Making sense of nuclear threats
Vipin Narang explains the strategies of new nuclear powers
“We’re not talking about Cold War nuclear strategy any more. We’re talking about small states with small arsenals and itchy trigger fingers. It really changes how we think about nuclear risks and nuclear dangers as a result.”
—Vipin Narang, Associate Professor of Political Science
About a decade ago, when Vipin Narang started writing his doctoral dissertation on nuclear strategy, he encountered a little problem: People around him thought his thesis would be irrelevant.
“Everyone told me, ‘Don’t do it,’ because nuclear weapons were supposedly a Cold War relic,” Narang says. Graduate students in international relations were more typically studying globalization, human rights, and ethnic insurgencies. “Those were hot topics, and nuclear weapons were considered old-school,” Narang adds.
If only. Today, Narang is an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Political Science and a member of its Security Studies Program. Nuclear dangers are again an urgent political topic. And Narang’s particular focus — the acquisition of nuclear weapons by countries beyond the traditional superpowers — is something that keeps people awake at night, as they contemplate rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea.
“Now it’s back with a vengeance,” Narang observes. “And we’re worried about regional proliferation now. We’re not talking about Cold War nuclear strategy any more. We’re talking about small states with small arsenals and itchy trigger fingers. It really changes how we think about nuclear risks and nuclear dangers as a result.”
Read the complete story at MIT News
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