Managing the Atom

A Project on Managing the Atom seminar with Julius Weitzdörfer, Stanton Nuclear Security Junior Faculty Fellow with the International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom.

A Nuclear Nonproliferation Practitioners Seminar with Joyce Connery, Board Member and former Chairperson at the Defense Nuclear Facility Safety Board.

Sponsored by the Project on Managing the Atom and Women in Defense, Diplomacy and Development (W3D).

A Project on Managing the Atom seminar with David Arceneaux, Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom.

Speaker: Hyun-Binn Cho, Postdoctoral  Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

During international crises, states often take costly actions to signal resolve. Such coercive actions, however, can put greater political and psychological pressure on the opponent to counter-escalate. When costly signals are more "provocative," do they make unwanted crisis escalation more likely, or do they make the signal-sender look tough and help induce the opponent to back down? Indeed, why do states sometimes appear to deliberately engage in provocative actions to demonstrate resolve? This seminar addresses these puzzles using game-theoretic analysis and two case studies of crises involving China and the United States.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

A Project on Managing the Atom seminar with Scott D. Sagan, Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University.

Please note this event has moved to the Fainsod Room, Littauer-324.

A Project on Managing the Atom seminar with Ariel Petrovics, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom and International Security Program. 

A seminar with Stephen Herzog, Stanton Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom and International Security Program.

Co-sponsored by the Korea Institute at Harvard University.

A seminar with Christof Paar, Chair for Embedded Security at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany and affiliated professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Coffee & tea will be provided.

Speaker: Sébastien Philippe, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

Most successful nuclear weapons programs have benefited from significant foreign assistance for the acquisition of nuclear materials, sensitive equipment, and know-how. Such assistance is often kept secret, even after states decide to put an end to their nuclear weapons programs or ambitions. This seminar will discuss the policy and verification implications of this source of opacity on the reconstruction of past nuclear military activities as part of non-proliferation or denuclearization agreements.  It will build upon an historical and technical analysis of nuclear assistance between France, Israel, and South Africa and conclude by discussing the impact of discovering previously hidden information on existing policies and ongoing diplomatic processes.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.

Speaker:  Cameron Tracy, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

States often spend vast sums on weapon production, yet have trouble mustering the resources necessary to eliminate stockpiled weapons for arms control and disarmament purposes. Stockpile reductions have proven particularly challenging with respect to weapons of mass destruction, for which weaponizability is embedded in materials rather than assembled devices. Their elimination commonly requires expensive, technologically demanding processes. U.S. chemical weapon and weapons plutonium stockpile reduction efforts provide useful case studies for investigation of the factors governing the success of reductions programs, as they faced similar challenges yet yielded divergent outcomes. This project involves comparative analysis of both reductions programs, focusing on the technical, organizational, and sociopolitical contexts that aided or hindered elimination.

Please join us! Coffee and tea provided. Everyone is welcome, but admittance will be on a first come–first served basis.