2015 Conference Presentations

CAPSTONE CONFERENCE

Offutt AFB, Nebraska
Agenda

Panel 1: NATO and Russia Posturing

• The NATO-Russia Strategic Relationship, Thomas Frear
• Russian Perceptions of Non-Nuclear Deterrence, Harrison Menke
• NATO’s Quiet Nuclear Evolution, Jacek Durkalec

Panel 2: Emerging Unconventional Threats: The Relationship between Space, cyber and Nuclear

• Norm Development in New Domains, Becca Arbacher
• Cyber Threat: Global Norms and the Modernization Paradox, Taylor Brooks
• Hitting the ‘Snooze’ Button on Nuclear Security: Stuxnet and the Wake-Up Call it Should Have Been, Alexandra Van Dine

Panel 3: Future Capabilities

• Hedge Math: Theoretical Limits on Minimum Stockpile Size Across Nuclear Hedging Strategies, Jarret Lafleur
• Dime Store Deterrence, Evan Thompson
• Red China’s “Capitalist Bomb:” Inside the Chinese Neutron Bomb Program, Jonathan Ray

Panel 4: Enforcing Nonproliferation

• A Nuclear Procurement Channel for Iran: Mission Impossible?, Michele Capeleto
• ​​A Paper Tiger or a World Free of Nuclear Terrorism? Law, Politics and Institutional Design of the UN Security Council Resolution 1540, Sarah Shirazyan​
• Black Rain at Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Hidden Complexities of Nuclear-Weapons Effects, Joe Schofield

SUMMER CONFERENCE

Los Alamos National Laboratory, Albuquerque, NM
Agenda

Panel 1:The Role of Nuclear Weapons and Missile Defense in East Asia

• China's Neutron Bomb Program: History and Implications, Jonathan Ray
• Playing Defense? Examining China's Intentions Regarding Ballistic Missile Defense, Denise Der
• Deterring North Korea: An Examination of the East Asian Missile Defense Architecture, Jaganath Sankaran
• Shift in Deterrence Dynamics on the Korean Peninsula: The U.S.-ROK Response, Diane Stevenson

Panel 2: Tools and Verification for the 21^st Century

• Developing the "Next START" Verification System, A Stepping Stone to a Weapons-Centric Verification System, Dustin LeClair
• Shifting Dynamics of the Middle East: Turkey's Pursuit of Nuclear Energy and the Future of the BOO Model, Jamelee Bal
• Economic Sanctions, Statecraft, and Nuclear Nonproliferation, Graham Flaspoehler
• Beyond the Grand Bargain: A legal-political analysis of the NPT in light of the 2015 Revcon, Tom Coppen
• Sanctions as a Nonproliferation Tool: Lessons from Libya, Miriam Barnum

Panel 3: Readiness, Decisionmaking, and the Nuclear Enterprise

• Spinning Yarns and Tying Hands: A Framework for Understanding Prestige Motivations in Nuclear Decision Making, Brian Radzinsky
• Component Diversity and Minimizing Multiple Failures, Andrew Mastin
• Universal Social Media: Bringing the Public into Nuclear Use Decision Making, Oliver Tonkin
• The 91st Maintenance Group: Culture of Compliance and Combat Capability, Captain James Gutierrez

Panel 4: Technological Threats & the Modern Nuclear Environment

• Securing Nuclear Command and Control Systems: The Emerging Cyber Threat, Michelle Nalabandian
• Hitting the ‘Snooze’ Button on Nuclear Security: Stuxnet and the Wake-Up Call it Should Have Been, Alexandra Van Dine
• Role of Cyber in Strategic Stability, Grant Schneider

FALL CONFERENCE

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, Richland, WA
Agenda

Panel 1: Tracking Nuclear Materials

• Active Seals for Warhead Monitoring, Eric Gonzalez
• What Was Missed? Opportunities in Mapping Illicit Nuclear Trafficking, Sara Niehus, George Muller
• The Power of Financiers and Insurers to Reduce Proliferation Risks: Nuclear Dual-Use Goods, Rachel Weise

Panel 2: Nuclear Security and Insider Threats

• International Policies and Tools for Protecting Against Radiological Sabotage, Rosalyn Leitch
• Nuclear Security Requires Cyber Security, David McKinnon
• Culture of the Nuclear Enterprise and its Effects in the Middle East, Kaitlyn Riffenburg
• Nuclear In-Security: Defining the Insider Threat Using a Multidisciplinary Approach, Christine Noonan

Panel 3: Regional Nuclear Flashpoints 

• Revisiting History: Is Islamabad's Bomb a Gambit for Power?, Ahsan Yousaf Chaudhary
• Limited Nuclear Options for the Entente Cordial: Pakistan's Flexible Nuclear Strategy & Strategic Implications of Technology Transfer, Robert Ryan
• U.S. Involvement in an Escalating Conflict with a Nuclear Adversary, Sam Wilson

Panel 4: Rethinking Proliferation 

• New Concepts on Proliferation, Anthony Eames
• Correlates of Proliferation: Introducing a New Data Tool, Tom Hickey
• Parallels Between Norm Development in the Nuclear and Space Domains, Becca Arbacher

WINTER CONFERENCE

Center for Strategic and International Studies, Washington, DC
Agenda

Panel 1: U.S. Nuclear Policy and Posture in the Face of Modernization and Sequestration

• Nuclear Weapons Modernization: Thinking about the Unthinkable, Michaela Dodge
• America’s Strategic Nuclear Force Structure in the 21^st Century: Operational and Deterrence Impacts of Re-Phasing Current Modernization Plans, Marc Quint
• Balancing Deterrence, Katherine Blakeley
• Dime Store Deterrence: Getting What You Pay For, Evan Thompson

Panel 2: Non-State Actors

• Rethinking the Proliferation Paradigm, Sarah Laderman
• The Wild Wild East: Nuclear Trafficking and the ‘Lawless Land’ of Eastern Europe and the Russian Caucasus, Ross Hagan
• Apocalypse Now? Rethinking Nuclear Terror in the Age of ISIS, Minsu Crowder-Han

Panel 3: Escalation Dynamics

• Managing Escalation in Conventional Conflicts with Nuclear-Armed Adversaries, Vincent Manzo
• Early Warning? Forecasting Escalation Patterns in South Asian Nuclear Crises, Hannah Haegeland
• Miscalculation Scare: Why ASBM and CPGS Weapons Will Not Increase Nuclear Escalation Risk, Kang Jiang

Panel 4: Perspectives on Europe and Russia

• Making the Case for Preserving the INF Treaty- A European Perspective, Anna Peczeli
• Whither Goes the Transatlantic Security Partnership?, Selim Sazak, Lauren Sukin
• Emerging Security Alliances Challenging the Status Quo and U.S. Foreign Policy Towards Russia, Sofie Roehrig
• Russian Perspective on Strategic Non-Nuclear Deterrence, Harrison Menke

Panel 5: Nuclear Security

• Role of New Scientific Approaches in Tamper Detection for Nuclear Security, Tessa Pinon
• Nuclear Monitoring in the Post-Cold War Era: Technology to Support Unilateral Actions, Heather Meeks
• Portal Monitoring Systems for Nuclear Threat Reduction- Looking Inside the Box, Dr. Jonathan Burns
• Exporting Nuclear Safety, Captain Jeffrey Graham