Nuclear Weapons and Grand Strategy featuring Dr. Francis Gavin

History Does You

Nuclear Weapons are the most destructive invention ever created in human society but they only have been used twice in armed conflict. The global threat of these weapons has only deepened in the following decades as more advanced weapons, aggressive strategies, and new nuclear powers emerged. We explore how the Cold War initially shaped the policies regarding Nuclear Weapons as well as the Nuclear era after the Cold War. To help explain we interview Dr. Francis Gavin who is the Giovanni Agnelli Distinguished Professor and the inaugural director of the Henry A. Kissinger Center for Global Affairs at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In 2013, he was appointed the first Frank Stanton Chair in Nuclear Security Policy Studies and Professor of Political Science at MIT. Before joining MIT, he was the Tom Slick Professor of International Affairs and the Director of the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law at the University of Texas. He has written numerous books including Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age and Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy.