Nuclear Security in Dangerous Times
Wed., April 15, 202612:00 - 1:30 pm ET (US)
Hybrid Zoom and In-Person Event
Rapaporte Treasure Hall, Goldfarb Library, Brandeis University Campus
Refreshments will be provided for in-person attendees.
Co-sponsored by the Brandeis Department of Politics, the Crown Center for Middle East Studies, and the Brandeis International and Global Studies Program.
About the Event
The cold war was dominated by the notion that nuclear deterrence would keep the peace. Yet, many wars were fought in its shadow – though not in Europe, Russia or the United States. Since 1990, nuclear deterrence had largely been absent from public discourse, and yet it is slowly moving center stage again. A large nuclear arsenal was stationed in Ukraine during the cold war, though always controlled by Moscow. The weapons were returned to Moscow between 1992 and 1996 in exchange for economic aid and security assurances that have since evaporated. The justifications given by the US government and Israel for the war against Iran is the prevention of Iranian nuclear weapons. Fear of Russian nuclear weapons and uncertainty about U.S. security assurances have moved French president Macron to openly consider expanding French nuclear deterrence to its immediate neighbors, most of all Germany. Meanwhile, China is engaged in an unprecedented expansion of its nuclear forces. With nine countries now in possession of nuclear weapons and several nuclear powers at war, is nuclear deterrence (still) working? How secure are the nuclear arsenals? Is nuclear war a likely possibility in the near future? What happens if the United States decides to close their nuclear umbrella over their European NATO allies?
About the Speakers
Mariana Budjeryn (joining remotely) is a senior researcher with the MIT Center for Nuclear Security Policy.. She is the author of “Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine” (Johns Hopkins Press, 2023), for which she won the 2024 William E. Colby Military Writers’ Award. Her current research focuses on nuclear dimensions of the Russo-Ukrainian war, including risks to Ukraine’s civilian nuclear facilities.
Dr.Gary Samore (joining in person) served in the U.S. government for over 20 years, focusing on nuclear arms control and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, especially in the Middle East and Asia. In that capacity, he served both President Clinton and President Obama as the senior official in the National Security Council responsible for nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Outside government, he held senior research and administrative positions at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, the Council on Foreign Relations and the Belfer Center for Science and International Security at Harvard University. He holds an MA and PhD from the Government Department of Harvard University.
Karl-Heinz Kamp (joining remotely) has been an associate fellow in DGAP’s Center for Order and Governance in Eastern Europe, Russia, and Central Asia since October 2023. He holds a lectureship at the University Roma Tre in Rome and was the political director’s representative at Germany’s Federal Ministry of Defence until 2023. Prior to that, he was president of the Federal Academy for Security Policy in Berlin. From 2007 to 2013, Kamp was director of research at the NATO Defence College in Rome. Previously, he held various positions at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in Bonn and Berlin as well as in the planning staff of Germany’s Federal Foreign Office.
Moderator: Sabine von Mering, Director, CGES Brandeis