With North Korea testing advanced nuclear weapons and established nuclear powers racing to modernize their arsenals, the specter of nuclear proliferation has rekindled the public imagination. The current international environment opens up the possibility for the spread of nuclear weapons to additional countries including South Korea, Japan, and Iran as well as the potential use of nuclear weapons in a conflict. What has caused the spread of nuclear weapons? How did North Korea succeed where others did not? How has the US responded to nuclear threats?

Speaker: Alexander H. Montgomery has published articles on theorizing and dismantling proliferation networks; the perils of predicting proliferation, intelligence, and the future of security studies; and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on power, interstate conflict, and economic sanctions. He is also co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Political Networks. His research interests include political organizations, social networks, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations. Most recently, he has been a Residential Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars; prior to that he was a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in Nuclear Security with a placement in the US Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy) working for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. His portfolio included writing a new Department of Defense Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction.