Past Workshops
Brady-Johnson Book Series: Fiona Cunningham
Thursday, March 27, 2025 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM
46 Hillhouse Ave, Room 104
The Grand Strategy Program continues its spring book series with political scientist Fiona Cunningham’s new book, Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security (Princeton University Press). Drawing on hundreds of original Chinese-language sources and interviews with security experts in China, Cunningham provides a rare and candid glimpse from Beijing into the information-age technologies that are reshaping how states gain leverage in the twenty-first century. While other countries have preferred the traditional options of threatening to use nuclear weapons or fielding capabilities for decisive conventional military victories, China has instead chosen to rely on offensive cyber operations, counterspace capabilities, and precision conventional missiles to coerce its adversaries. Under the Nuclear Shadow examines this distinctive aspect of China’s post–Cold War deterrence strategy, developing an original theory of “strategic substitution.”
Cunningham is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania and a fellow at Yale University. She studies the effects of technology on international security with an empirical focus on China, examining nuclear strategy, escalation dynamics, and other novel sources of leverage in international politics in East Asia. Cunningham will be in conversation with Alex Debs, Associate Professor in Yale’s Department of Political Science.
This event is co-sponsored by the MacMillan Center’s Nuclear Security Program.
The Colloquium in International Security Studies: Anatoly Levshin
Tuesday, April 15, 2025 11:45 AM - 1:00 PM
46 Hillhouse Ave, Room 104
The Colloquium in International Security Studies continues its spring programming with a presentation by Anatoly Levshin. A political scientist, his research explores fundamental international security issues from the standpoint of world order. He will present his book proposal: “Bounding War: Rules of Neutralization, Demilitarization, and Non-Aggression and the Institutional Logic of Multilateral Prohibitions on Militarized Bargaining.” The book compiles an original dataset of such rules; investigates why states enact them; and explores the implications of this important practice for our understanding of the ability states, especially the great powers, to regulate the scope and intensity of strategic competition under anarchy.
Levshin is a Postdoctoral Fellow with the International Security Program and in Technology and Geopolitics at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. He is also a Director’s Fellow with the Reimagining World Order research community at Princeton University, which he formerly co-curated with its director, G. John Ikenberry.
This event is co-sponsored by the MacMillan Center’s Nuclear Security Program. It is open to the Yale community; lunch will be provided. Please email kaete.oconnell@yale.edu to receive the reading materials for this colloquium.
Research and Policy Workshop
The Nuclear Security Program invites speakers to campus and hosts a series of discussions each semester on topics related to nuclear security.
Spring 2023 Schedule
March 8th, 12noon-1.20pm: Dave Allison (Harvard University and Yale University). “The Delicate Balance of Error: Perceived Counterforce Feasibility and the Nuclear Taboo.” (joint with the MacMillan International Relations Workshop). Rosenkranz Hall, room 005.
April 11th, 9.30-10.50am: Jessica Cox (NATO). “NATO Nuclear Policy in a Changing Security Environment.” Rosenkranz Hall, room 202.
April 12th, 12noon-1.20pm: Todd Sechser (University of Virginia). “Expectations, Surprise, and Public Support for War.” (joint with the MacMillan International Relations Workshop and the ISS colloquium). Rosenkranz Hall, room 005.
May 3rd, 12noon-1.20pm: Matthew Fuhrmann (Texas A&M University). “Influence Without Arms: Weaponless Deterrence, Preventive War, and Arms Races in the Shadow of Nuclear Proliferation.” (joint with the MacMillan International Relations Workshop and the ISS colloquium). Rosenkranz Hall, room 005.
Fall 2023 Schedule
October 12th, 4-5.30pm: Heather Williams (CSIS). “The Role of Nuclear Weapons in the War in Ukraine.” 46 Hillhouse Seminar Room.
December 5th, 12noon-1.20pm: Nina Tannenwald (Brown University). “Will the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime Survive? Contestation and Self-Undermining Dynamics.” (joint with the MacMillan International Relations Workshop and the ISS colloquium). 46 Hillhouse Seminar Room.
Spring 2024 Schedule
February 6th, 12noon-1.20pm: Caitlin Talmadge (MIT). “Peacetime Military Doctrine and Nuclear Escalation Risk.” (joint with the MacMillan International Relations Workshop and the ISS colloquium). Rosenkranz Hall, room 005.
April 3rd, 12noon-1.20pm: Rafael Grossi (IAEA). “Eisenhower’s ‘Atoms for Peace’ Vision is Being Tested. This is How We Respond.” (joint with the Center of Global Legal Challenges, Yale Law School). Yale Law School, SLB 129.
April 10th, 12noon-1.20pm: Scott Sagan. “Atomic Arguments and Counter-Arguments: How Exposure to Conflicting Information Influences Public Support for the Use of Nuclear Weapons.” (joint with the MacMillan International Relations Workshop and the ISS colloquium). Rosenkranz Hall, room 005.
Fall 2024 Schedule
November 12th, 4-5.30pm: Vipin Narang (MIT). “The New Nuclear Age: Reflections from Academia and Policy.” (joint with the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy and the Blue Center for Global Strategic Assessment). Horchow Hall, GM Room.