Come and join us for our first meeting of the semester! RSVP at http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG!

Join us in welcoming John Mecklin, Editor in Chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who will be presenting on communicating policy recommendations!

Join the NSSC at this special event as they host Sarah Laderman, the deputy director of NPWG from 2017-2018.  Sarah is now an Associate Safeguards Information Analyst at the International Atomic Energy Agency - Sarah ensures countries use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, and helps remove the threat of nuclear weapons proliferation.

No NPWG Meeting this week, we hope everybody enjoys the President's Day holiday!

RSVP: Click here!

Join us in welcoming Michael Albertson, Deputy Director at the Center for Global Security Research at LLNL, who will be presenting on the politics of arms control!

(more…)

Join us for a research-focused meeting where we will share research interests, discuss potential research topics, and begin breaking into groups or individuals to consider research statements and plans for submitting to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists or other potential publications.

Join us for this special event co-hosted by the UC Berkeley chapter of the American Nuclear Society, welcoming Dr. Matthew Kroenig, who will be presenting on his book, The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy!

(more…)

Join us for an after-action discussion of the concepts Dr. Kroenig talked about in his remarks and Q&A, covering his book The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy.

No NPWG Meeting this week, we hope everybody has a restful spring break!

Join us for a primer and discussion on the Nuclear Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

If you’re a member of the UC Berkeley community interested in joining this meeting, we’d love to have you! Please fill out our contact page for additional information.

Join us in welcoming Matty Golub, who will be presenting “Who’s to Say? Technical Dimensions of Nuclear Disinformation?"
(more…)

Join us in welcoming Dr. Andrew Reddie, who will be presenting "From Art to Science: Analytical Wargaming and Behavioral Research"!

(more…)

Join us as we run through an interactive wargaming exercise and discuss nuclear decision-making and wargaming.

Join us as for the final NPWG meeting of the spring semester.  We will be hearing brief presentations from group members about the research they do and how it affects nuclear policy and nonproliferation!

We are very excited to see everybody as NPWG starts up once again for the Fall 2021 semester!  Membership is open to all undergraduate and graduate students, so if you're interested in nuclear policy and want a place to learn more, discuss relevant issues, and perform cutting-edge research, please do stop by!

Meetings will start virtually this semester, though we may move to a hybrid structure if conditions improve.  Virtual attendance, though, will always be an option!

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

I'm looking forward to seeing everybody this semester!

I hope everybody has a restful long weekend, and I look forward to seeing you all again next week!

At this meeting we will be having a group discussion on our research project for this semester, focused on cyber-nuclear interactions, deterrence, and escalation dynamics.  We will be brainstorming research questions and methods for us to focus on for the remainder of the semester.

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

At this meeting we will be having a group discussion on our research project for this semester, focused on cyber-nuclear interactions, deterrence, and escalation dynamics.  We will be continuing our discussion from last meeting on identifying a research question and policy recommendations to move forward with this semester.  We'll be giving a short summary of the discussion so far at the start of the meeting, so you are more than welcome to attend even if you couldn't make it last week!

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

The People's Republic of China is currently undertaking an unprecedented expansion of their nuclear forces, dramatically expanding the number of intercontinental and intermediate-range ballistic missiles they have available. The discovery of 250 missile silos in Northern China has led to calls for a change in how we approach security in East Asia at the strategic level. How the United States should respond to these developments is currently a matter of intense debate, fueled partly by disagreement with what PRC nuclear strategy actually looks like and what the PRC's end goals for this program are. This talk will examine what we know about China's rapid nuclear expansion, what we don't know, and how the United States might respond to increasing regional and global military tensions with China. We will cover the history of the PRC's nuclear program, the prevailing interpretations of their strategy, recent changes to their order of battle, and what the future of arms control and nonproliferation with China might look like.

Decker Eveleth is a freelance open-source intelligence analyst and an incoming master's student at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. His work on tracking ballistic missiles has been featured in the Washington Post and The Economist magazine.

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

Join us for a guest lecture given by Dr. Ruby Booth focused on "Understanding the Cyber Conflict Landscape"!

Ruby Booth is an InfoSec researcher specializing in the interaction between human behavior and cybersecurity. Her research includes projects on hacker motivation, InfoSec culture, and the effect of security breaches on user behavior. She has a Ph.D. in Business Administration with a concentration in Management of Information Systems. Dr. Booth is a Principal Member of Technical Staff at Sandia National Laboratories where she serves as a National Security systems analyst and cybersecurity subject matter expert. Her areas of interest include cyber risk management, ethical AI development, and cyber deterrence investment strategy.

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

Join us for a research and discussion focused meeting!  The first part of the meeting time will be spent on this year's research project, and the remainder of the meeting time will be a primer and group discussion on the principles of deterrence in preparation for Ambassador Brooks' talk the following meeting.

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

Join us for a guest lecture by Ambassador Linton Brooks focused on nuclear deterrence!  Please find an abstract and a bio for Ambassador Brooks below:

Join us to hear from Gabriel Kelvin, who will be speaking to us on cross domain escalation!

This presentation will go over qualitative differences in escalation in the cyber and traditional/nuclear domains and the contributing factors of this difference. It will also describe considerations to hesitancy in cross-domain escalation and alternatives to Khan's escalation ladder in effects-based measurement of conflict.

Gabriel Kelvin is a fourth year political science undergraduate student at UC Berkeley and undergraduate fellow at the NSSC. His research interests include cyber escalation, social mobility policy and data visualization.

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

At this meeting we will be having a group discussion on our research project for this semester, focused on cyber-nuclear interactions, deterrence, and escalation dynamics.  We will be brainstorming research questions and methods for us to focus on for the remainder of the semester.

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

Join us for a guest lecture given by Dr. Brandon Williams focused on cyberoperations!

Cybersecurity Cooperation, Moving Beyond Nuclear Escalation Logic for Cybersecurity, & a Cyber Arms Control Lesson from (re)Learning How to Fear the Bomb: During the talk, Dr. Williams will address cyber defense and resilience cooperation among allies and partners, zooming in on how the US can cooperate with NATO and novel security arrangements such as AUKUS or the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue partners. He will offer his opinion on why he believes the thinking about nuclear escalation does not apply to cybersecurity. He will also reflect on how he recently learned to fear the bomb anew—assuming he understood nuclear weapons after over a decade earning a Cold War history PhD. He’ll explain why he believes it is the utmost importance that the US and allies apply pressure to convince all nuclear-weapon states to agree to arms control on cyber probing, mapping, and targeting of NC3 systems.

Brandon will be speaking in his personal capacity and not as an employee of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

Join us for our open Keynote Speaker Event, Dr. Jacquelyn Schneider who will be speaking to us on the cyber-nuclear relationship!

To register for the event,
CLICK HERE
Or copy and paste https://bit.ly/NPWG-keynote-registration into your search bar!

(more…)

I hope everybody has a great Thanksgiving! There will be no NPWG meeting this week.

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!

Stay tuned for more information on what we'll be talking about this week as the meeting gets closer!

If you're interested in joining NPWG, please fill out the interest form http://bit.ly/JoinNPWG to be added to the mailing list!  If you have any questions or would like to learn more, send an email to austin_mullen@berkeley.edu, I'd be happy to talk!