What to do about Nuclear "Outliers" Iran and North Korea?
Presented by Dr. Robert Litwak

Tuesday, April 2, 2013

In the Bush era, Iran and North Korea were branded "rogue" states for their flouting of international norms, and changing their regimes was the administration's goal. The Obama administration has chosen instead to call these countries nuclear "outliers" and has proposed means other than regime change to bring them back into "the community of nations." Can the "outliers" be integrated into the international community? And how should the United States respond if outlier regimes eschew integration and continue to augment their nuclear capabilities? Dr. Litwak will discuss these questions, drawing on his latest book Outlier States: American Strategies to Change, Contain, or Engage Regimes.

Robert Litwak is Vice President for Scholars and Academic Relations, as well as Director of International Security Studies, at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. He is also a Consultant to the Los Alamos National Laboratory and an Adjunct Professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service.

Dr. Litwak served on the National Security Council staff as Director for Nonproliferation in the Clinton administration.

He is the author of Rogue States and U.S. Foreign Policy: Containment after the Cold War (2000), Regime Change: U.S. Strategy through the Prism of 9/11 (2007), and Outlier States: American Strategies to Change, Contain, or Engage Regimes (2012).

Dr. Litwak has held visiting fellowships at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Oxford University. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and received a doctorate in international relations from the London School of Economics.