Tristan Volpe is a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and an assistant professor in the Defense Analysis Department of the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California. Volpe focuses on issues at the intersection of nuclear proliferation, emerging technology, and regional security in East Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. His work has been published in journals such as Foreign Affairs, Security Studies, the Washington Quarterly, and the Nonproliferation Review.
Previously, Volpe was a fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he assessed the impact of rapid technological and geopolitical change on nuclear proliferation. As Carnegie’s 2015 Stanton nuclear security fellow, Volpe published a series of articles explaining when nuclear latency provides regional powers with bargaining leverage in world politics, and how the United States could tailor its nonproliferation strategy in response. From 2013 to 2015, Volpe was a Lawrence scholar at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), where he served briefly as a consultant to the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation at the U.S. Department of State. He received a Ph.D. in political science from the George Washington University and a B.A. in political science from the University of California, Los Angeles.
After President Yoon’s January 2023 public, not-so-veiled proliferation threat, the April 2023 Washington Declaration was a two-way exchange of assurances: South Korea reaffirmed its commitment to abstain from developing nuclear weapons, while the US agreed to augment its security reassurances in return.
Seoul and Riyadh are attempting to use threats of proliferation to influence negotiations with Washington.
Almost all technology is dual use to some degree: it has both civilian and military applications. This duality of technology presents a challenge not by its very existence but rather through the ways it alters information constraints on the design of arms control institutions.
Under what conditions does nuclear latency—the technical capacity to build the bomb—enable states to pursue effective coercion? And what are the consequences of using nuclear and rocket technology as a bargaining tool in world politics?
Over the last seven decades, some states successfully leveraged the threat of acquiring atomic weapons to compel concessions from superpowers. For many others, however, this coercive gambit failed to work. When does nuclear latency—the technical capacity to build the bomb—enable states to pursue effective coercion?
Almost all wars end with negotiated settlements. But it remains to be seen whether Ukraine can completely repel the Russian invasion to avoid making territorial concessions.
Although Russia’s war has created nuclear risks, the risk that it will unleash a wave of nuclear proliferation is lower than many believe.
The United States established itself as the dominant supplier of civil nuclear technology in the 1960s. But Moscow soon caught up, supplanting Washington after the Cold War. What led to the rise of this autocratic nuclear marketplace?
The policy focus thus far has rightly been on making the war costly for Russia in economic and military terms.
Additive manufacturing is being adopted by nuclear programs to improve production capabilities, yet its impact on strategic stability remains unclear. This article uses the security dilemma to assess incentives for arms racing as the emerging technology becomes integrated into nuclear supply chains.
