CSS Speaker Series | Keir Lieber on The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution
Join the Center for Security Studies for a discussion with CSS Director Keir Lieber. Dr. Lieber will discuss his new book, “The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution,” in which he and coauthor Daryl G. Press tackle the central puzzle of the nuclear age: the persistence of intense geopolitical competition in the shadow of nuclear weapons.
Copies of the book are available through East City Bookshop.
Registration through Zoom is required for this event, which is part of CSS’s fall series on Politics and Security. For requests for accommodations such as closed captioning due to a disability or medical condition, contact sspmediafellow@georgetown.edu no later than Thursday, September 17. A good faith effort will be made to fulfill all accommodation requests.
About the Book
Leading analysts have predicted for decades that nuclear weapons would help pacify international politics. The core notion is that countries protected by these fearsome weapons can stop competing so intensely with their adversaries: they can end their arms races, scale back their alliances, and stop jockeying for strategic territory. But rarely have theory and practice been so opposed. Why do international relations in the nuclear age remain so competitive? Indeed, why are today’s major geopolitical rivalries intensifying?
In The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution, Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press tackle the central puzzle of the nuclear age: the persistence of intense geopolitical competition in the shadow of nuclear weapons. They explain why the Cold War superpowers raced so feverishly against each other; why the creation of “mutual assured destruction” does not ensure peace; and why the rapid technological changes of the 21st century will weaken deterrence in critical hotspots around the world.
By explaining how the nuclear revolution falls short, Lieber and Press discover answers to the most pressing questions about deterrence in the coming decades: how much capability is required for a reliable nuclear deterrent, how conventional conflicts may become nuclear wars, and how great care is required now to prevent new technology from ushering in an age of nuclear instability.
About the Speaker
Keir Lieber is Director of the Center for Security Studies and Security Studies Program, and Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service and the Department of Government at Georgetown University.
Professor Lieber’s research and teaching interests include nuclear weapons, deterrence, and strategy; technology and the causes of war; U.S. national security policy; and international relations theory. He is co-author, with Daryl Press of Dartmouth College, of The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution: Power Politics in the Atomic Age (Cornell University Press, 2020); author of War and the Engineers: The Primacy of Politics over Technology (Cornell University Press, 2005); and editor of War, Peace, and International Political Realism (University of Notre Dame Press, 2009). His articles have appeared in leading scholarly and foreign policy publications, including International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, and the Atlantic Monthly. He has been awarded major fellowships from the Brookings Institution, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Council on Foreign Relations, Earhart Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, and Smith Richardson Foundation. Dr. Lieber received his Ph.D. and M.A. in political science from the University of Chicago, and his B.A. in political science and international relations from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.