In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Hanna and Sarah are joined by Rose McDermott, the David and Marianna Fisher University Professor of International Relations at Brown University. Together, they discuss Professor McDermott's recent article with Reid Pauly on the psychology of nuclear brinkmanship, the under-appreciated role of individuals in nuclear decision-making, and similarities and differences between the psychologies of political elites and the general population. They also consider more generally how and where political psychology and behavioral economics can enhance security studies by challenging normative assumptions about nuclear decision-making and shedding light on the ways that individuals actually behave in the face of uncertainty. Their conversation concludes with an exploration of the policy implications of Professor McDermott's findings and ways to more effectively bridge the gap between scholarship and practice.

In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Sarah and Hanna speak with Ankit Panda, who is the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. They begin their wide-ranging discussion with a review of Ankit's 2020 book "Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea". Sarah, Hanna, and Ankit then engage in an exchange on current developments on the Korean Peninsula, North Korea's cooperation with Russia, and the need to treat North Korea as a problem of nuclear risk reduction, among other issues. They end by discussing the challenges of studying North Korean nuclear weapons issues and how academia and policy-makers can most fruitfully interact.

In this episode of Machiavelli in the Ivory Tower, hosts Sarah and Hanna speak with Rose Gottemoeller, who is the Steven C. Hazy lecturer at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). Prior to joining Stanford, Ms. Gottemoeller served as the Deputy Secretary General of NATO and, before that, as Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the US Department of State. They begin their wide-ranging conversation with a discussion of the challenges and policy recommendations that Ms. Gottemoeller raised in a recent piece for the Financial Times, in which she argued that the “West must act now to break Russia’s nuclear fever.” They then turn their attention to one example of this “nuclear fever,” namely, recent debates within Russia’s strategic community about the utility and necessity of nuclear use. From here, they analyze prospects for nuclear risk reduction, the implications of Russia’s planned deployments of non-strategic nuclear weapons in Belarus, the future of multilateral nuclear diplomacy post-February 2022, and NATO’s upcoming summit in Vilnius. They conclude their conversation with Ms. Gottemoeller’s observations about how policymakers, analysts, and academics interact with the American system and why this mode of interaction strengthens national and international security. Topics: 1. Russia’s Nuclear Fever

2. The nuclear debate in Russia 3. The future of US-Russia arms control 4. Russia’s nuclear deployments to Belarus 5. Nuclear sharing at the 2023 NPT PrepCom 6. The art of the possible in multilateral nuclear diplomacy 7. Options for nuclear risk reduction 8. The 2023 NATO summit in Vilnius 9. Bridging the gap between policymakers and scholarsDescription forthcoming