Nuclear Energy
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Undraa Agvaanluvsan is a native of Mongolia. She is currently a visiting professor at CISAC. Undraa received her bachelor's (1994) and master's (1995) degrees in physics from the National University of Mongolia, and a diploma in high energy physics at the International Centre for Theoretical Physics in Trieste, Italy in 1997. Undraa obtained her PhD in 2002 at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, North Carolina, studying nuclear reactions and quantum chaos in nuclei. Following completion of her doctorate, she conducted postdoctoral research work in the Nuclear Experimental Physics group at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. She published and co-authored several dozen articles in peer-reviewed journals.

In the past several years, Undraa's research interests have broadened to include policy studies. In the policy arena, she served as an adviser to Mongolia's Minister of Foreign Affairs. As an advocate of scientific education, Undraa serves as director of the Mongolian-American (MonAme) Scientific Research Center in Ulaanbaatar, which focuses on energy, the environment, and mineral processing technologies.

Her research interests at CISAC focus on nuclear energy studies. More specifically, Undraa is studying uranium mining and processing, front-end issues of the nuclear fuel-cycle, nuclear fuel supplies, and nuclear energy policy. Using her prior experience with scientific research in quantum chaos, she is working with her CISAC colleague Kate Marvel to study the resiliency of the electricity grid network when stressed with the addition of more power sources, including nuclear power generation.

At Stanford, Undraa has directed undergraduate research through the Bing Overseas Studies Program. She also teaches nuclear energy policy in the International Policy Studies program.

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Dr. Undraa Agvaanluvsan currently serves as the president of Mitchell Foundation for Arts and Sciences. She is also an Asia21 fellow of the Asia Society and co-chair of Mongolia chapter of the Women Corporate Directors, a global organization of women serving in public and private corporate boards. 

Dr. Undraa Agvaanluvsan is a former Member of Parliament of Mongolia and the chair of the Parliamentary subcommittee on Sustainable Development Goals. Prior to being elected as a legislator, she served as an Ambassador-at-large in charge of nuclear security issues at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia,  where she worked on nuclear energy and fuel cycle, uranium and rare-earth minerals policy issues. 

She is a nuclear physicist by training, obtained her PhD at North Carolina State University, USA and diploma in High Energy Physics at the International Center for Theoretical Physics, Trieste, Italy. She conducted research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, USA and taught energy policy at International Policy Studies Program at Stanford University, where she was a Science fellow and visiting professor at Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. She published more than 90 papers, conference  proceedings, and articles on neutron and proton induced nuclear reactions, nuclear level density and radiative strength function, quantum chaos and the Random Matrix Theory, including its application in electric grid network. 

Undraa Agvaanluvsan CISAC Visiting Professor Speaker
Seminars
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David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into six languages, most recently into Czech in 2008. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Matthias Englert is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. Before joining CISAC in 2009, he was a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Group Science Technology and Security (IANUS) and a PhD student at the department of physics at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. 

His major research interests include nonproliferation, disarmament, arms control, nuclear postures and warheads, fissile material and production technologies, the civil use of nuclear power and its role in future energy scenarios and the possibility of nuclear terrorism.  His research during his stay at CISAC focuses primarily on the technology of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the implications of their use for the nonproliferation regime, and on technical and political measures to manage proliferation risks.

Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E214
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 723-1737 (650) 723-0089
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Senior Fellow Emeritus at the Freeman Spogli Institute of International Studies
Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History
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David Holloway is the Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History, a professor of political science, and an FSI senior fellow. He was co-director of CISAC from 1991 to 1997, and director of FSI from 1998 to 2003. His research focuses on the international history of nuclear weapons, on science and technology in the Soviet Union, and on the relationship between international history and international relations theory. His book Stalin and the Bomb: The Soviet Union and Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (Yale University Press, 1994) was chosen by the New York Times Book Review as one of the 11 best books of 1994, and it won the Vucinich and Shulman prizes of the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. It has been translated into seven languages, most recently into Chinese. The Chinese translation is due to be published later in 2018. Holloway also wrote The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983) and co-authored The Reagan Strategic Defense Initiative: Technical, Political and Arms Control Assessment (1984). He has contributed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, and other scholarly journals.

Since joining the Stanford faculty in 1986 -- first as a professor of political science and later (in 1996) as a professor of history as well -- Holloway has served as chair and co-chair of the International Relations Program (1989-1991), and as associate dean in the School of Humanities and Sciences (1997-1998). Before coming to Stanford, he taught at the University of Lancaster (1967-1970) and the University of Edinburgh (1970-1986). Born in Dublin, Ireland, he received his undergraduate degree in modern languages and literature, and his PhD in social and political sciences, both from Cambridge University.

Faculty member at the Center for International Security and Cooperation
Affiliated faculty at the Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law
Affiliated faculty at The Europe Center
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David Holloway Raymond A. Spruance Professor of International History and FSI Senior Fellow; CISAC Faculty Member; Forum on Contemporary Europe Research Affiliate; CDDRL Affiliated Faculty Speaker
Matthias Englert Postdoctoral Fellow, CISAC Commentator
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Article Highlights

  • The economic crisis has quieted talk of a nuclear renaissance, but that doesn't mean the need to manage nuclear energy's potential global spread has lessened.
  • Discussions by some states to pursue dual-use nuclear technologies may push rivals to develop them as well.
  • The flawed institutions from the first nuclear expansion must be fixed to prevent further nuclear proliferation.
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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
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Karthika Sasikumar
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CISAC Co-Director Scott D. Sagan and Steven E. Miller of Harvard's Belfer Center have jointly edited a special two-volume issue of Daedalus, the quarterly journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, on "The Global Nuclear Future."

Volume 1 was published in October 2009. It includes the following articles by CISAC scholars:

Volume 2, which will be published in Winter 2010, will feature the following articles by CISAC scholars:

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Daedalus
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CISAC is pleased to announce fellows and visitors in residence at the Center during the 2009-10 academic year.

  • Max Abrahms
    University of California, Los Angeles, Department of Political Science
    Strategic Logic of Terrorism
  • Undraa Agvaanluvsan
    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory Nuclear Experimental Group
    Energy, Security, and Economic Implications of Nuclear Industry Development in Mongolia
  • Chaim Braun
    CISAC
    Nuclear Power Growth and its Nonproliferation Implications in India, the Middle East, the Korean Peninsula, and South America
  • Sarah Zukerman Daly
    Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Political Science
    Guns, Politics or Bankruptcy: Disentangling the Determinants of Armed Organizations Post-war Trajectories
  • Matthias Englert
    Darmstadt University of Technology, Interdisciplinary Research Group in Science Technology and Security
    Managing the Proliferation Risks of Gas Centrifuges - Technical and Political Measures
  • Andrea Everett
    Princeton University, Department of Politics
    Responding to Catastrophe: Democratic Society and the Origins of Humanitarian Intervention
  • Kelly Greenhill
    Tufts University and Research Fellow, Harvard University
    Fear Factor: Understanding the Origins and Consequences of Beliefs about National Security and the Threats We Face
  • Tom Isaacs
    Director, Office of Planning and Special Studies, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
    Internationalization of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle and the Role of the U.S.
  • Joseph Martz
    Los Alamos National Laboratory
  • Katherine Marvel
    University of Cambridge, Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics
    Nuclear Energy in Africa: Utility, Feasibility, and Security
  • Emily Meierding
    University of Chicago, Department of Political Science
    Fueling Conflict, Facilitating Peace: Oil & International Territorial Disputes
  • Eric Morris
    Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies
    Civilian Capacity for Peace Operations
  • Charles Perrow
    Yale University, Department of Sociology
  • Brenna Powell
    Harvard University, Department of Government and Social Policy
    Normalizing Security After Conflict: Jobs for the Boys and Justice for the Hoods
  • Arian Pregenzer
    Sandia National Laboratories, Department of Cooperative International Programs
    International Technical Cooperation to Support Arms Control and Nonproliferation: Review of Past Approaches, Identification of Lessons Learned, and Recommendations for the Future
  • William Reckmeyer
    San Jose State University, Department of Anthropology
    Systemic Connections: Developing an Integrated National Strategy to Promote International Security and Cooperation
  • Jefferey Richardson,
    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
    Science as a Tool for International Engagement
  • Robert Rosner
    University of Chicago, Distinguished Service Professor, Departments of Astronomy & Astrophysics and Physics, and Laboratory Director, Argonne National Laboratory
  • Jan Stupl
    University of Hamburg, Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy
    Missile Technology Control Regime
  • Michael Sulmeyer
    Stanford Law School
  • Phil Taubman
    Former Associate Editor and Reporter, The New York Times
  • Jianqun Teng
    China Arms Control and Disarmament Association
    Nuclear Free World Initiative in the Context of Sino-U.S. Relations
  • John Vitacca
    United States Air Force
    Nuclear Policy Issues
  • Gang Zhao
    Chinese Academy of S & T for Development (CASTED)
    Deepening the China-U.S. Relationship through Collaboration in Science and Technology with Particular Attention to Alternative Energy Solutions
  • Yunhua Zou
    General Armaments Department, People's Liberation Army, China
    Space Arms Control; Security Cooperation with China; U.S.-China Relations

 

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The global nuclear order is changing. Concerns about climate change, the volatility of oil prices, and the security of energy supplies have contributed to a widespread and still-growing interest in the future use of nuclear power. Thirty states operate one or more nuclear power plants today, and according to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), some 50 others have requested technical assistance from the agency to explore the possibility of developing their own nuclear energy programs. This surge of interest in nuclear energy - labeled by some proponents as ‘the renaissance in nuclear power' - is occurring simultaneously with mounting concerns about the healthy of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, the regulatory framework that constrains and governs the world's civil and military- related nuclear affairs. The question then arises: is it possible to have nuclear power without nuclear proliferation? The answer is not clear, for the technical, economic, and political factors that will determine whether future generations will have more nuclear power without more nuclear proliferation are exceedingly complex and interrelated. Dr. Sagan will outline the current state of nuclear power and nuclear proliferation, before examining the weaknesses and promise of existing research on the subject. He argues that a key aspect of ensuring a safe nuclear future will be the strengthening of the NPT through "shared responsibility" for disarmament.

Scott Sagan is a professor of political science and co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation. Before joining the Stanford faculty, Sagan was a lecturer in the Department of Government at Harvard University and served as a special assistant to the director of the Organization of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the Pentagon. He 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: A Debate Renewed (W.W. Norton, 2002). He is the co-editor of Peter R. Lavoy, Scott D. Sagan, and James L. Wirtz, Planning the Unthinkable (Cornell University Press, 2000) and the editor of Inside Nuclear South Asia (Stanford University Press, 2009). His most recent publications include "The Case for No First Use," Survival (June 2009) and "Good Faith and Nuclear Disarmament Negotiations" in George Perkovich and James A. Acton (eds.) Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate (Carnegie Endowment, 2009).

Allen S. Weiner is senior lecturer in law and co-director of the Stanford Program in International Law at Stanford Law School. He is also the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. His expertise is in the field of public international law and the foreign relations law of the United States. He is a seasoned international lawyer with experience in such wide-ranging fields as national security law, the law of war, international dispute resolution, and international criminal law. His current scholarship focuses on international law and the response to the contemporary security threats of international terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. For more than a decade he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State, serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. In those capacities, he advised government policy-makers, negotiated international agreements, and represented the United States in litigation before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal and the International Court of Justice. He teaches courses in public international law, international conflict resolution, and international security matters at Stanford Law School. He received a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.

CISAC Conference Room

CISAC
Stanford University
Encina Hall, E202
Stanford, CA 94305-6165

(650) 725-2715 (650) 723-0089
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The Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science
The Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education  
Senior Fellow, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies
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Scott D. Sagan is Co-Director and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, and the Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education at Stanford University. He also serves as Co-Chair 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 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 Insider Threats (Cornell University Press, 2017) with Matthew Bunn; and co-editor of The Fragile Balance of Terror (Cornell University Press, 2022) with Vipin Narang. Sagan was also the guest editor of a two-volume special issue of DaedalusEthics, Technology, and War (Fall 2016) and The Changing Rules of War (Winter 2017).

Recent publications include “Creeds and Contestation: How US Nuclear and Legal Doctrine Influence Each Other,” with Janina Dill, in a special issue of Security Studies (December 2025); “Kettles of Hawks: Public Opinion on the Nuclear Taboo and Noncombatant Immunity in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Israel”, with Janina Dill and Benjamin A. Valentino in Security Studies (February 2022); “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in U.S. Nuclear Doctrine” with Allen S. Weiner in International Security (Spring 2021); “Does the Noncombatant Immunity Norm Have Stopping Power?” with Benjamin A. Valentino in International Security (Fall 2020); and “Just War and Unjust Soldiers: American Public Opinion on the Moral Equality of Combatants” and “On Reciprocity, Revenge, and Replication: A Rejoinder to Walzer, McMahan, and Keohane” with Benjamin A. Valentino in Ethics & International Affairs (Winter 2019).

In 2022, Sagan was awarded Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace at their International Nuclear Policy Conference. 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.     

Co-director of the Center for International Security and Cooperation
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Scott D. Sagan Co-Director of CISAC and Professor of Political Science Speaker

Stanford Law School
559 Nathan Abbott Way
Neukom Faculty Office Building, Room N238
Stanford, CA 94305-8610

(650) 724-5892 (650) 725-2592
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Senior Lecturer in Law
Director, Stanford Program in International Law
Co-Director, Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation
CISAC Core Faculty Member
Europe Center Affiliated Faculty
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Allen S. Weiner is senior lecturer in law and director of the Stanford Program in International Law at Stanford Law School. He is also the co-director of the Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation. He 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 the relationship between international and domestic law in the context of asymmetric armed conflicts between the United States and nonstate 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; for more than a decade he practiced international law in the U.S. Department of State, serving as an attorney-adviser in the Office of the Legal Adviser and as legal counselor at the U.S. Embassy in The Hague. In those capacities, he advised government policy-makers, negotiated international agreements, and represented the United States in litigation before the Iran-United States Claims Tribunal, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the International Court of Justice. He teaches courses in public international law, international conflict resolution, and international security matters at Stanford Law School.

Weiner is the author of "Constitutions as Peace Treaties: A Cautionary Tale for the Arab Spring” in the Stanford Law Review Online (2011) and co-author (with Barry E. Carter) of International Law (6th ed. 2011). Other publications include “The Torture Memos and Accountability" in the American Society of International Law Insight (2009), "Law, Just War, and the International Fight Against Terrorism: Is It War?", in Intervention, Terrorism, and Torture: Contemporary Challenges to Just War Theory (Steven P. Lee, ed.) (2007), ”Enhancing Implementation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1540: Report of the Center on International Security and Cooperation” (with Chaim Braun, Michael May & Roger Speed) (September 2007), and "The Use of Force and Contemporary Security Threats: Old Medicine for New Ills?", Stanford Law Review (2006).

Weiner has worked on several Supreme Court amicus briefs concerning national security and international law issues, including cases brought involving "war on terror" detainees.  He has also submitted petitions before the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention on behalf of Vietnamese social and political activists detained by their governing for the exercise of free speech rights.

Weiner earned a BA from Harvard College and a JD from Stanford Law School.

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Allen S. Weiner Senior Lecturer in Law; Co-Director, Stanford Program in International Law; Co-Director, Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation; CDDRL and CISAC Faculty Member; Forum on Contemporary Europe Research Affiliate Speaker
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Ambivalent nuclear technologies use or have a potential to produce nuclear weapon relevant materials like highly enriched uranium (HEU), plutonium, tritium and U233. It is important to assess the proliferation potential and measures to strengthen the proliferation resistance of these technologies as early as possible (preventively) to find alternative more proliferation resistant designs or at least to identify sensitive parameters or even critical parts that should trigger international safeguards and export controls.

The conclusions of different case studies investigating the proliferation resistance of nuclear technologies such as spallation neutron sources, tokamak fusion reactors and plutonium fuels will be briefly presented. The main part of the talk will focus on the minimization or elimination of civil HEU usage and the role of research reactor conversion to the use of low enriched uranium, which is intrinsically more proliferation resistant. The conversion of the German high flux research reactor FRM-II will serve as an example for the complex political and technological challenges and problems one has to face, especially, if proliferation concerns are not taken seriously in the research and design phase. These case studies of relatively disparate nuclear technologies have in common that they are neutron producing technologies and some questions regarding their proliferation potential can be addressed using neutronic codes.

Finally, the talk will briefly outline the future research of the next year addressing centrifuge technology as another case study to explicate on exemplary basis general criteria for the proliferation resistant use of nuclear technologies.


Matthias Englert
is a postdoctoral fellow at CISAC. Before joining CISAC in 2009, Matthias was a researcher at the Interdisciplinary Research Group Science Technology and Security (IANUS) and a PhD student at the department of physics at Darmstadt University of Technology in Germany. 

His major research interests include nonproliferation, disarmament, arms control, nuclear postures and warheads, fissile material and production technologies, the civil use of nuclear power and its role in future energy scenarios and the possibility of nuclear terrorism.  His research during his stay at CISAC focuses primarily on the technology of gas centrifuges for uranium enrichment, the implications of its use for the nonproliferation regime and on technical and political measures to manage the proliferation risks. 

Matthias has been participating in projects investigating technical aspects of the concept of proliferation resistance with topics spanning from conversion of research reactors, uranium enrichment with gas centrifuges, reducing plutonium stockpiles with reactor based options,  spallation neutron sources and fusion power plants. Further research topics included fissile material stockpiles, fuel-cycles and accelerator  driven systems. Although a substantial part of his professional work of the last years was quite technical he is equally interested in and actively studies the historical, social and political aspects of the use of nuclear technologies. Research interests include the dispute about Article IV of the NPT, the future development of the NPT regime, possibilities for a nuclear weapon free world, preventive arms control, and history and development of proliferation relevant programs. By studying contemporary theory in philosophy of the interaction of science, technology and society, Matthias acquired analytical tools to reflect on approaches describing or addressing the problem of ambivalent technology.

Matthias is a vice speaker of the working group Physics and Disarmament of the German Physical Society (DPG) and a board member of the  German Research Association for Science, Disarmament and Security (FONAS).

 

Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000. May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971. May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the Pacific Council on International Policy, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards. His current research interests are in the area of nuclear and terrorism, energy, security and environment, and the relation of nuclear weapons and foreign policy.

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Matthias Englert Postdoctoral Fellow, CISAC Speaker
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Professor, Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus
FSI Senior Fellow
CISAC Faculty Member
Not in Residence
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Michael May is Professor Emeritus (Research) in the Stanford University School of Engineering and a senior fellow with the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University. He is the former co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation, having served seven years in that capacity through January 2000.

May is a director emeritus of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, where he worked from 1952 to 1988, with some brief periods away from the Laboratory. While there, he held a variety of research and development positions, serving as director of the Laboratory from 1965 to 1971.

May was a technical adviser to the Threshold Test Ban Treaty negotiating team; a member of the U.S. delegation to the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks; and at various times has been a member of the Defense Science Board, the General Advisory Committee to the AEC, the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board, the RAND Corporation Board of Trustees, and the Committee on International Security and Arms Control of the National Academy of Sciences. He is a member of the International Institute on Strategic Studies, and a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

May received the Distinguished Public Service and Distinguished Civilian Service Medals from the Department of Defense, and the Ernest Orlando Lawrence Award from the Atomic Energy Commission, as well as other awards.

His current research interests are nuclear weapons policy in the US and in other countries; nuclear terrorism; nuclear and other forms of energy and their impact on the environment, health and safety and security; the use of statistics and mathematical models in the public sphere.

May is continuing work on creating a secure future for civilian nuclear applications. In October 2007, May hosted an international workshop on how the nuclear weapon states can help rebuild the consensus underlying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Proceedings and a summary report are available online or by email request. May also chaired a technical working group on nuclear forensics. The final report is available online.

In April 2007, May in cooperation with former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry and Professor Ashton Carter of Harvard hosted a workshop on what would have to be done to be ready for a terrorist nuclear detonation. The report is available online at the Preventive Defense Project. A summary, titled, "The Day After: Action Following a Nuclear Blast in a U.S. City," was published fall 2007 in Washington Quarterly and is available online.

Recent work also includes a study of nuclear postures in several countries (2007 - 2009); an article on nuclear disarmament and one on tactical nuclear weapons; and a report with Kate Marvel for the American Academy of Arts and Sciences on possible game changers in the nuclear energy industry.

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Michael M. May Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Emeritus; FSI Senior Fellow; CISAC Faculty Member Commentator
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What is the problem?
Progress towards reducing nuclear dangers is currently hampered by entrenched divisions between Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty members and non-members, and between Western and non-aligned states. Longstanding differences between Australia and India typify this problem.

What should be done?
New partnerships and platforms for dialogue would expand the space for agreement and new thinking. An unconventional diplomatic partnership between India and Australia could be a test bed for the larger challenge of how to bridge old divides on nuclear and security issues.

Early steps in such a partnership would include a leaders' statement identifying common aims in reducing nuclear dangers. Nonproliferation export controls could be a primary area of cooperation. Canberra should promote Indian involvement in the so-called Australia Group on chemical and biological weapons export controls, including to raise comfort levels between New Delhi and other nonproliferation arrangements.

A new bilateral nuclear dialogue could consider the prevention of illicit nuclear transfers at sea, the negotiation of a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, the security of nuclear energy growth in Southeast Asia, the reduced role of nuclear arms in defence postures, and recommendations from the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament sponsored by Australia and Japan.

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Many countries around the world are taking a fresh look at nuclear power. An important cause of what has come to be called the global nuclear renaissance is the prospect of severe disruptions to the earth's climate brought about by continued increases in greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from the combustion of fossil fuels. Nuclear power occupies a unique position in the debate over global climate change as the only carbon-free energy source that is already contributing to world energy supplies on a large scale and that is also expandable with few inherent limits. These attributes are regularly highlighted by nuclear energy advocates and now, increasingly, by some formerly anti-nuclear activists, even as other environmentalists remain strongly opposed to this technology.

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Interest in nuclear disarmament has grown rapidly in recent years. Starting with the 2007 Wall Street Journal article by four former U.S. statesmen-George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn-and followed by endorsements from similar sets of former leaders from the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Australia, and Italy, the support for global nuclear disarmament has spread. The Japanese and Australian governments announced the creation of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in June 2008. Both Senators John McCain and Barack Obama explicitly supported the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons during the 2008 election campaign. In April 2009, at the London Summit, President Barack Obama and President Dmitri Medvedev called for pragmatic U.S. and Russian steps toward nuclear disarmament, and President Obama then dramatically reaffirmed "clearly and with conviction America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons" in his speech in Prague.

There is a simple explanation for these statements supporting nuclear disarmament: all states that have joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) are committed "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament." In the United States, moreover, under Clause 2 of Article 6 of the Constitution, a treaty commitment is "the supreme Law of the Land." To af1/2rm the U.S. commitment to seek a world without nuclear weapons is therefore simply promising that the U.S. government will follow U.S. law.

A closer reading of these various declarations, however, reveals both the complexity of motives and the multiplicity of fears behind the current surge in support of nuclear disarmament. Some declarations emphasize concerns that the current behavior of nuclear-weapons states (NWS) signals to non-nuclear-weapons states (NNWS) that they, too, will need nuclear weapons in the future to meet their national security requirements. Other disarmament advocates stress the growth of global terrorism and the need to reduce the number of weapons and the amount of fissile material that could be stolen or sold to terrorist groups. Some argue that the risk of nuclear weapons accidents or launching nuclear missiles on false warning cannot be entirely eliminated, despite sustained efforts to do so, and thus believe that nuclear deterrence will inevitably fail over time, especially if large arsenals are maintained and new nuclear states, with weak command-and- control systems, emerge.

Perhaps the most widespread motivation for disarmament is the belief that future progress by the NWS to disarm will strongly influence the future willingness of the NNWS to stay within the NPT. If this is true, then the choice we face for the future is not between the current nuclear order of eight or nine NWS and a nuclear-weapons- free world. Rather, the choice we face is between moving toward a nuclear- weapons-free world or, to borrow Henry Rowen's phrase, "moving toward life in a nuclear armed crowd."

There are, of course, many critics of the nuclear disarmament vision. Some critics focus on the problems of how to prevent nuclear weapons "breakout" scenarios in a future world in which many more countries are "latent" NWS because of the spread of uranium enrichment and plutonium reprocessing capabilities to meet the global demand for fuel for nuclear power reactors. Others have expressed fears that deep nuclear arms reductions will inadvertently lead to nuclear proliferation by encouraging U.S. allies currently living under "the U.S. nuclear umbrella" of extended deterrence to pursue their own nuclear weapons for national security reasons. Other critics worry about the "instability of small numbers" problem, fearing that conventional wars would break out in a nuclear disarmed world, and that this risks a rapid nuclear rearmament race by former NWS that would lead to nuclear first use and victory by the more prepared government.

Some critics of disarmament falsely complain about nonexistent proposals for U.S. unilateral disarmament. Frank Gaffney, for example, asserts that there has been "a 17 year-long unilateral U.S. nuclear freeze" and claims that President Obama "stands to transform the ‘world's only superpower' into a nuclear impotent." More serious critics focus on those problems-the growth and potential breakout of latent NWS, the future of extended deterrence, the enforcement of disarmament, and the potential instability of small numbers-that concern mutual nuclear disarmament. These legitimate concerns must be addressed in a credible manner if significant progress is to be made toward the goal of a nuclear-weapons-free world.

To address these problems adequately, the current nuclear disarmament effort must be transformed from a debate among leaders in the NWS to a coordinated global effort of shared responsibilities between NWS and NNWS. This essay outlines a new conceptual framework that is needed to encourage NWS and NNWS to share responsibilities for designing a future nuclear-fuel-cycle regime, rethinking extended deterrence, and addressing nuclear breakout dangers while simultaneously contributing to the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons.

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Daedalus
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Scott D. Sagan
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