Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower: A CNS videocast series

collage with university towers, chess pieces, a tank on a beach, smoke

A Monthly Videocast Series on
Arms Control and International Security Issues

Ms. Sarah Bidgood, CNS | Dr. Hanna Notte, VCDNP

 

Current Episode: March 20, 2024

Episode 09: North Korea and the Bomb – A Conversation with Ankit Panda

(Also available as a podcast: Google | Spotify | Apple | Amazon )

In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Sarah and Hanna speak with Ankit Panda, who is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. They begin their wide-ranging discussion with a review of Ankit’s 2020 book “Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea”. Sarah, Hanna, and Ankit then engage in an exchange on current developments on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea’s cooperation with Russia, and the need to treat North Korea as a problem of nuclear risk reduction, among other issues. They end by discussing the challenges of studying North Korean nuclear weapons issues and how academia and policy-makers can most fruitfully interact.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction
01:09 Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea
04:21 Worrisome developments on the Korean Peninsula in early 2024
07:33 The future of North Korea-Russia cooperation
11:43 North Korea and the question of nuclear testing
16:20 North Korea and nuclear risk reduction (I)
21:13 North Korea and nuclear risk reduction (II)
25:54 Implications for nuclear threshold countries
31:40 How to study North Korea
36:22 What academics and policymakers can learn from each other


Past Episodes

  • Episode 09: North Korea and the Bomb – A Conversation with Ankit Panda
    (Also available as a podcast: Google | Spotify | Apple | Amazon )

    Read more

    March 20, 2024
    In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Sarah and Hanna speak with Ankit Panda, who is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. They begin their wide-ranging discussion with a review of Ankit’s 2020 book “Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea”. Sarah, Hanna, and Ankit then engage in an exchange on current developments on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea’s cooperation with Russia, and the need to treat North Korea as a problem of nuclear risk reduction, among other issues. They end by discussing the challenges of studying North Korean nuclear weapons issues and how academia and policy-makers can most fruitfully interact.

    Chapters
    00:00 Introduction
    01:09 Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea
    04:21 Worrisome developments on the Korean Peninsula in early 2024
    07:33 The future of North Korea-Russia cooperation
    11:43 North Korea and the question of nuclear testing
    16:20 North Korea and nuclear risk reduction (I)
    21:13 North Korea and nuclear risk reduction (II)
    25:54 Implications for nuclear threshold countries
    31:40 How to study North Korea
    36:22 What academics and policymakers can learn from each other


  • Episode 08: Russia’s Nuclear Fever – A Conversation with Rose Gottemoeller
    (Also available as a podcast: Google | Spotify | Apple | Amazon)

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    June 29, 2023
    In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Sarah and Hanna speak with Rose Gottemoeller, who is the Steven C. Hazy lecturer at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). Prior to joining Stanford, Ms. Gottemoeller served as the Deputy Secretary General of NATO and, before that, as Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the US Department of State.

    They begin their wide-ranging conversation with a discussion of the challenges and policy recommendations that Ms. Gottemoeller raised in a recent piece for the Financial Times, in which she argued that the “West must act now to break Russia’s nuclear fever.” They then turn their attention to one example of this “nuclear fever,” namely, recent debates within Russia’s strategic community about the utility and necessity of nuclear use. From here, they analyze prospects for nuclear risk reduction, the implications of Russia’s planned deployments of non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus, the future of multilateral nuclear diplomacy post-February 2022, and NATO’s upcoming summit in Vilnius. They conclude their conversation with Ms. Gottemoeller’s observations about how policymakers, analysts, and academics interact with the American system and why this mode of interaction strengthens national and international security.

    Chapters:
    01:30 Introduction
    02:02 Ch.1 Russia’s Nuclear Fever
    04:29 Ch.2 The nuclear debate in Russia
    06:01 Ch.3 The future of US-Russia arms control
    09:10 Ch.4 Russia’s nuclear deployments to Belarus
    13:24 Ch.5 Nuclear sharing at the 2023 NPT PrepCom
    17:37 Ch.6 The art of the possible in multilateral nuclear diplomacy
    21:34 Ch.7 Options for nuclear risk reduction
    26:08 Ch.8 The 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius
    32:07 Ch.9 Bridging the gap between policymakers and scholars


  • Episode 07: Leaders, Preventive War, and Nuclear Proliferation: A Conversation with Rachel Whitlark
    (Also available as a podcast: Google | Spotify | Apple | Amazon)

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    May 15, 2023
    In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Sarah and Hanna speak with Rachel Whitlark, associate professor at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Their conversation focuses on Professor Whitlark’s 2021 book, All Options on the Table: Leaders, Preventive War, and Nuclear Proliferation and what it reveals about the influence of leaders’ prior beliefs on their counterproliferation strategies once in office.

    They begin with a discussion of the origins of this volume, where it fits within broader IR scholarship, and the challenges and rewards of using archival material to understand leaders’ beliefs in retrospect. They then explore the relevance of Professor Whitlark’s central findings to other aspects of nuclear decision making and contemporary nonproliferation challenges such as Iran’s evolving nuclear program.

    At the end of their discussion, they reflect on the utility of scholarship to nuclear policymaking and ways to bridge the gap between the academic and practitioner communities. They conclude with some observations about less obvious, but nevertheless important, ways in which scholars can shape policy, including through educating the next generation of decision makers.

    Chapters:
    01:24 Introduction
    01:49 ch 1. All Options on the Table: Leaders and counterproliferation
    05:54 ch 2. The leader centric model and the first image
    10:32 ch 3. Challenges and rewards of archival research
    17:45 ch 4. Continuity and change in leaders’ beliefs
    22:57 ch 5. Alternative hypotheses
    31:50 ch 6. Iran’s nuclear program
    35:20 ch 7. Leaders’ beliefs in other areas of nuclear decision-making
    39:48 ch 8. Bridging the gap between scholarship and policy


  • Episode 06: The Proliferation Implications of Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine: A Conversation with Professor Nicholas Miller
    (Also available as a podcast: Google | Spotify | Apple | Amazon)

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    February 21, 2023
    In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Sarah and Hanna speak with Nicholas Miller, associate professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. Their conversation focuses on the proliferation implications of Russia’s war against Ukraine one year on.

    With Professor Miller, they examine the evolving discourse around proliferation cascades over time and assess whether concerns about the emergence of such a cascade following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have been exaggerated. In so doing, they discuss insights Professor Miller has derived from his work relating to the factors that drive or inhibit proliferation, the degree to which some appear to matter more than others, and the relationship between the arms control and nonproliferation regimes.

    Toward the end of their discussion, they touch upon the concept of “nuclear learning” and speculate about the kinds of lessons policymakers globally might draw from the current crisis.

    At the conclusion of the conversation, Professor Miller offers his view on the interactions between the scholarly and policy communities, what they can gain from interacting with one another, and techniques and approaches to make these interactions more productive.


  • Episode 05: North Korea’s Nuclear Hinge Points with Dr. Siegfried Hecker
    (Also available as a podcast: Google | Spotify | Apple | Amazon)

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    November 22, 2022
    In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Sarah and Hanna speak with Dr. Siegfried Hecker, former director of Los Alamos National Laboratory and current Distinguished Professor of Practice at CNS.

    Their conversation centers on Dr. Hecker’s forthcoming book, Hinge Points: An Inside Look at North Korea’s Nuclear Program (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2023).

    Dr. Hecker offers insights into the DPRK’s dual-track strategy of diplomacy and nuclear development and highlights missed opportunities when Washington might have been able to channel Pyongyang toward the elimination of nuclear weapons and did not. He shares with Sarah and Hanna insights gleaned from his many visits to North Korea and reflects on both the future of US policy toward the DPRK and the importance of facilitating engagement between scientists and diplomats.


  • Episode 04: Nuclear Deterrence and the War in Ukraine with Jeffrey Lewis
    (Also available as a podcast: Google | Spotify | Apple | Amazon)

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    August 29, 2022
    In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Sarah and Hanna are joined by Jeffrey Lewis, professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS).

    They discuss the implications of Russia’s war against Ukraine and China’s growing nuclear arsenal for how we think about nuclear deterrence; ways forward in dealing with Iran’s nuclear program; the old and new challenges posed to arms control by disinformation; why individuals matter in all of this – and much more.


  • Episode 03: Nuclear Escalation and the War in Ukraine: A Conversation with Dr. Kirstin ven Bruusgaard
    (Also available as a podcast: Google | Spotify | Apple | Amazon)

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    April 22, 2022
    The third episode of the videocast series deals with nuclear escalation and the war in Ukraine. Hosts Sarah Bidgood and Dr. Hanna Notte invite Dr. Kristin ven Bruusgaard, a Postdoctoral Fellow and Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Oslo, to discuss the implications of Russian nuclear strategy and the modernization of its conventional forces for the ongoing war in Ukraine. Will the Russian government likely decide to resort to nuclear weapons? Tune in to find out.


  • Episode 02: Nuclear Weapons and the War in Ukraine: A Conversation with Dr. Mariana Budjeryn
    (Also available as a podcast: Spotify | Apple | Amazon)

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    March 17, 2022
    In the second episode of the series, Sarah and Hanna speak with Dr. Mariana Budjeryn, research associate with the Project on Managing the Atom at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center. Dr. Budjeryn discusses her new book, Inheriting the Bomb: The Collapse of the USSR and the Nuclear Disarmament of Ukraine (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press 2022). In their conversation, the hosts and guest draw connections between Dr. Budjeryn’s findings and the war in Ukraine, focusing in particular on the implications of Russia’s unprovoked invasion for nonproliferation and arm control and Russia’s spurious allegations that Ukraine is pursuing a nuclear capability. They also question some of the broad assumptions held within International Relations about deterrence and the former Soviet space and discuss how the expert and academic communities can best contribute to policymaker understanding amidst the current crisis.

    Inheriting the Bomb by Mariana Budjeryn book cover

    Russian President Borys Yeltsin and U.S. President Bill Clinton bump elbows after the signature of the Budapest Memorandum on security assurances to Ukraine in connection with its accession to the NPT on December 6, 1994 with Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma (far right), and British Prime Minister John Major (not in the photo). Photo credit: Greg Gibson, AP Photo.

    Russian President Borys Yeltsin and U.S. President Bill Clinton bump elbows after the signature of the Budapest Memorandum on security assurances to Ukraine in connection with its accession to the NPT on December 6, 1994 with Ukraine’s President Leonid Kuchma (far right), and British Prime Minister John Major (not in the photo). Photo credit: Greg Gibson, AP Photo.

    Servicemen of the 12th GUMO (General Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the former Soviet Union) load a tactical nuclear weapon, likely a warhead for a short-range ballistic missile SS-21 Scarab, on the back of a truck in Ukraine, January 1992. The removal of some 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Ukraine began in September 1991 and was completed by May 5, 1992. Photo credit: Vladimir Solovyev, TASS

    Servicemen of the 12th GUMO (General Directorate of the Ministry of Defense of the former Soviet Union) load a tactical nuclear weapon, likely a warhead for a short-range ballistic missile SS-21 Scarab, on the back of a truck in Ukraine, January 1992. The removal of some 2,000 tactical nuclear weapons deployed in Ukraine began in September 1991 and was completed by May 5, 1992. Photo credit: Vladimir Solovyev, TASS


  • Episode 01: Nuclear Doctrine and the Law of Armed Conflict: A Conversation with Professor Scott Sagan
    (Also available as a podcast: Spotify | Apple | Amazon)

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    February 1, 2022
    In the first episode of the series, Sarah and Hanna speak with Prof. Scott Sagan, who is the Caroline S.G. Munro Professor of Political Science, the Mimi and Peter Haas University Fellow in Undergraduate Education, and Senior Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation and the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University. The hosts discuss with Professor Sagan his recently coauthored article in International Security entitled, “The Rule of Law and the Role of Strategy in US Nuclear Doctrine.” The conversation tackles the relationship between nuclear doctrine and the law of armed conflict, related ethical and legal concerns, the implications for US policymakers and military planners, recommendations for the upcoming Nuclear Posture Review, and more generally the dangers inherent in “siloing” legal and strategic studies.


About the Videocast


Series Teaser

Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower is a new videocast series on arms control, nonproliferation, and international security issues. In each episode, hosts Sarah Bidgood and Hanna Notte discuss cutting-edge research and what it means for the most pressing challenges facing policymakers today. In conversation with expert guests, Sarah and Hanna break down these complex topics in ways that bridge the divide between scholarship and the real world. Join them each month as they bring Machiavelli into the Ivory Tower!

From the hosts:

By virtue of our physical location and expertise, we look at the international security landscape through different lenses. One of us (Hanna) has a background in Track II mediation and works on Russian foreign policy, US/Europe-Russia strategic relations, arms control and security issues in the Middle East, and chemical weapons, among other issues. The other (Sarah) focuses on US-Russia bilateral cooperation in the areas of nonproliferation, arms control, and risk reduction, as well as the international disarmament and nonproliferation regime more broadly. Yet, despite these differences, we share a passion for WMD policy—especially in the US/European-Russian and Eurasian context. Over the last two years, these interests have led us to collaborate on projects relating to Russian military innovation, state-level radiological weapons programs, and the future of US and Russian efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, among others. In launching Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, we wanted to bring our diverse yet complementary perspectives to bear in exploring new issues that we think are the most important. We couldn’t be more excited to share the results with you, and we’re glad to have you along for the ride!

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In the News

April 19, 2022: “Why the Ukraine war does not mean more countries should seek nuclear weapons” in Middlebury Institute of International Studies


About the Hosts

Sarah Bidgood

Sarah Bidgood

View Bio

Sarah Bidgood is the director of the Eurasia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in Monterey, California. Her research focuses on US-Soviet and US-Russia nonproliferation cooperation, as well as the international nonproliferation regime more broadly. She is the co-editor of the book Once and Future Partners: The United States, Russia, and Nuclear Non-Proliferation, which was published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies in 2018. She also leads the Young Women in Nonproliferation Initiative at CNS.


Hanna Notte Headshot

Hanna Notte

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Dr. Hanna Notte is a Senior Research Associate with the VCDNP, focusing on arms control and security issues involving Russia, the Middle East, their intersection, and implications for US and European policy. Prior to that, she was a Senior Political Officer with The Shaikh Group (TSG), an NGO focused on track two mediation and informal diplomacy in the Middle East. She completed her doctorate at Oxford University in 2018 on the topic of Russian-US cooperation in the Middle East. Dr. Notte was a visiting researcher in 2015–16 with the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences and the Carnegie Moscow Center in Moscow, Russia. Other visiting research stints have included the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation’s Syria/Iraq office in Beirut, Lebanon and the International Institute for Strategic Studies Middle East office in Manama, Bahrain.


Video Series Design and Production Specialist

Eduardo Fuji headshot

Eduardo Fujii

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Eduardo Fujii is the Computer Programmer and Systems Analyst at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute for International Studies. Since 1996, Eduardo has been writing software for a variety of CNS’s database-driven web applications, including the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Disarmament Database, the Analytical Hierarchical Process (AHP) decision making model applied to emergency preparedness, the WMD Terrorism Database, the CBRN Incident and Response database (IRD), the Iraq Inspections database, CNS/UNMOVIC Iraq Abstracts, and others. Eduardo is also an award-winning photographer and accomplished videographer, responsible for filming CNS seminars and lectures and making them available online and on cable TV. Eduardo was one of the first MIIS students to intern at the UN Department for Disarmament Affairs in New York, NY and in 2004 he worked as a consultant for the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, Austria.


Photo Attributions

St. John’s College, Cambridge, UK
By CharlieRCD – Own work, CC BY 3.0, https-//commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5789057

St. John’s College second Court, Cambridge, UK
Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License- CC BY-SA 3.0

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