12 Events

The Rio Tinto Rössing uranium mine in Namibia.

Lokal_Profil/Wikimedia Commons

Special Series - Open to the Public

Africa and the Atom: Rethinking African Agency in the Global Nuclear Order

Fri., Mar. 26, 2021 | 10:00am - 12:00pm

Online

Nuclear politics across the African continent are complex and diverse. Yet, Western-centric scholarship and policymaking tend to overlook the multitude of perspectives on nuclear energy and weapons within Africa. Dominant nuclear discourses obscure the narratives of Africa's regions, countries, and peoples. Closer examination reveals a vast and intricate tapestry of nuclear spaces and identities imprinted on the continent’s colonial and post-colonial experience. In the atomic age, these experiences have included: uranium mining, nuclear explosive testing, the Bandung Conference, development and rollback of South Africa's nuclear weapons program, participation in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament initiatives, and pursuit of civilian nuclear energy. This panel brings together a diverse group of scholars to examine African relationships with nuclear arms and nuclear energy through the lenses of security, development, climate change and the environment, and global justice and equality.

Seminar - Open to the Public

Agency, Africa, and the Atom

Wed., Feb. 10, 2021 | 2:00pm - 3:30pm

Online

A Project on Managing the Atom (MTA) seminar with Olamide Samuel, Coordinator of SCRAP Weapons and Senior Teaching Fellow at SOAS University of London.

Please RSVP to receive the Zoom link.

Yellow cake uranium is a solid form of uranium oxide produced from uranium ore. Yellow cake must be processed further before it is made into nuclear fuel.

Wikimedia CC/Nuclear Regulatory Commission

Seminar - Open to the Public

Foreign Skeletons in Nuclear Closets: Implications for Policy and Verification

Thu., May 23, 2019 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

One Brattle Square - Room 350

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.

U.S. President Richard Nixon, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem, during the first official visit by a U.S. president to Israel, June 16–17, 1974.

Ya'acov Sa'ar, GPO​

Seminar - Open to the Public

The Political Effects of Nuclear Proliferation

Thu., Sep. 17, 2015 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Littauer Building - Belfer Center Library, Room 369

This seminar will examine these political effects of nuclear acquisition in the cases of France, China, Israel, and South Africa and reflect on the likely political consequences of eventual Iranian nuclear acquisition.

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

Seminar - Open to the Public

The CTBTO and its Verification System: Current Challenges and Future Directions

Wed., Apr. 30, 2014 | 10:00am - 11:30am

Rubenstein Building - Room G20

Dr. Lassina Zerbo has been the Executive Secretary of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty Organization since August of 2013. In this Project on Managing the Atom seminar, he will discuss the state of the CTBTO and its Verification System.

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

Seminar - Open to the Public

All Options on the Table? Nuclear Proliferation, Preventive War, and a Leader's Decision to Intervene

Thu., Apr. 10, 2014 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Littauer Building - Belfer Center Library, Room 369

Under what conditions do states use preventive military force to forestall or destroy an adversary's nuclear weapons program? If nuclear weapons are so dangerous, why do leaders disagree about the magnitude of the threat posed by specific nuclear programs?

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

Gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment recovered from the <em>BBC China</em> in Italy, en route to Libya, in 2003. They were later taken to the Y-12 complex in the USA where this photo was taken (with a Y-12 guard also in the photo).

DOE Photo

Seminar - Open to the Public

The Problem with "Mixed" Strategies: Revisiting Libya's Decision to Give Up its Nuclear Program

Thu., Nov. 7, 2013 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Littauer Building - Belfer Center Library, Room 369

Libya's decision to give up its nuclear weapons ambitions has been interpreted by most observers as support for the idea that mixed strategies are good policy. Although they disagree over which particular tools of influence were most important, most agree that some mixture of coercion and inducements explains Gaddafi's decision to disarm. This is not, however, supported by the evidence.

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

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, left, gestures to chief of Iran's Atomic Energy Organization Ali Akbar Salehi after unveiling a 3rd generation of domestically built centrifuge for Iran's National Day of Nuclear Technology in Tehran, Apr. 4, 2009

AP Photo

Seminar - Open to the Public

Can Sanctions Prevent the Spread of Nuclear Weapons?

Thu., Feb. 24, 2011 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Taubman Building - Kalb Seminar Room, Room 275

Economic sanctions have long been derided as ineffective instruments of foreign policy and yet continue to remain a principal tool for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons across nations. This seminar will analyze the impact of sanctions on nuclear programs based on case studies of Taiwan, Iraq, Libya, and Iran. It offers an understanding of the limits and possibilities of sanctions, showing that they can sometimes play a critical role in coercing nuclear aspirants.

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

Libya's Science and Research Minister Matouq Mohamed Matouq and IAEA's Director General Mohamed ElBaradei, from left, sign an agreement opening up Libya's nuclear activities to IAEA inspections on Mar. 10, 2004, in Vienna.

AP Photo

Seminar - Open to the Public

What Drives Nuclear Proliferation? A Pragmatist Analysis

Mon., May 17, 2010 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Rubenstein Building - Room G20

One of the major unsolved puzzles of international politics is why only some states acquire nuclear weapons, whereas others never start a weapons program or even renounce their activities. A new theoretical framework based on the literature of American Pragmatism overcomes long-standing theoretical disaccords and provides a better understanding of the issues underlying states' decision-making. Insights from the cases of Switzerland and Libya will be applied in order to show the benefits of such an alternative approach.

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