A project of the George Washington University’s Institute for International Science and Technology Policy, the Nuclear Policy Talks (NPT) event series focuses on the dangers posed by nuclear weapons and what the appropriate responses are to those dangers in the 21st Century.

UPCOMING/RECENT NUCLEAR POLICY TALKS

Nuclear Security: Our View from Vienna with Ambassador Laura Holgate

March 17 | 1PM | 1957 E ST NW, Lindner Commons (Room 602, 6th Floor), Washington, DC

REGISTER

GW’s Institute for International Science and Technology Policy is honored to welcome Ambassador to the Vienna Office of the United Nations and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Laura Holgate. Ambassador Holgate will offer brief remarks, focusing on nuclear security, before opening the discussion to Q&A.

Dean of the Elliott School of International Affairs, Alyssa Ayres, will give welcoming remarks and Research Professor Doug Shaw will moderate the Q&A.

This will be an in-person event following Chatham House Rule.

About the Speaker

Laura S.H. Holgate serves as U.S. Ambassador to the Vienna Office of the United Nations and to the International Atomic Energy Agency, advancing multilateral approaches to reduce global threats and seize opportunities in the areas of nuclear nonproliferation, nuclear security, verification of the Iran nuclear deal, nuclear energy, nuclear testing, counterterrorism, anti-corruption, drug policy, cybercrime, and export control. She previously held the position from July 2016 to January 2017.

From 2018 to 2021, Ambassador Holgate was vice president for materials risk management at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), responsible for designing and executing NTI’s activities to prevent nuclear terrorism, such as reducing quantities and enhancing security of nuclear and radiological materials around the world, promoting cooperation between the United States and key partners on nuclear and radiological security, and strengthening the global nuclear security architecture.

Ambassador Holgate co-led the creation of Gender Champions in Nuclear Policy, launched in November 2018, to increase the presence, visibility and impact of women in nonproliferation, nuclear deterrence, nuclear security, disarmament, nuclear energy and related areas. During her previous ambassadorial posting, she promoted gender balance in the staff and programming of the Vienna-based international organizations, laying the groundwork for the creation of the Vienna chapter of the International Gender Champions, and is proud to have joined this chapter in March 2022.

Ambassador Holgate served as the special assistant to the president and senior director for weapons of mass destruction terrorism and threat reduction on the U.S. National Security Council from 2009 to 2016. In this role, she oversaw and coordinated the development of national policies and programs to reduce global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons; detect, identify, secure and eliminate nuclear materials; prevent malicious use of biotechnology; and secure the civilian nuclear fuel cycle. She was the U.S. Sherpa to the Nuclear Security Summits and co-led the effort to advance the President’s Global Health Security Agenda.

Holgate was a founding Vice President of NTI, leading its Russia/New Independent States programs from 2001 to 2009. Prior to that, she directed the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Fissile Materials Disposition from 1998 to 2001, and was special coordinator for cooperative threat reduction at the Department for Defense from 1995 through 1998, where she provided policy oversight of the “Nunn-Lugar” Cooperative Threat Reduction program.

Holgate received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in politics from Princeton University and a Master of Science Degree in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and spent two years on the research staff at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government. Holgate is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

GW’s Institute for International Science and Technology Policy and the New Diplomacy Initiative invite you to an online symposium on:

US-Japan Nuclear Energy Cooperation in Fast Reactors

Friday, March 10 | 6:00PM-8:00PM EST | Online via Zoom

The webinar recording is now available in English and in Japanese.

The U.S. and Japanese public and private sectors are currently cooperating on advanced reactors, also known as “fast reactors.” Both countries pursued the commercialization of fast reactors beginning in the 1950s but halted their programs for different reasons and at different times. The United States halted construction of prototype reactors in the 1990s due to soaring costs, safety issues, and the risks of nuclear proliferation. Japan abandoned its prototype Monju reactor in 2016 for cost and safety issues.

The United States and Japan are now returning to this technology together. The US Department of Energy is financially supporting the construction of demonstration reactors by the private sector and Japan has decided to join the US program.

The cooperation raises interesting questions. Is there any prospect for commercialization of fast reactors in the near future? What are the hoped-for gains? Are fast reactors an effective solution to nuclear waste and climate change? What are the potential nuclear proliferation implications? This event features speakers from the United States, Canada and Japan to discuss the current status, feasibility and implications of promoting the development of fast reactors.

MODERATORS

Sharon Squassoni (Professor, the George Washington University)

Sayo Saruta (President, New Diplomacy Initiative)

SPEAKERS & TOPICS

Frank von Hippel（Professor emeritus, Princeton University)

The US Department of Energy’s renewed promotion of sodium-cooled reactors

Yuichi Kaido (Monju court case plaintiffs’ lawyer)

The failure of Monju and its lessons learned

Aileen Mioko Smith (Director, Green Action)

The current status of the Rokkasho Reprocessing Plant and its implications for the fast reactor program

Allison Macfarlane (Professor, the University of British Columbia)

The role of fast reactors as a solution for climate change and nuclear waste implications

The Institute for International Science and Technology Policy is pleased to present its latest Nuclear Policy Talk:

***The Rule of Law and the Role* *of Strategy in US Nuclear Doctrine***

Featuring speakers:

Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science Scott D. Sagan, Co-Director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University and Senior Lecturer Allen Weiner, Director, Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law; Director, Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation

Tuesday, December 7, 2021
11:00am – 12:30pm EST

This will be a hybrid event.

If you’d like to join us in-person, the event will take place in:

Lindner Commons (Room 602) | 1957 E ST NW | Washington, DC 20052

ABOUT THE EVENT

This spring, Scott Sagan and Allen Weiner from Stanford University published an article titled “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in US Nuclear Doctrine” in the journal International Security. As the Biden Administration moves toward completion of its Nuclear Posture Review, this timely article has sparked numerous debates about how best to ensure that US nuclear policy fully conforms to the law of armed conflict. Join Sagan and Weiner for a discussion of their article. A Q&A moderated by GW Research Professor Douglas B. Shaw will follow. Registered attendees will receive a copy of Professor Sagan’s and Professor Weiner’s International Security article ahead of the event.

Article Abstract

In 2013, the US government announced that its nuclear war plans would be “consistent with the fundamental principles of the Law of Armed Conflict” and would “apply the principles of distinction and proportionality and seek to minimize collateral damage to civilian populations and civilian objects.” If properly applied, these legal principles can have a profound impact on US nuclear doctrine. The prohibition against targeting civilians means that “countervalue” targeting and “minimum deterrence” strategies are illegal. The principle of distinction and the impermissibility of reprisal against civilians make it illegal for the United States, contrary to what is implied in the 2018 Nuclear Posture Review, to intentionally target civilians even in reprisal for a strike against US or allied civilians. The principle of proportionality permits some, but not all, potential US counterforce nuclear attacks against military targets. The precautionary principle means that the United States must use conventional weapons or the lowest-yield nuclear weapons that would be effective against legitimate military targets. The law of armed conflict also restricts targeting of an enemy’s leadership to officials in the military chain of command or directly participating in hostilities, meaning that broad targeting to destroy an enemy’s entire political leadership is unlawful.

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Scott D. Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the 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. He also serves as Chairman of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Committee on International Security Studies. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. Sagan has also served as a consultant to the office of the Secretary of Defense and at the Sandia National Laboratory and the Los Alamos National Laboratory.

Sagan is the author of Moving Targets: Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989); The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993); and, with co-author Kenneth N. Waltz, The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate (W.W. Norton, 2012). He is the co-editor of Learning from a Disaster: Improving Nuclear Safety and Security after Fukushima (Stanford University Press, 2016) with Edward D. Blandford and co-editor of Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of Daedalus: Ethics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); “Why the atomic bombing of Hiroshima would be illegal today” with Katherine E. McKinney and Allen S. Weiner in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (July 2020); “Weighing Lives in War: How National Identity Influences American Public Opinion about Foreign Civilian and Compatriot Fatalities” with Benjamin A. Valentino in the Journal of Global Security Studies (December 2019); “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019); and “Armed and Dangerous: When Dictators Get the Bomb” in Foreign Affairs (October 2018).

In 2018, Sagan received the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. In 2017, he received the International Studies Association’s Susan Strange Award which recognizes the scholar whose “singular intellect, assertiveness, and insight most challenge conventional wisdom and intellectual and organizational complacency” in the international studies community. Sagan was also the recipient of the National Academy of Sciences William and Katherine Estes Award in 2015, for his work addressing the risks of nuclear weapons and the causes of nuclear proliferation. The award, which is granted triennially, recognizes “research in any field of cognitive or behavioral science that advances understanding of issues relating to the risk of nuclear war.” In 2013, Sagan received the International Studies Association’s International Security Studies Section Distinguished Scholar Award. He has also won four teaching awards: Stanford’s 1998-99 Dean’s Award for Distinguished Teaching; Stanford’s 1996 Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching; the International Studies Association’s 2008 Innovative Teaching Award; and the Monterey Institute for International Studies’ Nonproliferation Education Award in 2009.

Allen S. Weiner, JD ’89, is an international legal scholar with expertise in such wide-ranging fields as international and national security law, the law of war, international conflict resolution, and international criminal law (including transitional justice). His scholarship focuses on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and situations of widespread humanitarian atrocities. He also explores assertions by states of “war powers” under international law, domestic law, and just war theory in the context of asymmetric armed conflicts between states and nonstate armed groups and the response to terrorism. In the realm of international conflict resolution, his highly multidisciplinary work analyzes the barriers to resolving violent political conflicts, with a particular focus on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Weiner’s scholarship is deeply informed by experience; he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State for more than a decade advising government policymakers, negotiating international agreements, and representing the United States in litigation before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, the International Court of Justice, and the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal.

Senior Lecturer Weiner is director of the Stanford Program in International and Comparative Law and director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. Before joining the Stanford Law School faculty in 2003, Weiner served as legal counselor to the U.S. Embassy in The Hague and attorney adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser of the U.S. Department of State. He was a law clerk to Judge John Steadman of the District of Columbia Court of Appeals.

The Institute for International Science and Technology Policy is pleased to present the latest Nuclear Policy Talk:

Arms Control: Do New Threats Require New Organizations?

Featuring a panel of experts:

Ambassador Robert Gallucci, Ambassador James E. Goodby, Honorable Rose Gottemoeller, David A. Koplow, and Ms. Amy Woolf

Moderated by:

Professor Sharon Squassoni, George Washington University

Tuesday, October 12, 2021

2:00pm – 3:30pm EDT

Online via Zoom

View the event recording here.

ABOUT THE WEBINAR

Threats from nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons — so-called weapons of mass destruction and the missiles that carry them – pose an ongoing threat to US national security. Yet today, the US government has no agency dedicated to cooperatively reducing threats from these weapons. How is it that the United States government, a leader in arms control and nonproliferation initiatives, has no focal point for action to reduce and eventually eliminate these weapons?

In addition to these traditional threats, emerging technologies pose new challenges, which should be addressed before it is too late to do anything about them. These include hostile acts in cyberspace and space, as well as military uses of artificial intelligence and bioengineering

Please join us on Tuesday, October 12, 2021 from 2-3:30pm EDT for a virtual discussion where we will exchange ideas for strengthening US capacity to combat, reduce, and eventually eliminate new threats. Our distinguished panel is comprised of senior former officials who have all been involved in the conduct of arms control, including Ambassador Bob Gallucci, Ambassador James Goodby, the Honorable Rose Gottemoeller, Mr. David A. Koplow, and Ms. Amy Woolf. IISTP’s Professor Sharon Squassoni will moderate the discussion.

ABOUT THE PARTICIPANTS

Ambassador Robert Gallucci is Distinguished Professor in the Practice of Diplomacy at the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, Georgetown University, where he earlier served as the Dean. He led the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation as president from 2009 to 2014. His career in the US Department of State spanned 21 years and included serving as Special Envoy to deal with the threat posed by the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction, Deputy Executive Chairman of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) overseeing the disarmament of Iraq and Assistant Secretary of State for Political-Military Affairs. He began his foreign service career at the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency in 1974

Ambassador James E. Goodby has been a fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution since 2007. He works with former Secretary of State George P. Shultz on nuclear security issues. He served as Ambassador to Finland, an Atomic Energy Commission official, and a Foreign Service Officer and served as an adviser or participant in many of the East-West security negotiations of the Cold War, from 1955 through 2000.

Honorable Rose Gottemoeller is the Steven C. Házy Lecturer at Stanford University’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and its Center for International Security and Cooperation. From 2016 to 2019, she was the Deputy Secretary General of NATO. She served for nearly five years as the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the U.S. Department of State and as Assistant Secretary of State for Arms Control, Verification and Compliance in 2009 and 2010, she was the chief U.S. negotiator of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) with the Russian Federation. She is the author of Negotiating the New START Treaty (2021).

David A. Koplow is a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center. He previously served as Deputy General Counsel for International Affairs at the Department of Defense and as attorney advisor and special assistant to the director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency.

Ms. Amy Woolf is a Specialist in Nuclear Weapons Policy in the Foreign Affairs, Defense, and Trade Division of the Congressional Research Service at the Library of Congress. She provides Congress with information, analysis, and support on issues related to U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and arms control.

Professor Sharon Squassoni is Research Professor of the Practice of International Affairs in the Institute for International Science & Technology Policy, Elliott School of International Affairs. She served in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, the US Department of State and the Congressional Research Service. Before joining the Elliott School, she led research programs at the Center for Strategic & International Studies and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

How Cyber-Secure are US Nuclear Weapons?

May 18, 2021 | 3:30pm-5:00pm EDT

Online via Zoom

Featuring remarks from Dr. Herb Lin, Stanford University and moderated by Professor Sharon Squassoni, George Washington University

View the event recording here.

About the webinar:

This webinar offered a virtual tour of the relationship to and possible impact of cyber technology on all aspects on US nuclear forces and operations. Dr. Herb Lin of Stanford University previewed his forthcoming book on the potential cyber impacts of nuclear weapons design and production, including the Stockpile Stewardship Program, nuclear delivery systems and platforms carrying such systems, advanced cyber-enabled defensive capabilities that might be deployed against US nuclear forces, the nuclear tactical warning and attack assessment system, nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3), the planned modernization of US NC3 systems and, of course, nuclear planning and nuclear decision-making and escalation. Dr. Lin’s presentation was moderated by Professor Sharon Squassoni, and was followed by a question and answer session with participants.

About the speakers:

Dr. Herb Lin is senior research scholar for cyber policy and security at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and Hank J. Holland Fellow in Cyber Policy and Security at the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford University. His research interests relate broadly to policy-related dimensions of cybersecurity and cyberspace, and he is particularly interested in the use of offensive operations in cyberspace as instruments of national policy and in the security dimensions of information warfare and influence operations on national security. In addition to his positions at Stanford University, he is Chief Scientist, Emeritus for the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board, National Research Council (NRC) of the National Academies, where he served from 1990 through 2014 as study director of major projects on public policy and information technology, and Adjunct Senior Research Scholar and Senior Fellow in Cybersecurity (not in residence) at the Saltzman Institute for War and Peace Studies in the School for International and Public Affairs at Columbia University; and a member of the Science and Security Board of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. In 2016, he served on President Obama’s Commission on Enhancing National Cybersecurity. Prior to his NRC service, he was a professional staff member and staff scientist for the House Armed Services Committee (1986-1990), where his portfolio included defense policy and arms control issues. He received his doctorate in physics from MIT.

Sharon Squassoni is Research Professor of the Practice of International Affairs in the Institute for International Science & Technology Policy of the Elliott School of International Affairs. Her research focuses on policy approaches to reducing risks from nuclear weapons and nuclear energy. Prior to joining the faculty of the Elliott School, she led the Proliferation Prevention Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies and was senior research associate with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She served in the US Arms Control & Disarmament Agency, the US State Department and the Library of Congress’ Congressional Research Service from 1992 to 2007. She is on the Science & Security Board of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Advisory Board of the PIR Center in Moscow and the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation. She is the principle investigator of the Nuclear Boundaries Initiative.

This event was open to the public/media.

PREVIOUS NUCLEAR POLICY TALKS

January 17, 2020, Dr. Jor-Shan Choi and Sharon Squassoni: Reducing Risks of Plutonium Stockpiles – A Roadmap
November 14, 2019, Dr. Geoffrey Rothwell: The Economics of Spent Nuclear Fuel Storage
October 31, 2019, Sharon Squassoni and Dr. Vladimir Orlov: The Future of U.S. – Russian Nonproliferation Cooperation
March 14, 2019, Speakers: Sharon Squassoni and Ali Ahmad: Nuclear Power and Energy (In)Security in the Middle East
February 25, 2019, Hassan Abbas (NDU) and Marcus King (Elliott School): Politics, Taliban negotiations & Nuclear Security in Pakistan
February 7, 2019, Anita Friedt (State Department), Daryl Kimball (Arms Control Association), and Sharon Squassoni (Elliott School of International Affairs): The End of the INF Treaty
December 11, 2018, Ian Anthony, Vadym Ivko and Vitaly Fedchenko, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute: Nuclear Security in the Black Sea Region
November 16, 2018, David Albright: Taiwan’s Nuclear Power
August 29, 2018, Anton Khlopkov: After Helsinki- What’s next for U.S.-Russia Nuclear Relations?
May 11, 2018, Amb. Laura Holgate and Corey Hinderstein: Nuclear Security Summit Progress and Prospects from Two Years’ On
March 26, 2018, Frank von Hippel: A fundamentalist’s approach to nuclear nonproliferation and nuclear-weapons reductions: Get rid of the fissile material!
February 14, 2018, Ambassador Linton Brooks: The Implications of the Nuclear Posture Review
December 14, 2017, Jonathan Weisgall, Sr. Megan Rice, Helen Young, and Hugh Gusterson: Screening of The Nuns, the Priests, and the Bombs
November 28, 2017, Dr. Edward Ifft of Georgetown: The Ban Treaty
April 27, 2017, Amb. (retired) Laura Holgate: Nuclear Reactions: Iran, Russia, the Weapons Ban, and Other Hot Topics
April 21-22, 2017, Dr. Jacopo Buongiorno of MIT: Nuclear Offshore: A New Paradigm for Construction, Siting and Operations of Nuclear Plants
April 19, 2017, APS and GW’s Short Course on Nuclear Weapons (presentation slides available here)
April 13, 2017, Dr. Benjamin Garrett (recently retired from the FBI): A Death In London
April 12, 2017, Dr. Page Stoutland of NTI: Addressing the Cyber Threat to Nuclear System
March 29, 2017, Dr. David Hobbs of Savannah River National Labs: Things Amiss in a Salt Mine
February 27, 2017, Thomas Countryman and Newell Highsmith: The Iran Deal: Why JPCOA still makes sense for America?
February 15, 2017, Alain Tournyol du Clos, George Moore, Charles Ferguson, and Elsa Lemaitre-Xavier: Can the U.S. Navy Learn from the French Experience?
February 2, 2017, Nate Jones of the NSA Archives: Able Archer ’83
November 29, 2016, Screening of the film Containment
October 11, 2016, Dr. Lassina Zerbo of the CTBTO: Advancing Verification Science to Monitor for Nuclear Explosions: The Contribution of the CTBT.
May 3, 2016, David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security: The Iran Deal.
March 28, 2016, David Albright of the Institute for Science and International Security: The Case of South Africa’s Nuclear Armament and Disarmament: Lessons for Today
November 2, 2015, The Institute for Science and International Security: Plutonium & Highly Enriched Uranium
Keith S. Bradley, Director: National & Global Security Programs: Argonne National Lab and National Global Security Programs

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