418 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.

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).

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."

A political cartoon featuring a globe biting down on a nuclear weapon.

https://libraries.uta.edu/ettahulme/image/20105877

Seminar - Open to the Public

Spheres of (In)security: Global Nuclear Order between Past and Future Injustices

Fri., Mar. 17, 2023 | 9:00am - 10:30am

Online

The global nuclear order that comprises nuclear deterrence, nonproliferation, and disarmament is often viewed as discriminatory and increasingly castigated as unjust. Few states got to develop and deploy nuclear weapons in the name of their own security and that of their allies. Most are prohibited from doing so by the international nonproliferation regime. All stand to lose if a nuclear exchange takes place. Russia’s war against Ukraine underscored the inequities and injustices in the global nuclear order built on hierarchical spheres of (in)security. How to define injustice in nuclear affairs? How sustainable is an unjust global nuclear order? At what cost can it be maintained in its present form, and how can it be long tolerated by the future generations? The panel brings together scholars to critically reflect on past, ongoing, and future nuclear injustices – in the context of the war in Ukraine and beyond – to assess the main tensions and pave the way for a research agenda beyond the usual boundaries of the nuclear policy field and community.

Close-up of the brick apartment building, which was outfitted with a fallout shelter in the middle of the last century, 28 February 2016.

Wikimedia CC/Andre Carrotflower

Seminar - Open to the Public

Insurance or Strategy: When Does Population Protection Constitute Deterrence?

Thu., Mar. 9, 2023 | 12:15pm - 2:00pm

Online

Speaker: Matthew Hartwell, Research Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

When and why is population protection considered an element of U.S. nuclear deterrence? While civil defense played a negligible role in nuclear strategy throughout the early part of the Cold War, beginning in the late 1950s, the limits to the program materialized twice as a potential gap in the U.S.-Soviet nuclear balance. Examining the public and congressional reaction to the programs, this seminar will demonstrate how domestic political barriers undermined the Kennedy and Reagan administrations' attempts to alter the role of population protection in U.S. nuclear strategy.

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar:
https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0ld-qrrzkpHtGKfE1mVLLIZ2s8dLCBcSp1

An unarmed U.S. Air Force LGM-30G Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches at 4:36 a.m. PST during an operational test Dec. 17, 2013, from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif.

Public Domain/USAF Airman 1st Class Yvonne Morales

Seminar - Open to the Public

The Delicate Balance of Error: Perceived Counterforce Feasibility and the Nuclear Taboo

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

Online

Speaker: David M. Allison, Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow, International Security Program/Project on Managing the Atom

As geopolitical and technological shifts challenge the underpinnings of nuclear deterrence, the implications of a nuclear taboo become increasingly important. Crucially, if the prohibition against nuclear use is binding, improved counterforce capabilities should have no effect on support for use. This seminar presents the results of a series of experiments designed to identify taboo believers and measure the durability of their commitment to nuclear non-use by increasing their perceptions of the military effectiveness of counterforce strikes. 

Everyone is welcome to join us online via Zoom! Please register in advance for this seminar: https://harvard.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJUvc-uorTkoG9C3zILDI0wrhkBFNJWCkWIU