talk examines the performance of this new type of weapons.

     

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  • Wednesday, September 9, 2020
    Katlyn M. Turner, Lauren J. Borja, Denia Djokić, Madicken Munk, and Aditi Verma: Antiracist Action and Accountability in the U.S. Nuclear Community

    A commitment to dismantling systemic racism and becoming antiracist requires openness, willingness to listen and change, and, above all, accountability.

     

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  • Wednesday, February 12, 2020
    Sivan Kartha, Unwinding the Doomsday Clock by Managing the Climate Change Crisis

    In January 2020, the Bulletin Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock was set at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it has ever been to catastrophe.

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  • Wednesday, February 5, 2020
    Anton Khlopkov, Managing Nuclear Diplomacy with Iran and North Korea: A View From Moscow

    This presentation will focus on the challenges and outlook for nuclear diplomacy with Tehran and Pyongyang, as seen from Moscow.

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  • Wednesday, January 15, 2020
    Allison MacFarlane, Nuclear Waste Siting in Australia: Difficulties Down Under

    This presentation will provide a snapshot of the current state of affairs in finding and developing a nuclear waste disposal facility in Australia.

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  • Wednesday, December 11, 2019
    Adam Higginbotham, Midnight in Chernobyl

    Adam Higginbotham speaks about his definitive, years-in-the-making account of the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster; a powerful investigation into how propaganda, secrecy, and myth have obscured the true story of one of the twentieth century's greatest disasters.

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  • Wednesday, November 20, 2019
    Hans Kristensen and Matthew McKinzie, Modeling Nuclear War and its Humanitarian Consequences

    Examining the properties of current nuclear arsenals, scenarios of nuclear conflict, and calculations of the effects of nuclear explosions.

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  • Wednesday, November 13, 2019
    Emmet Gowin, The Nevada Nuclear Test Site

    A photographic study of the land that served as the main testing site for American nuclear devices for four decades

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  • Wednesday, November 6, 2019
    Steven Kull, U.S. Public Opinion on U.S. Nuclear Weapons

    While for some decades since the end of the Cold War debates about nuclear weapons policy receded in the public discourse, the debate has been renewed by a number of controversial steps by the Trump administration as well its challenging long-standing doctrines in the Nuclear Posture Review.

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  • Wednesday, October 23, 2019
    Sheldon Garon, Five Things You’d Want to Know in Explaining Japan's Surrender in 1945

    It may seem obvious that the atomic bombs ended World War II. Yet at least four other developments helped persuade Japanese leaders to surrender. Understanding the Japanese side of the story advances us well beyond American-centered analyses.

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  • Wednesday, October 16, 2019
    Joshua Pollack, Open-source Evidence About North Korea’s Nuclear Weapon Designs

    What can be learned about the nuclear devices designed and tested in North Korea? This talk will review three distinct streams of evidence: seismic and other observational data, insider accounts, and official North Korean statements. Comparing the three streams provides a largely consistent picture.

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  • Wednesday, October 9, 2019
    Samuel M. Hickey, Nuclear Energy Diplomacy in the Middle East Region

    Looking at nuclear energy diplomacy as a means to build new geopolitical partnerships offers a way to understand the Middle East’s emerging nuclear landscape, proliferation potential, and the implications of nuclear partnership by states in the region with great powers.

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  • Wednesday, September 25, 2019
    Audra J. Wolfe, Freedom's Laboratory The Cold War Struggle for the Soul of Science

    Scientists like to proclaim that science knows no borders. Scientific researchers follow the evidence where it leads, their conclusions free of prejudice or ideology. But is that really the case? In Freedom’s Laboratory, Audra J. Wolfe shows how these ideas were tested to their limits in the high-stakes propaganda battles of the Cold War.

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  • Wednesday, September 18, 2019
    James Chadwick, Joseph Rotblat, and the Bomb

    Andrew Brown explores how James Chadwick quietly undermined the effort of General Leslie Groves, the head of the U.S. Manhattan Project, to create a post-war American nuclear monopoly.

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