INF Public Panel Discussion

President Trump announced on October 20 that the United States will withdraw from the 1987 Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty. That will end one of two agreements that constrain U.S. and Russian nuclear force levels, the other being the New START Treaty. What does the president’s decision mean for arms control, for European security and for an already troubled U.S.-Russia relationship?

SPEAKER

Steven Pifer
William J. Perry fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies

Steven Pifer is a William J. Perry fellow at Stanford’s Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI), where he is affiliated with FSI’s Center for International Security and Cooperation and Europe Center.  He is also a nonresident senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. Pifer’s research focuses on nuclear arms control, Ukraine, Russia and European security. A retired Foreign Service officer, his assignments included deputy assistant secretary of state, U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, and special assistant to the President and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council. He also served at the U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Moscow and London as well as with the U.S. delegation to the intermediate-range nuclear forces negotiations in Geneva.

COMMENTATORS

Kristin Ven Bruusgaard
MacArthur Postdoctoral Fellow, CISAC

Kristin Ven Bruusgaard is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC. Her research focuses on Russian nuclear strategy and on deterrence dynamics. Dr. Bruusgaard has previously been a research fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies (IFS), a senior security policy analyst in the Norwegian Armed Forces, a junior researcher at the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment (FFI), and an intern at the Congressional Research Service (CRS) in Washington, D.C., and at NATO HQ. She holds a Ph.D in Defence Studies from Kings College London, an M.A. in Security Studies from Georgetown University, and a B.A. (Hons) from Warwick University. Her work has been published in Security Dialogue, U.S. Army War College Quarterly Parameters, Survival, War on the Rocks, Texas National Security Review and Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Michael McFaul
Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy

Michael McFaul is the Ken Olivier and Angela Nomellini Professor of International Studies in Political Science, Director and Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, and the Peter and Helen Bing Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution, all at Stanford University. He was also the Distinguished Mingde Faculty Fellow at the Stanford Center at Peking University from June to August of 2015. He joined the Stanford faculty in 1995. He is also an analyst for NBC News and a contributing columnist to The Washington Post. McFaul served for five years in the Obama administration, first as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Russian and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council at the White House (2009-2012), and then as U.S. Ambassador to the Russian Federation (2012-2014).

Kathryn E. Stoner
Deputy Director of the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
Deputy Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy

Kathryn Stoner is the Deputy Director at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University and a Senior Fellow at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, as well as the Deputy Director of the Ford Dorsey Master's in International Policy at Stanford University. She teaches in the Department of Political Science at Stanford, and in the Program on International Relations, as well as in the Ford Dorsey Program. Prior to coming to Stanford in 2004, she was on the faculty at Princeton University for nine years, jointly appointed to the Department of Politics and the Woodrow Wilson School for International and Public Affairs. At Princeton she received the Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptorship awarded to outstanding junior faculty. She also served as a Visiting Associate Professor of Political Science at Columbia University, and an Assistant Professor of Political Science at McGill University. She has held fellowships at Harvard University as well as the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, DC.

Abstract: The purpose and force of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty hinges on a legal distinction between "nuclear weapons states" and "non-nuclear weapons states." But rather than being a self-evident distinction based entirely on material differences, the distinction is constructed and negotiated—not just by the conventionally powerful but by disempowered states. This article argues that the NPT is a discursive resource for states that the treaty does not legitimate. The NPT’s power comes from the legal categories it institutionalizes and perpetuates. In order to understand the origins and effects of dividing the terrain of nuclear politics into nuclear and non-nuclear states, I analyze the meeting documents of the Eighteen Nation Disarmament Committee (ENDC) which negotiated the treaty from 1962-1969. I find that the “non-nuclear” states used the designation as an identity that set them apart from nuclear states. Using these categories like identities is not without political consequence—for example, India’s unique diplomatic approach toward the NPT shapes both the discourses it advances and policies it pursues.  In contrast to existing approaches that examine the distinction primarily through material terms, this article turns to state practice to reveal how being nuclear or non-nuclear is used as a legitimating tool in nuclear politics. The article also shows that, while most approaches to international law presume that the law either constrains state power or has no effect on it, the case of the nuclear/non-nuclear distinction illustrates that international law does matter, but perhaps not in the way assumed by IR realists or institutionalists.

Speaker Bio: Sidra Hamidi is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC. She completed her PhD in Political Science from Northwestern University in 2018. Her research explores the role of identity and discourse in contemporary and historical nuclear politics. Specifically, she studies the distinction between nuclear and non-nuclear states in technical, legal, and normative contexts. She locates the politics of this distinction in the diplomatic practices of Israel, India, and Iran. She completed her MA in International Relations from the University of Chicago. Her commentary has appeared in The Washington Post, Duck of Minerva, and E-IR. She is also interested in international relations theory and political science conceptualization and methodology.

Abstract: Is India considering developing nuclear counterforce options against Pakistan? This paper traces the capabilities and procedures India has been quietly developing over the past decade, as well as identifying increasing discussion of using its nuclear forces for potential counterforce targeting against Pakistani strategic systems. It outlines the incentives India may have to pursue these options, and assesses their prospects for successfully achieving damage limitation. It also outlines the significant downsides to pursuing such a strategy. It concludes that, at the very least, South Asia is potentially entering a new, dangerous phase with these evolving nuclear dynamics.

Speaker Bio: Vipin Narang is an Associate Professor of Political Science at MIT and a member of MIT’s Security Studies Program. He received his Ph.D. from the Department of Government, Harvard University in May 2010, where he was awarded the Edward M. Chase Prize for the best dissertation in international relations. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in chemical engineering with distinction from Stanford University and an M. Phil with Distinction in international relations from Balliol College, Oxford University, where he studied on a Marshall Scholarship. He has been a fellow at Harvard University’s Olin Institute for Strategic Studies, a predoctoral fellow at Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a Stanton junior faculty fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation.  

The film screening of Atomic Homefront will be followed by a discussion with Human Rights Watch’s Marcos Orellana, Prof. Rod Ewing, and Lauren Davis (Director, Energy Program, 11th Hour Project). The conversation will be moderated by Michael Kieschnick (President, Green Advocacy Project). Atomic Homefront is a documentary about one community’s fight for environmental justice. 

Directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Rebecca Cammisa (Which Way Home, Sister Helen), Atomic Homefront is a documentary about one community’s activism and the need for government accountability in the wake of decades of radioactive waste contamination in the northern suburbs of St. Louis, Missouri.

Abstract: The Berkeley Applied Nuclear Physics Program leads developments of new concepts and technologies to address challenges in fundamental physics, medicine, nuclear security, and safety. Recent progress in radiation detection and imaging combined with advances in computer vision and data processing enable unprecedented capabilities in the detection, mapping, and visualization of radiological and nuclear materials in complex environments. We have developed a new concept called 3-D Scene Data Fusion, which fuses contextual and radiation data to produce 3-D maps of radioactive sources in real-time. We have deployed this capability in unmanned and manned configurations in different locations including evacuated communities and at the Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Fukushima Prefecture. While these technologies are necessary to better respond to accidents now and in the future, we need to ensure that the data provided can be understood by all stakeholders, including communities exposed to the risk of detrimental effects. We have established the Berkeley Institute for Resilient Communities to address this need by combining research, education, and communities in an international, multi-disciplinary, and multi-cultural context. Important components of these activities are the Radwatch and DoseNet programs which provide the basis for our communications. As an example, DoseNet aims at establishing a sustainable multi-sensor high-school network enabling students across the world to learn important concepts in science and engineering and what is normal in our world.

Speaker bio: Dr. Kai Vetter is Professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley and Faculty Senior Scientist and Head of the Applied Nuclear Physics program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. His main research interests are in the development and demonstration of new concepts and technologies in radiation detection to address some of the outstanding challenges in fundamental sciences, nuclear security, and health.

Prof. Vetter is director of Institute for Resilient Communities that was established in 2015 to address the need to better integrate advancements in sciences and technologies with communities through education and outreach locally and globally. He initiated and still leads the Berkeley Radwatch and DoseNet activities with the goal to engage high and middle schools in performing environmental measurements employing fundamental science and engineering concepts and to expand across regions, nations, and cultures.

He has authored and co-authored about 200 publications in peer-reviewed journals and is fellow of the American Physical Society. He received Presidential Citations from the American Nuclear Society twice, for his engagement in Fukushima through measurements and enhancing community resilience.