To compete and thrive in the 21st century, democracies, and the United States in particular, must develop new national security and economic strategies that address the geopolitics of information. In the 20th century, market capitalist democracies geared infrastructure, energy, trade, and even social policy to protect and advance that era’s key source of power—manufacturing. In this century, democracies must better account for information geopolitics across all dimensions of domestic policy and national strategy.
How do nuclear weapons affect the foreign policies of the states that acquire them? In this presentation, MTA/ISP Predoctoral Research Fellow Mark S. Bell will first offer a typology of behaviours that nuclear weapons facilitate, distinguishing between aggression, expansion, independence, bolstering, steadfastness, and compromise. Second, he will offer a theory to explain why different states use nuclear weapons to facilitate different combinations of these behaviours. Third, he will useprimary evidence from the South African and British cases to offer an initial test of the theory.
This event is open to the public. Coffee and tea provided. Seating will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis.