The Standstill Conundrum: The Advent of Second-Strike Vulnerability and Options to Address It

Nuclear Strategy Fall 2021

Emerging and disruptive technologies spell an uncertain future for second-strike retaliatory forces. New sensors and big data analysis may render mobile missiles and submarines vulnerable to detection. I call this development the “standstill conundrum”:…

Nuclear Operations and Counter-Homeland Conventional Warfare: Navigating Between Nuclear Restraint and Escalation Risk

Nuclear Strategy Fall 2021

Bruce M. Sugden

Bruce Sugden explores the dynamics that could lead the nuclear great powers to conduct counter-homeland conventional strikes, risking nuclear escalation. He explores how competitors view one another's conventional-nuclear firebreaks and their nuclear…

Better Monitoring and Better Spying: The Implications of Emerging Technology for Arms Control

Arms Control Fall 2021

Jane Vaynman

How will emerging technology affect prospects for arms control? Technologies such as small satellites and artificial intelligence (AI) have applications in arms control monitoring and can affect the amount of information collected or the ease of information…

Moral Choices Without Moral Language: 1950s Political-Military Wargaming at the RAND Corporation

Wargaming Fall 2021

John R. Emery

The RAND Corporation was the site of early-Cold War knowledge production. Its scientists laid the foundations of nuclear deterrence, game theoretic approaches to international politics, defense acquisition, and theories on the future of war. The popularized…

What If We Are Wrong?

TNSR Summer 2021

Francis J. Gavin

In his introductory essay for Volume 4, Issue 3, the chair of our editorial board asks the important question of "What if we're wrong?" and further explores how we can use history more wisely in the future.

The Political Effects of Social Media Platforms on Different Regime Types

Media and Democracy Summer 2021

Guy Schleffer, Benjamin Miller

American social media platforms can affect the political systems of different states in varying ways. The effect varies both between and within democratic and authoritarian states and depends mainly on three political actors: domestic opposition, external…

Debunking the AI Arms Race Theory

Artificial Intelligence Summer 2021

Paul Scharre

There is no AI arms race. However, military competition in AI does still pose certain risks. These include losing human control and the acceleration of warfare, as well as the risk that perceptions of an arms race will cause competitors to cut corners on…

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Latest Roundtables

What is a Roundtable?

Roundtables are where we get to hear from multiple experts on either a subject matter or a recently published book. These collections of essays allow for detailed debates and discussions from a variety of viewpoints so that we can deeply explore a given topic or book.

Counterterrorism October 12, 2021

Book Review Roundtable: Leadership Targeting

Craig Whiteside, Colin P. Clarke, Megan A. Stewart

In this roundtable, Stephen Tankel, Craig Whiteside, Colin Clarke, and Megan Stewart discuss Jenna Jordan’s book on the tactic of leadership decapitation of terrorist groups and why some organizations are able to survive leadership decapitation, while others are not.

Natural Resources September 28, 2021

Book Review Roundtable: Nationalizing Natural Resources

Erika Weinthal, John S. Duffield, Alexander "Xander" Slaski, Paul Musgrave

1. Introduction: Integrating Extractive Resource Politics into Broader International Political Economy By Sarah Bauerle Danzman When, why, how, and to what effect do leaders nationalize their natural resources? Scholars of resource nationalism have grappled with these questions at least since the (in)famous wave of oil sector nationalizations that started in the 1950s and peaked […]

Nuclear Strategy August 23, 2021

Policy Roundtable: The Future of Trans-Atlantic Nuclear Deterrence

Tobias Bunde, Amy J. Nelson, Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, Kristin Ven Bruusgaard

This January, Perry World House hosted a two-day workshop titled “Transatlantic Disruption: Challenges and Opportunities.” The essays in this roundtable emerged from a panel on the future of trans-Atlantic nuclear deterrence.

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