Register for the Next STRI Webinar: Dual-Use Technological Innovation: National Models, Military Integration, and Proliferation Risks
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STRI invites you to register in the third event of the series, “Dual-Use Technological Innovation: National Models, Military Integration, and Proliferation Risks” featuring Amy Nelson of the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) and the National Defense University, and Alex Montgomery of Reed College.
Today, national models of innovation are being reshaped with state goals for dual-use emerging technologies in mind--be they security-driven or economic. In doing so, states face increasing trade-offs as the structure of their national models evolve to achieve chosen ends, making R&D infrastructure less flexible in the long run and forging increasingly irreversible paths to proliferation. Whatever the motivating force, the innovation boom as it impacts the rapid emergence of novel, evolving dual-use technologies inevitably facilitates downstream risk.
The webinar speakers will discuss the new drivers reshaping national models to foster rapid innovation for emerging technologies, the extent to which these end products are destined for battlefield or markets abroad, and what are the risks as novel dual-use technologies "get out." The speakers will also explore mechanisms for preventing proliferation increasingly characterized by "digital diffusion," and how greater international cooperation could help.
The webinar will also give participants a chance to engage in Q&A regarding the speakers' associated recent publications on this topic:
Amy J. Nelson, "Innovation and Its Discontents: National Models of Military Innovation and the Dual-Use Conundrum," CISSM Report, July 2020.
Alex Montgomery, "Double or Nothing?The Effects of the Diffusion of Dual-Use Enabling Technologies on Strategic Stability," CISSM Working Paper, July 2020.
About the Speakers
Dr. Amy J. Nelson, Ph.D.
Dr. Amy J. Nelson is a Research Associate at CISSM and conducted this study in this capacity with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She is also a Fellow at the National Defense University’s Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Her research focuses on disruptive technologies and their impact on proliferation, as well as improving the efficacy of arms control. She was previously a Robert Bosch Fellow in residence at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin, Germany where her research focused on the state of German military innovation and prospects for U.S.-German competition and cooperation. Prior to that, Nelson was a Nonresident Fellow at the Stimson Center, a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a policy analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls in Washington, D.C. She held pre-doctoral fellowships at the Stimson Center and SIPRI North America, and conducted research as a member of the U.S. arms control delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which maintains the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. Nelson's writings have appeared in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Studies Quarterly, the National Interest, the Washington Post, War on the Rocks, the International Business Times, the Millennium Journal of International Studies, Political Psychology and the Journal of Neurophysiology. She received her A.B. in Philosophy with honors from Stanford University, has an M.A. in Intellectual History from Columbia University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Alex Montgomery, Ph.D.
Alexander H. Montgomery is an associate professor of Political Science at Reed College. He has a B.A. in Physics from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. While at Stanford, his work was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. He has been a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in Nuclear Security with a placement in the US Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy) working for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction from 2012–2013. His portfolio included writing a new Department of Defense Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. He has been a joint International Security Program/Managing the Atom Project Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; a post-doctoral fellow and a visiting assistant professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University; and a residential fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He has also worked as a research associate in high energy physics on the BaBar experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Center for International Security Affairs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has published articles on nuclear proliferation and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict, and is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Political Networks (2017) with Jennifer Nicoll Victor and Mark Lubell. His research interests include political organizations, social networks, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations.
STRI invites you to register in the third event of the series, “Dual-Use Technological Innovation: National Models, Military Integration, and Proliferation Risks” featuring Amy Nelson of the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) and the National Defense University, and Alex Montgomery of Reed College.
Today, national models of innovation are being reshaped with state goals for dual-use emerging technologies in mind--be they security-driven or economic. In doing so, states face increasing trade-offs as the structure of their national models evolve to achieve chosen ends, making R&D infrastructure less flexible in the long run and forging increasingly irreversible paths to proliferation. Whatever the motivating force, the innovation boom as it impacts the rapid emergence of novel, evolving dual-use technologies inevitably facilitates downstream risk.
The webinar speakers will discuss the new drivers reshaping national models to foster rapid innovation for emerging technologies, the extent to which these end products are destined for battlefield or markets abroad, and what are the risks as novel dual-use technologies "get out." The speakers will also explore mechanisms for preventing proliferation increasingly characterized by "digital diffusion," and how greater international cooperation could help.
The webinar will also give participants a chance to engage in Q&A regarding the speakers' associated recent publications on this topic:
Amy J. Nelson, "Innovation and Its Discontents: National Models of Military Innovation and the Dual-Use Conundrum," CISSM Report, July 2020.
Alex Montgomery, "Double or Nothing?The Effects of the Diffusion of Dual-Use Enabling Technologies on Strategic Stability," CISSM Working Paper, July 2020.
About the Speakers
Dr. Amy J. Nelson, Ph.D.
Dr. Amy J. Nelson is a Research Associate at CISSM and conducted this study in this capacity with funding from the Carnegie Corporation of New York. She is also a Fellow at the National Defense University’s Center for the Study of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Her research focuses on disruptive technologies and their impact on proliferation, as well as improving the efficacy of arms control. She was previously a Robert Bosch Fellow in residence at the German Council on Foreign Relations (DGAP) in Berlin, Germany where her research focused on the state of German military innovation and prospects for U.S.-German competition and cooperation. Prior to that, Nelson was a Nonresident Fellow at the Stimson Center, a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, and a policy analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, Directorate of Defense Trade Controls in Washington, D.C. She held pre-doctoral fellowships at the Stimson Center and SIPRI North America, and conducted research as a member of the U.S. arms control delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which maintains the Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) Treaty. Nelson's writings have appeared in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, Strategic Studies Quarterly, the National Interest, the Washington Post, War on the Rocks, the International Business Times, the Millennium Journal of International Studies, Political Psychology and the Journal of Neurophysiology. She received her A.B. in Philosophy with honors from Stanford University, has an M.A. in Intellectual History from Columbia University, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley.
Alex Montgomery, Ph.D.
Alexander H. Montgomery is an associate professor of Political Science at Reed College. He has a B.A. in Physics from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley, and an M.A. in Sociology and a Ph.D. in Political Science from Stanford University. While at Stanford, his work was supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. He has been a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow in Nuclear Security with a placement in the US Office of the Secretary of Defense (Policy) working for the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction from 2012–2013. His portfolio included writing a new Department of Defense Strategy for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction. He has been a joint International Security Program/Managing the Atom Project Research Fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; a post-doctoral fellow and a visiting assistant professor at the Center for International Security and Cooperation, Stanford University; and a residential fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. He has also worked as a research associate in high energy physics on the BaBar experiment at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and as a graduate research assistant at the Center for International Security Affairs at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He has published articles on nuclear proliferation and on the effects of social networks of international organizations on interstate conflict, and is the co-editor of the Oxford Handbook of Political Networks (2017) with Jennifer Nicoll Victor and Mark Lubell. His research interests include political organizations, social networks, weapons of mass disruption and destruction, social studies of technology, and interstate social relations.