Abstract: The large U.S. and Russian stockpiles of weapons plutonium present a sustained risk to global nuclear security. Under a reciprocal disarmament agreement, both nations are obliged to irreversibly dispose of 34 metric tonnes of this material. The current terms of the agreement call for the conversion of plutonium into commercial nuclear fuel and irradiation in civilian reactors, rendering it unattractive for weapons use. Rapid and consistent increase in the projected cost of this approach has rendered it infeasible for the U.S. Proposed alternatives involve underground immobilization of the plutonium in a stable geological formation, yet there exist substantial obstacles to this strategy. There is uncertainty in the ability of a geological repository to safely contain such material for the tens of thousands of years during which it remains a threat to public health. Russia has argued that geological disposal does not represent irreversible disarmament, as the material might be retrieved at a later time. This talk will present an analysis of the political and technical constraints on the geological disposal of weapons plutonium, along with potential paths forward.

About the Speaker: Cameron Tracy is a MacArthur Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at CISAC for 2015-2016. He also holds a postdoctoral appointment in the Department of Geological Sciences in the Stanford School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences.

Cameron’s research at CISAC involves the assessment of strategies for the disposal of fissile materials recovered from dismantled nuclear weapons and analysis of their implications for international arms reduction treaty compliance. He also investigates the structural and chemical behavior of materials, including nuclear fuels and wasteforms, in extreme environments.

Cameron received his Ph.D in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Michigan in 2015. He holds a M.S. from the University of Michigan and a B.S. from the University of California, Davis. In 2009-2010 he worked as a research assistant at Los Alamos National Laboratory.

- Please note that this Social Science Seminar is held in a Science Seminar time slot - 

Abstract: Many see China as a rival superpower to the U.S. and imagine the country’s rise to be a threat to U.S. leadership in Asia and beyond. Arguing against this zero-sum vision, The China Challenge describes a new paradigm in which the real challenge lies in dissuading China from regional aggression while encouraging the country to contribute to the global order. Christensen shows how nationalism and the threat of domestic instability influence the party’s decisions on issues like maritime sovereignty disputes, global financial management, control of the Internet, cliate change, and policies toward Taiwan and Hong Kong. China’s active cooperation is essential to global governance. If China obstructs international efforts to confront nuclear proliferation, civil conflicts, financial instability, and climate change, those efforts will falter, but even if China merely declines to support such efforts, the problems will grow vastly more complicated.  Given U.S.-China policy since the end of the Cold War, a balanced strategic approach that does not block China’s rise, but rather shapes its choices so as to deter regional aggression and encourage China’s active participation in international initiatives would be a benefit to both nations.

About the Speaker: Thomas J. Christensen is William P. Boswell Professor of World Politics of Peace and War and Director of the China and the World Program at Princeton University. From 2006-2008 he served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs with responsibility for relations with China, Taiwan, and Mongolia. His research and teaching focus on China’s foreign relations, the international relations of East Asia, and international security. Before arriving at Princeton in 2003, he taught at Cornell University and MIT. He received his Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University. Professor Christensen has served on the Board of Directors and the Executive Committee of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and as co-editor of the International History and Politics series at Princeton University Press. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations and a Non-Resident Senior Scholar at the Brookings Institution. In 2002 he was presented with a Distinguished Public Service Award by the United States Department of State.

Abstract: Iran under Shah Mohammad-Reza Pahlavi undertook one of the most ambitious nuclear programs of any non-nuclear weapon state in the Non-proliferation Treaty (NPT) in the 1970s. Despite the Shah’s Cold War alliance with the United States, the emerging global nonproliferation order became a zone of contestation in U.S.-Iran relations. This paper is a condensed version of chapter two of this dissertation, covering U.S.-Iran nuclear cooperation agreements under the Nixon and Ford administrations, which explores the Shah's struggle to obtain Western nuclear technology, the ultimately unsuccessful U.S.-Iran nuclear negotiations, and the United States' efforts to use these negotiations to redefine the Nonproliferation Treaty. 

About the Speaker: Farzan Sabet is Nuclear Security Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and holds a Swiss National Science Foundation Doctoral Mobility Fellowship for the 2015-2016 academic year. He is a doctoral candidate in international history at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, researching the Iranian nuclear program under Mohammad-Reza Shah Pahlavi and its evolving relationship with the global nonproliferation regime during the 1970s. His dissertation is based on multi-archival research in the United States, United Kingdom, France, and Canada and combines diplomatic history with nonproliferation studies. He is affiliated with the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Nuclear Proliferation International History Project (NPIHP)