July 13, 2020
Rhianna Tyson Kreger
The James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2019 Doreen and Jim McElvany Nonproliferation Challenge.
Dr. Covell Meyskens is an assistant professor with the Naval Postgraduate School and the winner of the 2019 McElvany Nonproliferation Award.
The Grand Prize is awarded to Dr. Covell Meyskens for his article, “Chinese views of the nuclear endgame in North Korea.” Through numerous interviews with Chinese experts as well as official Chinese-language sources, Dr. Meyskens puts forth a clear view of Chinese attitudes toward North Korea and its nuclear program, offering a novel contribution to the English-language literature on one of the most important unresolved problems in nuclear nonproliferation today. Dr. Meyskens, an assistant professor of national security affairs at the US Naval Postgraduate School, will be awarded $5,000 for his outstanding achievement.
The following three articles tied for 2nd place:
Emmanuelle Maitre and Pauline Lévy’s “Becoming a disarmament champion: the Austrian crusade against nuclear weapons” explores how Austria, a small, historically neutral country, built upon broad antinuclear public sentiment and a commitment to humanitarian disarmament initiatives in the sphere of conventional arms to play a catalyzing role in the creation of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
Sayaka Shingu’s “Wooing Kampala: a case study in implementing the nonproliferation sanctions against North Korea” examines a relatively little-known story of positive inducements by a middle power in nonproliferation, describing in detail how a South Korean president worked to supplant Uganda’s historic partnership with North Korea by forging new economic and security agreements.
Nicholas Seltzer’s “Baekgom: the development of South Korea’s first ballistic missile” offers the first detailed account of the origins of South Korea’s ballistic-missile program to be published in English. Drawing on firsthand accounts by some of the country’s first missile specialists, supplemented by declassified documents, Seltzer describes how Seoul acquired the requisite “tacit knowledge, subtle or secret methods and tricks” from American and French partners. This account offers insights about how a developing country can make rapid strides to “catch up” with others in strategic weapons technology.
Instead of awarding a 3rd place/honorable mention prize, each of the 2nd place winning essays will receive $1,500.
All four articles are now available free of charge until July 2021, courtesy of the publisher, Taylor & Francis.
All articles that were published in Volume 26 of the Nonproliferation Review (NPR) were eligible for the prize (excluding those authored or coauthored by staff or affiliates of CNS or the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey). Winners were selected by a panel of judges drawn from the NPR editorial board.
For more information on the Doreen and Jim McElvany Nonproliferation Challenge, see here.
Congratulations to the winners!
