Fiona Cunningham is a nonresident scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and was a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow in 2020-21. She is also an assistant professor of political science at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests lie at the intersection of technology and conflict, with an emphasis on China. Her current research project examines China’s decisions to use space, cyber, and conventional missile weapons to coerce its adversaries instead of nuclear weapons in the post-Cold War era.
Fiona was a post-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University in 2018-2019 and a pre-doctoral fellow in the Cyber Security Project at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs in 2017-2018. She conducted fieldwork in China as a joint Ph.D. research fellow at the Renmin University of China in Beijing in 2015-2016. Fiona’s research has been published in International Security, Security Studies, the Washington Quarterly and others, and was supported by the Smith Richardson Foundation, China Confucius Studies Program, and the MIT Center for International Studies. She was previously assistant professor of political science and international affairs at the George Washington University.
Fiona received her Ph.D. in 2018 from the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was a member of the Security Studies Program. She also holds a bachelor of arts in politics and international relations from the University of New South Wales and a bachelor of laws from the University of Sydney, both with first-class honors.
Under Xi, China has shifted toward a much more aggressive nuclear expansion. What factors are actually motivating China’s policy and perspectives? What are the implications for U.S.-China nuclear relations and international security?
Who makes the rules that underpin order in the maritime domain? Is “China’s law of the sea” already in effect in maritime East Asia? Ashley J. Tellis, Isaac B. Kardon, and Fiona Cunningham discuss China’s maritime strategy in East Asia, and preview Kardon’s new book.
The question of how nuclear aspirants attempt to acquire the bomb has received far less attention but is in many ways more consequential for international peace and security. What strategies have states employed to develop nuclear weapons? And what are the implications of these strategies for proliferation and conflict dynamics?
For U.S. planners, the projected expansion of China’s arsenal is yet another sign of deepening and destabilizing military-technological competition with the United States. Nevertheless, neither the Chinese military or the Pentagon report say much about the goals of China’s nuclear strategy and whether the goals of that strategy are expanding to include nuclear first-use.
Are there opportunities for the incoming Biden administration to resolve the current standoff and prevent a new arms race? Join us for a conversation between James Acton, Nobumasa Akiyama, Nicola Leveringhaus, and Tong Zhao as they discuss concepts for engaging China. Fiona Cunningham will moderate.
