The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University is pleased to announce that Scott Sagan, the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, Bass University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at CISAC has been named the inaugural Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellow for Nuclear Ethics and Security at the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs. 

The Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship supports an active research and education agenda addressing ethics, nuclear deterrence, and non-proliferation. As a non-resident fellow at the Carnegie Council, Sagan will write a book and convene several workshops, meeting with philosophers, political scientists, lawyers, former U.S. policy makers, and NATO officials, designed to refine and advance the manuscript and create discussion among experts.

"I am writing a book on Ethics and Nuclear Weapons under contract for Cambridge University Press,” said Sagan. “This fellowship is a great opportunity to widen the discussion of critically important topics such as whether an attack on the nuclear program of a would-be proliferator is ever justified or how the laws of armed conflict and just war doctrine apply to nuclear weapons targeting."

Throughout Sagan’s career much of his research has focused on nuclear strategy, deterrence theory, proliferation and nonproliferation, and nuclear accidents. Over the past decade, his research and writing have shifted to focus more on ethics, including studies of public opinion on just war doctrine, the nuclear taboo debate, and disarmament dilemmas. He has taught a popular undergraduate lecture course – The Rules of War – with Allen Weiner from the Stanford Law School and a graduate seminar – Ethics, Law, and Nuclear Weapons – with Tom Dannenbaum, the Stanton Professor of Nuclear Security at CISAC and Professor of Law at Stanford.

“Scott began his academic career by studying nuclear strategy and nuclear safety. That work positioned him to become one of the leading voices in debates about the ethics of nuclear weapons, and the ethics of war more generally,” said associate dean for the social sciences at Dartmouth College, Benjamin Valentino 

This research is especially timely as nuclear risks evolve and questions about the role of nuclear weapons in international security take on renewed urgency. Examining the ethical considerations surrounding nuclear weapons use can provide a fuller understanding of how these issues are perceived and debated. This work can also shed light on the factors that shape nuclear policy and decision making.

“Scott pioneered the use of survey methods for investigating deterrence dynamics. Moreover, his intellectual leadership was critical for reviving ethical debates about nuclear deterrence and bringing them in conversation with empirical and strategic studies of nuclear weapons,” said Janina Dill, co-director of the Oxford Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford. “He has been determined and creative in embracing the methods and insights of adjacent fields to further strategic studies. Scott has thereby made not only a huge intellectual difference through, but he has also helped build a community of scholars that debates and investigates the law, ethics, and reality of nuclear deterrence.”

Sagan has written extensively on nuclear strategy, nuclear proliferation, organizational risks and accidents involving nuclear arsenals, U.S. nuclear doctrine, and the ethical and legal rules of war, appearing in journals such as Security Studies, International Security, Ethics & International Affairs, and the American Political Science Review. He is the author and co-author of several influential works on nuclear weapons and security, including The Limits of Safety, Moving Targets, and The Spread of Nuclear Weapons. He has received numerous awards for his research and teaching, including the Thérèse Delpech Memorial Award from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the National Academy of Sciences’ Estes Award, and multiple honors from the International Studies Association.

“An extraordinary award for an extraordinary person,” said social science research scholar and Hoover Institution research fellow, Rose Gottemoeller. “Scott Sagan is a central figure in forming our national conscience on the use of force. He will contribute unique and creative insight as the Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellow for Nuclear Ethics and Security,” 

In its inaugural year, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Fellowship for Nuclear Ethics and Security is the result of a 2025 Carnegie Council meeting, in partnership with HFG, that brought together researchers, practitioners, journalists, and religious leaders to discuss “nuclear complacency” as a pressing threat to global stability. The findings of this convening were published in “Nuclear Complacency: A Report from the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs and The Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.”

Click here to view the announcement from the Carnegie Council for Ethics in International Affairs.