Fall 2023 Bulletin: Annual Report

Global Security & International Affairs

A motorcyclist rides their bike down a dirt road toward the viewer. A crowd of people gather in the field beside the road, and huts in various stages of construction stand on a hill that rises in the background.
Photo by UN Photo/Michael Ali.

The Global Security and International Affairs program area draws on the expertise of a broad range of policymakers, practitioners, and scholars to foster knowledge and promote innovative and evidence-based policies to address crucial issues affecting the international community. Projects underway in this area engage with pressing strategic, development, and moral questions that underpin relations among people, communities, and states worldwide. Each initiative embraces a broad conception of security as the interaction among human, national, and global security imperatives. Project recommendations move beyond the idea of security as the absence of war toward higher aspirations of collective peace, development, and justice at all levels of society.
 

Committee on International Security Studies
 

Chair
 

Scott D. Sagan
Stanford University

 

Members
 

Antonia Chayes
Tufts University

Christopher F. Chyba
Princeton University

Neta C. Crawford
University of Oxford

Karl W. Eikenberry
Schwarzman College

Tanisha M. Fazal
University of Minnesota

Martha Finnemore
George Washington University

Lawrence D. Freedman
King’s College London

Susan Landau
Tufts University

Robert Legvold
Columbia University

Rose M. McDermott
Brown University

Steven E. Miller
Harvard Kennedy School

Barry R. Posen
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Adam Roberts
British Academy

Jennifer M. Welsh
McGill University

Paul H. Wise
Stanford University

Project 

Rethinking the Humanitarian Health Response to Violent Conflict
 

Two health care workers wearing face shields and surgical masks face a line of people waiting for medical attention. Above them, a white tarp serves as a tent.
Photo by iStock.com/shironosov.

The Rethinking the Humanitarian Health Response to Violent Conflict project seeks to understand and address current trends in humanitarian contexts that pose new or evolving challenges for humanitarian health responders. Among the most pressing challenges are the increasingly protracted nature of civil and non-international armed conflict; the fact that many of the world’s most violent places are facing criminal or political violence rather than conflict as conventionally understood; shortfalls in funding; and changing geopolitical relations. This project brings together political scientists, legal and security experts, health professionals, and humanitarians to examine current challenges to effective humanitarian action and to develop, where necessary, new strategies for preventing civilian harm and delivering critical health services in areas plagued by violent conflict.

Current work includes a focus on responding to some of the urgent challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic’s effects on humanitarian health needs in conflict areas and other violent settings. Building on its efforts to address the political and security dimensions of pandemic response in areas of weak governance and violent conflict, the initiative published two research papers as part of a workstream on global cooperation and pandemic control.

Another area of work, exploring Regional Humanitarian Responses to Pandemics, Criminal and Political Violence, and Forced Migration, is publishing a series of peer-reviewed journal articles that present the findings of field research conducted in partnership with the University of California, San Diego, and El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. This work focuses on understanding the impacts of COVID-19 on migrants at the U.S.-Mexico border.

A Dædalus volume, published in May 2023, synthesizes these findings from across all components of the project, with tailored resources prepared for select audiences, including policymakers and practitioners. The Academy organized a series of launch events in 2023 to discuss key findings in the volume. These events engaged experts in London, New York City, and Mexico City.
 

Project Chairs
 

Jaime Sepúlveda
University of California, San Francisco

Jennifer M. Welsh
McGill University

Paul H. Wise
Stanford University

 

Advisory Group
 

Sergio Aguayo
El Colegio de México

Donald M. Berwick
Institute of Healthcare Improvement

Louise Henry Bryson
Public Media Group of Southern California

Rita Dayoub
Chatham House

Elisabeth Decrey Warner
Geneva Call

David P. Fidler
Council on Foreign Relations

Fouad M. Fouad
American University of Beirut

Marion Jacobs
University of Cape Town

Arthur Kleinman
Harvard University

Joanne Liu
McGill University

Li Lu
Himalaya Capital Management LLC

Jane Olson
Human Rights Watch

Deborah F. Rutter
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Tamara Taraciuk Broner
Human Rights Watch

 

Project Staff
 

Melissa Chan
Program Coordinator for Global Security and International Affairs

Michelle Poulin
Program Associate for Global Security and International Affairs

Peter Robinson
Interim Chief Program Officer and Morton L. Mandel Director of Strategic Implementation

Jumaina Siddiqui
Program Director for Global Security and International Affairs

 

Funders
 

Louise Henry Bryson and John E. Bryson

Malcolm Hewitt Wiener Foundation

The Rockefeller Foundation
 

Project Publications
 

“Delivering Humanitarian Health Services in Violent Conflicts,” Dædalus, edited by Jaime Sepúlveda, Jennifer M. Welsh & Paul H. Wise (Spring 2023)

Peace Operations at the Intersection of Health Emergencies and Violent Conflict: Lessons from the 2018–2020 DRC Ebola Crisis, Dirk Druet (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2022)

International Cooperation Failures in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Learning from Past Efforts to Address Common Threats, Jennifer M. Welsh (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2022)

Ietza Bojorquez-Chapela, Steffanie A. Strathdee, Richard S. Garfein, et al., “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Migrants in Shelters in Tijuana, Baja California, Mexico,” BMJ Global Health (2022)

Ietza Bojorquez, Jaime Sepúlveda, Deandra Lee, and Steffanie Strathdee, “Interrupted Transit and Common Mental Disorders among Migrants in Tijuana, Mexico,” International Journal of Social Psychiatry (2022).

Antoine Chaillon, Ietza Bojorquez, Jaime Sepúlveda, et al., “Cocirculation and Replacement of SARS-CoV-2 Variants in Crowded Settings and Marginalized Populations along the US-Mexico Border,” Salud publica de Mexico (2022).
 

Project Meetings
 

Health Emergencies and the Humanitarian Sector: Lessons for Sustaining Peace in a Pandemic

November 1, 2022

Organized by the International Peace Institute, Geneva Centre for Security Policy, and the Geneva Peacebuilding Platform, Dirk Druet, author of the Academy’s report, Peace Operations at the Intersection of Health Emergencies and Violent Conflict: Lessons from the 2018–2020 DRC Ebola Crisis, participated in a roundtable discussion during Geneva Peace Week. Druet shared lessons learned from pandemic responses by health, humanitarian, and peacebuilding sectors, such as the 2018–2020 Ebola crisis in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

 

Governance and Financing for International Cooperation on Pandemic Preparedness

December 6, 2022

In partnership with the Center for Global Development (CGD), the Academy organized a virtual meeting that focused on strengthening global cooperation for pandemic preparedness. The event reviewed the current state of financing for pandemic preparedness, pandemic treaty negotiations with the World Health Assemblies, and the role of multilateral collaboration in driving an agenda to reform the global health architecture. The event drew on CGD’s global health security work and the Academy’s report, International Cooperation Failures in the Face of the COVID-19 Pandemic: Learning from Past Efforts to Address Common Threats, by Jennifer M. Welsh.

 

21st Century Challenges and Opportunities for Humanitarian Health Responses

New York, NY
July 20, 2023

Organized in partnership with the International Peace Institute, this event in New York City served as the U.S. launch for the project’s Dædalus volume. The speakers focused on several themes highlighted in the volume: the current landscape for humanitarian action, high level and local level health service delivery, on the ground perspectives, and the health-development nexus.

Speakers
 

Dirk Druet
International Peace Institute; McGill University

Fouad M. Fouad
American University of Beirut; Global Health Institute

David Miliband
International Rescue Committee

David W. Oxtoby
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Jenna Russo
International Peace Institute

Jennifer M. Welsh
McGill University

Paul H. Wise
Stanford University

David Miliband, Jenna Russo, and Jennifer Welsh sit in front of a wall that promotes the International Peace Institute. In front of them, David Oxtoby addresses the viewer.
From left to right: David Miliband, Jenna Russo, Jennifer M. Welsh, and David W. Oxtoby, July 20, 2023, New York City. Photo by International Peace Institute.

 

A World in Humanitarian Crisis: Forced Mobility and Organized Crime in Latin America

Mexico City, Mexico
September 12, 2023

In partnership with El Colegio de México, the Academy held a policy forum that explored the challenges in delivering humanitarian health services to migrants in areas affected by political and criminal violence in Latin America. The discussions focused on the ambiguity of humanitarian health service delivery in situations other than war and on unpacking the drivers of forced migration due to urban violence and climate change within the region.

SPEAKERS
 

Sergio Aguayo
El Colegio de México

Ietza Bojórquez
El Colegio de la Frontera Norte, Mexico

Julia Carabias
National Autonomous University of Mexico

Silvia Giorguli Saucedo
El Colegio de México

Emilio González
UNHCR Protection Unit, Mexico

David W. Oxtoby
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

Jaime Sepúlveda
University of California, San Francisco

Tamara Taraciuk Broner
Inter-American Dialogue

Karine Tinat
El Colegio de México

Miguel Ángel Valverde Loya
Mexican Ministry of Foreign Affairs

 

Challenges to Delivering Humanitarian Health Care in Today’s Conflicts

London, United Kingdom
November 6, 2023

In collaboration with Chatham House, the Academy held an event that focused on the obstacles to effective implementation of humanitarian health services in today’s conflicts, including in Ukraine and Gaza. These obstacles include state-sanctioned use of indiscriminate biological, nuclear, and cluster incendiary weapons and the ongoing blockade and forced displacement in Gaza. The participants also discussed the geopolitical implications of such challenges to humanitarian efforts.

Project 

Promoting Dialogue on Arms Control and Disarmament
 

A close-up of two arms extending to meet and shake hands in the center of the image.
Photo by iStock.com/baona.

Unlike the Cold War, the current nuclear age is characterized by a simultaneous collapse of arms control agreements and the absence of any strategic dialogue among the three main nuclear players. One strand of work in the Promoting Dialogue on Arms Control and Disarmament project consists of a series of Track-II dialogues between experts and former policymakers from the United States, Russia, and China, which is designed to identify critical short-term goals in arms control that would serve to minimize and reduce the potential risks of nuclear arms-racing and escalation. The meetings identify areas for cooperation and promote conceptual thinking about measures that might strengthen strategic stability and help to reduce the significant dangers of nuclear weapons being used in the future.

A second strand of work builds on the Academy’s prior experience in organizing educational sessions for the U.S. Congress on a range of topics. Through a series of engagements with members of Congress and their staffs, the project helps foster and strengthen knowledge on key issues and challenges facing the United States in arms control and international security, with particular attention to careful management of the strategic competition posed by China and Russia.

A third strand of work weaves the project’s expert discussions and policy recommendations together to produce high-impact publications on critical debates within nuclear arms control. These publications will be translated into Russian and Chinese for dissemination to policymakers and the arms control communities in Moscow and Beijing.
 

Project Chair
 

Steven E. Miller
Harvard University

 

Project Staff
 

Melissa Chan
Program Coordinator for Global Security and International Affairs

Doreen Horschig
Raymond Frankel Nuclear Security Policy Fellow
(July 18, 2022–March 29, 2023)

Michelle Poulin
Program Associate for Global Security and International Affairs

Peter Robinson
Interim Chief Program Officer and Morton L. Mandel Director of Strategic Implementation

Ottawa Sanders
Raymond Frankel Nuclear Security Policy Fellow

Jumaina Siddiqui
Program Director for Global Security and International Affairs

 

Funder
 

The Raymond Frankel Foundation
 

Project Publications
 

Missile Defense and the Strategic Relationship among the United States, Russia, and China, Tong Zhao and Dmitry Stefanovich (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2023)

Minimizing the Negative Effects of Advances in Military-Relevant Space Capabilities on Strategic Stability, Nancy Gallagher and Jaganath Sankaran (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2023)

Nuclear Perils in a New Era: Bringing Perspective to the Nuclear Choices Facing Russia and the United States, Steven E. Miller and Alexey Arbatov (American Academy of Arts and Sciences and Russian Academy of Sciences, 2021)
 

Project Meetings
 

Russia-Ukraine War: Implications for the Global Nuclear Order and Arms Control

September 29, 2022

The Academy hosted a virtual briefing for congressional staff that offered up-to-date analysis on the Russia-
Ukraine War, with a focus on the role of nuclear strategy and deterrence since the beginning of the war and its implications for nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. Chaired by the Academy’s former Raymond Frankel Nuclear Security Policy Fellow,
Doreen Horschig, the panel discussion featured Lawrence Freedman (King’s College London) and Mariana Budjeryn (Harvard Kennedy School).

Screenshots of Zoom panelists at the event to discuss the Russia-Ukraine War: Implications for the Global Nuclear Order and Arms Control.
On September 29, 2022, Lawrence Freedman (bottom) and Mariana Budjeryn (top left) discussed the Russia-Ukraine War at a virtual briefing for congressional staff. Doreen Horschig (top right) moderated the discussion. 

 

North Korea’s Nuclear Threats

November 16, 2022

The Academy hosted a virtual briefing for congressional staff on nuclear threats from North Korea. Overshadowed by the current war in Ukraine, North Korea’s steady progress on nuclear and missile technologies has flown under the radar of public attention. Chaired by project leader Steven E. Miller, the briefing featured Mark Fitzpatrick (International Institute for Strategic Studies) and Suzanne DiMaggio (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), with introductions from Representative Jim Cooper (D-TN), cochair of the Congressional Nuclear Security Working Group (C-NSWG), and Representative Bill Foster (D-IL), former cochair of the C-NSWG.

Screenshots of Zoom panelists at the event to discuss North Korea’s Nuclear Threats.
Steven E. Miller (top left) moderated a virtual briefing for congressional staff on November 16, 2022, on the topic of nuclear threats from North Korea. The briefing featured Suzanne DiMaggio (top right) and Mark Fitzpatrick (bottom).

 

The Doomsday Clock and Today’s Nuclear Landscape

Washington, D.C.
January 25, 2023

Sponsored by Senator Ed Markey and organized in partnership with the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and Council for a Livable World, the Academy hosted an in-person briefing in Washington, D.C., for congressional staff on the facets of today’s nuclear landscape that inspired the Bulletin in January 2023 to set its nuclear Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight. The briefing featured Scott Sagan (Stanford University), Siegfried Hecker (Stanford University), and Sharon Squassoni (George Washington University)–all members of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board.

 

Iran’s Nuclear Program, Regime Protests, and Regional Stability

March 1, 2023

The Academy hosted a virtual briefing for congressional staff, sponsored by the Congressional Nuclear Security Working Group, on Iran’s nuclear program. Just a day before the event, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed that their inspectors had found traces of near weapons-grade nuclear material in Iran. The meeting, chaired by Doreen Horschig, former Raymond Frankel Nuclear Security Policy Fellow at the Academy, featured Kelsey Davenport (Arms Control Association) and remarks from Representative Chuck Fleischmann (R-TN).

Screenshots of Zoom panelists at the event to discuss Iran’s Nuclear Program, Regime Protests, and Regional Stability.
A virtual briefing for congressional staff on Iran’s nuclear program, held on March 1, 2023, featured Kelsey Davenport (left) and remarks from Representative Chuck Fleischmann (right).

Project 

Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age, Phase I
 

A trailer truck holds a large missile and several soldiers on its rig in a Republic Day parade in India. A sign below the missile reads “Agni-II Missile.”
Photo by Antônio Milena. Published under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Brazil (CC BY 3.0 BR) license.

The world has entered a new nuclear era. No longer dominated by two nuclear superpowers, the evolving multipolar nuclear order presents fundamental challenges to the conceptual and practical means of avoiding nuclear war. Moreover, the new era has slowly dismantled the bilateral arms control framework, with no clear prospect that it will be revived and extended. The possibility that a framework or frameworks encompassing other, let alone all, nuclear powers can be achieved seems even more remote. In addition, advances in weapons technology and the opening of new frontiers, such as cyber capabilities and artificial intelligence, make a shifting environment still more complex. The pathways to inadvertent nuclear war have multiplied across more regions and relationships.

Since 2017, the Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age project has worked to identify the major dangers generated by the dynamics of a multipolar nuclear world that pose the greatest threat of inadvertent nuclear war; offer alternative approaches to addressing each of these dangers; facilitate discussions with relevant communities in the United States and abroad; and encourage and assist policymakers, Congress, the analytical community, and the media to think systematically about our increasingly multipolar world. The publications produced by the project have been shared widely with domestic and international policymakers, scholars and students of nuclear affairs, and leaders of international organizations.

The Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age project is rooted in the critically important work on arms control that the Academy conducted from 1958 to 1960 to prevent a nuclear confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union. During that time, Academy Fellows gathered monthly to build a cooperative framework between the United States and the Soviet Union based on the limitations of the nuclear stockpile and the establishment of mutual vulnerability between the two rivals. The group included Donald Brennan, Edward Teller, Henry Kissinger, and Thomas Schelling, among others. Today, more than ever, an effort that brings together scholars and policymakers to examine the wide range of challenges posed by the changing nuclear order is urgently needed.

Project 

Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age, Phase II: Deterrence & New Nuclear States
 

A military parade fills a four-lane road to mark Soviet Victory Day in Moscow. The road is beside an Orthodox church with ornate minarets.
Photo by iStock.com/Mordolff.

With the emergence of three new nuclear powers (India, Pakistan, and North Korea) and several rising nuclear powers (including Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey), the world is on the verge of a new nuclear age. This will demand new thinking about the security implications of nuclear powers that may be in highly hostile environments, suffer from domestic instability, have fewer resources, or be led by personalist dictators. Building and expanding upon the work in Phase One, the second phase of the project investigates the deterrence and defense implications facing small nuclear force countries and potential proliferators.

The project produced an edited volume of essays, The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age, published by Cornell University Press. Outreach activities are being directed to nuclear and arms control policy-makers (primarily in the United States) and academic centers and think tanks with a focus on nuclear studies.
 

Project Chairs, Phase I
 

Christopher Chyba
Princeton University

Robert Legvold
Columbia University

 

Project Chairs, Phase II
 

Vipin Narang
U.S. Department of Defense; Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Scott D. Sagan
Stanford University

 

Steering Committee Members, Phase I
 

Thomas J. Christensen
Princeton University

Lynn Eden
Stanford University

Steven E. Miller
Harvard University

Janne Nolan
George Washington University

Scott D. Sagan
Stanford University

Jon Wolfsthal
Nuclear Crisis Group

 

Working Group Members, Phase I
 

James M. Acton
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Mark Bell
University of Minnesota

Linton Brooks
Center for Strategic and International Studies

M. Taylor Fravel
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Francis J. Gavin
Johns Hopkins School of Advanced and International Studies

Michael Krepon
Stimson Center

Hans Kristensen
Federation of American Scientists

Jessica Tuchman Mathews
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Nicholas Miller
Dartmouth College

Steven E. Miller
Harvard Kennedy School

Vipin Narang
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Janne Nolan
George Washington University

Olga Oliker
International Crisis Group

George Perkovich
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Steven Pifer
Stanford University; Brookings Institution

William Potter
James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies

Mira Rapp-Hooper
Yale Law School

Scott D. Sagan
Stanford University

Michael Swaine
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

Nina Tannenwald
Brown University

Jane Vaynman
Temple University

Keren Yarhi-Milo
Princeton University

 

Advisory Committee, Phase II
 

Victor Cha
Georgetown University

Lawrence Freedman
King’s College London

Robert Jervis
Columbia University

Jeffrey Lewis
Middlebury Institute for International Studies at Monterey

Rose McDermott
Brown University

Barry Posen
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Gary Samore
Brandeis University

Caitlin Talmadge
Georgetown University

 

Project Staff
 

Melissa Chan
Program Coordinator for Global Security and International Affairs

Doreen Horschig
Raymond Frankel Nuclear Security Policy Fellow
(July 18, 2022–March 29, 2023)

Michelle Poulin
Program Associate for Global Security and International Affairs

Peter Robinson
Interim Chief Program Officer and Morton L. Mandel Director of Strategic Implementation

Ottawa Sanders
Raymond Frankel Nuclear Security Policy Fellow

Jumaina Siddiqui
Program Director for Global Security and International Affairs

 

Funders
 

Louise Henry Bryson and John E. Bryson

John F. Cogan, Jr. †

Lester Crown

Alan M. Dachs

Bob and Kristine Higgins

Richard Rosenberg †

Kenneth L. and Susan S. Wallach
 

Deceased
 

Project Publications
 

The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age, edited by Vipin Narang and Scott D. Sagan (Cornell University Press, 2023)

“Meeting the Challenges of a New Nuclear Age,” Dædalus, edited by Robert Legvold & Christopher Chyba (2020)

Contemplating Strategic Stability in a New Multipolar Nuclear World, Robert Legvold (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2019)

Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age: Nuclear Weapons in a Changing Global Order, Steven E. Miller, Robert Legvold, and Lawrence Freedman (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2019)

Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age: Emerging Risks and Declining Norms in the Age of Technological Innovation and Changing Nuclear Doctrines, Nina Tannenwald and James M. Acton, with an Introduction by Jane Vaynman (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2018)

Meeting the Challenges of the New Nuclear Age: U.S. and Russian Nuclear Concepts, Past and Present, Linton Brooks, Alexei Arbatov, and Francis J. Gavin (American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 2018)
 

Project Meetings
 

Congressional Briefings on The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age

Washington, D.C.
January 25, 2023

Scott D. Sagan (Stanford University) and Ankit Panda (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) gave briefings to several congressional offices, including the offices of Senator Ed Markey, Senator Jeff Merkley, Representative Ted Lieu, Senator Jon Ossoff, Representative Michael McCaul, and Representative Chuck Fleischmann. During the briefings, Sagan and Panda shared the findings from The Fragile Balance of Terror volume and discussed the feasibility of deterrence and non-proliferation strategies in an increasingly complicated nuclear world.

 

Book Launch: The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age

Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, D.C.
January 26, 2023

The Academy, in collaboration with the Project on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, hosted a hybrid book launch event for the edited volume, The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age, which attracted policymakers, members of the diplomatic community, researchers, and practitioners. The speakers included four authors in the volume: Heather Williams (Center for Strategic and International Studies), Ankit Panda (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace), Nicholas Miller (Dartmouth College), and Scott D. Sagan (Stanford University), who provided the keynote address.

 

Book Launch: The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age

Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University
February 2, 2023

The Academy and Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) cohosted an event to celebrate the launch of The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age. Moderated by Scott D. Sagan (Stanford University), the event featured Amy Zegart (Stanford University) and Rose McDermott (Brown University).

 

Book Launch: The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age

House of the Academy, Cambridge, Massachusetts
March 28, 2023

The Academy, in collaboration with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, hosted a hybrid book launch event for The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age. The meeting included two panels and a roundtable discussion that engaged authors of the volume, senior experts, and junior scholars on the risks of new nuclear powers and the increased fragility of deterrence in the twenty-first century. Speakers included Francesca Giovannini (Harvard Kennedy School), Heather Williams (Center for Strategic and International Studies), Nicole Grajewski (Harvard Kennedy School), Nicholas Miller (Dartmouth College), Doreen Horschig (formerly, American Academy of Arts and Sciences), Mariana Budjeryn (Harvard Kennedy School), Christopher Clary (University of Albany), David Allison (Harvard Kennedy School), Giles David Arce­neaux (University of Colorado), Matt Guasco (Harvard Kennedy School), Rebecca Davis Gibbons (University of Southern Maine), Emma Belcher (Ploughshares Fund), Matthew Bunn (Harvard Kennedy School), and Robert Legvold (Columbia University).

 

The Fragile Balance of Terror: Can Nuclear Deterrence Hold for the Next Decade?

American Political Science Association Annual Conference
Los Angeles, California
August 31, 2023

The increasing fragility of deterrence in the twenty-first century is created by a confluence of forces: military technologies that create vulnerable arsenals, a novel information ecosystem that rapidly transmits both information and misinformation, nuclear rivalries that include three or more nuclear powers, and dictatorial decision-making that encourages rash choices. The Russian war in Ukraine and veiled nuclear threats have thrust the dangers posed by nuclear weapons back into public consciousness. This is on top of the simmering tensions on the Korean Peninsula and between India and Pakistan, the failure to resolve the Iranian nuclear program, and the specter of Chinese military action over Taiwan. At this roundtable, the participants discussed the robustness of nuclear deterrence in an era rife with new risks, drawing themes from the Academy’s edited volume, The Fragile Balance of Terror: Deterrence in the New Nuclear Age.

Panelists
 

Doreen Horschig, Chair
Center for Strategic and International Studies

Mark Bell
University of Minnesota

Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer
Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies

James Fearon
Stanford University

Jeffrey Lewis
Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey

Scott D. Sagan
Stanford University

A view from the aisle of the panelists addressing the audience at an event to promote The Fragile Balance of Terror: Can Nuclear Deterrence Hold for the Next Decade?
From left to right: Doreen Horschig (Chair), Målfrid Braut-Hegghammer, James Fearon, Jeffrey Lewis, Scott D. Sagan, and Mark Bell. Photo by Melissa Chan.

Exploratory Meetings

The Effects of Prolonged War on Democracy

House of the Academy, Cambridge, Massachusetts
September 22–23, 2022

The Academy convened an exploratory meeting that focused on the effects of prolonged war on democracy. The meeting brought together scholars and experts from diverse fields to explore the relationship between long-term militarization, extremism, and democracy from a U.S. and international perspective and to address how mobilization for war, and war itself, fosters or diminishes democratic norms, institutions, and practices.

The participants discussed theories, concepts, and comparative perspectives of militarism, democratization, and democracy; militarism and extremism in the United States; and the effects of war on the rule of law, democracy, and state capacity, among other topics. The meeting led to the development of an issue of Dædalus on American Democracy and War, to be published in the fall of 2025.

Meeting Chairs
 

Neta C. Crawford
University of Oxford

Scott D. Sagan
Stanford University

 

Project Staff
 

Melissa Chan
Program Coordinator for Global Security and International Affairs

Kathryn Moffat
former Senior Program Officer for Global Security and International Affairs

Tania Munz
Chief Program Officer

Peter Robinson
Morton L. Mandel Director of Strategic Implementation

 

Funder
 

American Academy Exploratory Fund

 

Measuring Grand Corruption and Reducing its Power

House of the Academy, Cambridge, Massachusetts
May 18–20, 2023

In collaboration with the World Refugee & Migration Council, and with generous support from TRACE International and the Government of Canada, the Academy convened an exploratory meeting on measuring grand corruption, a follow-up to the May 2022 exploratory meeting on “Checking Kleptocracy: Considering the Potential Establishment of an International Anti-Corruption Court.” The meeting brought together an international group of anti-corruption scholars and practitioners to explore existing regional approaches to managing corruption and to imagine potential international applications.

Meeting Chairs
 

Robert I. Rotberg
formerly, Harvard Kennedy School; World Peace Foundation

Fen Osler Hampson
Carleton College

 

Project Staff
 

Melissa Chan
Program Coordinator for Global Security and International Affairs

Tania Munz
Chief Program Officer

Michelle Poulin
Program Associate for Global Security and International Affairs

Peter Robinson
Morton L. Mandel Director of Strategic Implementation

Jumaina Siddiqui
Program Director for Global Security and International Affairs

 

Funders
 

American Academy Exploratory Fund

TRACE International

Government of Canada

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