Nuclear Proliferation and International Politics

Nuclear weapons reshaped what states can credibly threaten, deter, and bargain over, and this course is really about working out the political logic of that shift — why some countries chase the bomb, why others spend enormous effort stopping them, and what the resulting order looks like seventy years on. You'll move through the proliferation literature week by week, sit through an in-class simulation, take a midterm and final, and give a presentation pulling apart a specific case or counter-proliferation tool. It's a senior IR elective that assumes you already have the security-studies vocabulary down, and it pairs naturally with deterrence, arms-control, and Middle East politics courses if you're heading toward graduate work or policy.