Research, ideas, and leadership for a more secure, peaceful world
A Project on Managing the Atom seminar with Jane Vaynman, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Temple University.
States can, in theory, avoid costly arms races through mutual agreements to restrain arming. Yet in reality, arms control is rare and difficult to negotiate. In considering cooperation, states face a tradeoff between beneficial and adverse aspects of information: states need transparency to observe behavior and assure compliance, but the same information used to monitor an agreement can also be used to gain a military advantage by revealing other capabilities or targets. The paper on which this talk is based applies the logic of the “transparency-security tradeoff” to understanding the effects of technology on arms control. To what extent do emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence, nanosatellites, autonomous vehicles, and additive manufacturing—make cooperation more likely? The paper assesses where the transparency benefits of incorporating emerging technologies into conventional and nuclear arms control regimes may come with the expense of higher threats to individual state security.
Dr. Jane Vaynman is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at Temple University. She was previously the Associate Director of the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies and Research Assistant Professor at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University. Dr. Vaynman’s work focuses on security cooperation between adversarial states, the design of arms control agreements, and the nuclear nonproliferation regime. She is the co-founder of the Nuclear Studies Research Initiative, a project that promotes intellectual exchange and cross-fertilization for emerging nuclear research in policy, history, and political science. Previously, she was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and has also held positions with the U.S. Department of State and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She received her PhD in political science from Harvard University and BA in International Relations from Stanford University.
From International Security Program
