CGSR Seminar: Moving Toward Zero Nuclear Weapons—Why Not Try?
Presented by Dr. George Perkovich

Thursday, April 4, 2013

The goal of nuclear disarmament was enshrined in the Treaty on the Non-proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1970 and continues to be an elusive policy objective of many nations around the world. President Obama made it a centerpiece of his foreign policy by saying in May 2009 that America is committed "to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons... and will take concrete steps towards a world without nuclear weapons." Dr. George Perkovich, Vice President for Studies and Director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace will address this issue as part of the LLNL US Foreign Policy Series.

Dr. Perkovich's research focuses on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation, with a focus on South Asia and Iran, and on the problem of justice in the international political economy. He is the author of the award-winning book India's Nuclear Bomb (University of California Press, 2001). He is co-author of the Adelphi Paper, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons, published in September 2008 by the International Institute for Strategic Studies. This paper is the basis of the book, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons: A Debate, which includes 17 critiques by 13 eminent international commentators.

He served as a speechwriter and foreign policy adviser to Senator Joe Biden from 1989 to 1990. From 1990 through 2001, Perkovich was director of the Secure World Program at the W. Alton Jones Foundation, a $400 million philanthropic institution located in Charlottesville, Virginia. He completed a BA at the University of California Santa Cruz, a MA at Harvard University and a PhD. at the University of Virginia.