957 Past Events

U.S. President Gerald Ford and Soviet Communist Party Chief Leonid Brezhnev sign the joint communiqué at the conclusion of their two days meeting near Vladivostok, Nov. 24, 1974.

AP/CB

Seminar - Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

Escaping MAD: Technology, Politics, and U.S. Nuclear Strategy

Thu., Mar. 14, 2024 | 12:15pm - 1:45pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: David Kearn, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

The book project seeks to explain the divergence of views of within the strategic community after the signing of the SALT I Accords and the subsequent shift in U.S. strategic nuclear policy away from "assured destruction" to "nuclear warfighting" throughout the 1970s and culminating in the Reagan administrations "prevailing strategy."

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee &Tea Provided.

President Jimmy Carter along with George M. Seignious, right, director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency briefs community leaders on SALT II at the White House in Washington, Oct. 12, 1979.

AP/Charles Tasnadi

Seminar - Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

A Strange Arms Debate: Legitimation, Essential Equivalence, and Carter's Nuclear Strategy

Thu., Feb. 1, 2024 | 12:15pm - 1:45pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Colleen Larkin, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

President Jimmy Carter entered office committed to reducing the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign policy. He espoused the logic of mutually assured destruction and hoped for major arms control progress. Yet by the end of his presidency, he had embraced a competitive nuclear posture and accelerated the arms race. What explains this shift in Carter’s strategy? 

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee &Tea Provided.

French troops evacuate the Coblenz Zone of the demilitarized Rhineland in 1929.

Wikimedia CC/Bundesarchiv, Bild 102-08810

Seminar - Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

The Strategic Logic of Pacification Agreements

Thu., Dec. 7, 2023 | 12:15pm - 1:45pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Anatoly Levshin, Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program

Why do states conclude treaties restricting the use of military power in particular geographical domains or against particular states? Across the past two centuries, states have concluded over seventy such pacification agreements. Examples include the neutralization of Belgium (1839–1919), demilitarization of the Rhineland (1919–1936), and renunciation of the right of war under the League of Nations (1920–1946) and United Nations (1945–). In this seminar, Anatoly Levshin will argue that pacification agreements should be understood as strategic solutions to the risk of inefficient escalation of interstate wars and that variation in their institutional design should be understood as deliberate adaptation to shifts in the perceived distribution of that risk. This argument will be validated using case studies composed with original archival research.

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee &Tea Provided.

Image of French nuclear weapons testing

Pierre J. on Flickr, under creative commons

Seminar - Open to the Public

Atomic Voices: Redressing Nuclear Harm: Transitional Justice in the Nuclear Age

Fri., Dec. 1, 2023 | 10:00am - 12:00pm

Online

Redressing Nuclear Harm: Transitional Justice in the Nuclear Age

Nuclear deterrence and disarmament discussions often center on potential future use and threats of use of nuclear weapons. Attention is growing, however, on the harm that nuclear weapons have already done, mostly focused on the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings and on nuclear testing impacts. This seminar offers a nuclear justice lens derived from concepts of transitional justice (TJ).

A view of ground zero at the French nuclear tests' site in In-Ekker near Ain Maguel, 170 km from the southern Algerian town of Tamanrasset, Feb. 16, 2007.

Public Domain/VOA

Seminar - Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

Nuclear Politics in the Age of Decolonization: France's Sahara Tests and the Advent of the Global Nuclear Order

Thu., Nov. 16, 2023 | 12:15pm - 1:45pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker:  Leyla Tiglay, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

Rumors of an impending atomic experiment in Africa circulated in newspapers as early as 1956, four years before France conducted its first atomic test at the Reggane Testing Center in the Sahara in 1960. The late 1950s saw France's technological preparations, strained transatlantic relations due to complex nuclear alignments in Europe, and an unprecedented wave of anti-nuclear mobilization in decolonizing Africa. Using the French tests as a case study, this research aims to refine scholars and policymakers' understanding of how decolonization intrinsically influenced the formation of the current global nuclear landscape during this pivotal era in nuclear politics. 

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee &Tea Provided.

Seminar - Harvard Faculty, Fellows, Staff, and Students

The Security Imperative: Pakistan's Nuclear Deterrence & Diplomacy

Thu., Oct. 19, 2023 | 10:00am - 11:30am

One Brattle Square - Room 350

Speaker: Ambassador Zamir Akram, Author, The Security Imperative: Pakistan's Nuclear Deterrence & Diplomacy

Ambassador Akram will discuss his new book, which is an in-depth study of the evolution of Pakistan's nuclear program until it became a reality despite all the international pressures against it and the challenges along the way.

Open to Harvard ID Holders Only: Admittance will be on a first come–first served basis. Coffee, Tea, & Light Refreshments Provided.

event

Seminar - Open to the Public

MTA Seminar with Dmitry Stefanovich

Wed., Sep. 27, 2023 | 10:00am - 11:30am

Online

We welcome you to join us for the weekly MTA seminar with Dmitry Stefanovich.

Harvard and local affiliates are welcome to join us the One Brattle Building, room 401. All others are welcome to join via Zoom (registration link here).

Dmitry will present:

Hypersonic Weapons, Missile Defense and US-RUSSIA Strategic Stability  

event

Seminar - Open to the Public

MTA Seminar with Leonor Tomero

Wed., Sep. 20, 2023 | 10:00am - 11:30am

Online

Leonor Tomero, Visiting Lecturer with the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs, and former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear and Missile Defense Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense will present, "The US Innovation imperative and the future of the global strategic balance."

The Meanderings of a Weapon Oriented Mind When Applied in a Vacuum Such as the Moon, U.S. Army Weapons Command, Directorate of R&D, Future Weapons Office, June 1965

Public Domain/DOD

Seminar - Open to the Public

"Lunartics!"; Or, How We Avoided a Space War

Thu., Apr. 20, 2023 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Stephen Buono, Ernest May Fellow in History & Policy, International Security Program

After the Soviet Union launched the world's first satellite—Sputnik I—in 1957, U.S. military officials began thinking about the cosmos as a vast new theater of war. Convinced that a techno-saturated space war was just around the bend, far-flung laboratories and offices under the Department of Defense began planning for it.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIldO-vpzwtE9Lu85mJOOJfpNtFVHhSAPiS