June 28, 2021

Toward Nuclear and WMD Fluency in Professional Military Education

As the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s designated focal point for WMD education in Joint Professional Military Education, CSWMD convened its first WMD Educators Forum in April 2021 to provide a venue for dialogue and serve as an accelerator for teaching methods and learning outcomes for WMD across the DoD.  This article is one of the first products of this effort.  I encourage you to read what Mr. Paul Bernstein and Dr. Amy Nelson have written on the Chairman’s latest PME guidance and the implications for developing curricula.  The article draws on recent experience in creating benchmarks for education on nuclear capabilities and concepts, and suggests how this can be done for other critical aspects of the WMD challenge.

Dec. 1, 2020

The rise of the futurists: The perils of predicting with futurethink

In this paper, Dr. Alexander H. Montgomery and Dr. Amy J. Nelson explore probabilistic and possibilistic approaches to uncertainty related to AI, outline their potential advantages and disadvantages, and identify common biases that hinder good prediction.

July 29, 2020

Inevitable bedfellows? Cooperation on military technology for the development of UAVs and cruise missiles in the Asia-Pacific

Will states in the Asia-Pacific develop real capabilities to deter Chinese aggression? In this discussion paper – published as part of the Missile Dialogue Initiative research programme – Dr Amy J. Nelson and Dr T. X. Hammes examine the increased likelihood that UAV and cruise-missile technologies will proliferate throughout the Asia-Pacific.

July 10, 2020

Innovation and Its Discontents: National Models of Military Innovation and the Dual-Use Conundrum

Dr. Amy J. Nelson's Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) Report explores variations in national models of innovation, as well as the pathways or levers those models afford in controlling innovation’s end product. This report focuses on dual-use. The report uses case studies of both U.S. and German investment in artificial intelligence and additive manufacturing to highlight national approaches to innovation.

Nov. 6, 2019

The death of the INF Treaty has lessons for arms control

In her article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Dr. Amy J. Nelson argues that despite the treaty's failure, there is much to be learned from its undoing, as well as from the current state of arms control.

July 23, 2019

The INF Treaty: A Spectacular, Inflexible, Time-bound Success

This article discusses the changing dynamics that led first Moscow and then Washington to reevaluate the merit of the INF Treaty. It concludes that the treaty's relative rigidity may play a key role in its undoing and suggests that future arms control negotiations develop more flexible and resilient mechanisms of review, dispute resolution, and verification.