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The Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies presents

The 12th Annual Kenneth N. Waltz Lecture in International Relations

“Nuclear Scripts: Stories of War and Deterrence”

with Sir Lawrence Freedman, Professor Emeritus of War Studies, King’s College, London

Hosted by Keren Yarhi-Milo, Director, Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies

Commentary by Richard K. Betts, Leo A. Shifrin Professor of War and Peace Studies, Department of Political Science

Bios:

Sir Lawrence Freedman, KCMG, CBE, PC, FBA, is Professor Emeritus of War Studies at King’s College London, where he taught and conducted research from 1982 to 2014, and was Vice-Principal from 2003 to 2013. He was educated at Whitley Bay Grammar School and the Universities of Manchester, York and Oxford. Before joining King’s he held research appointments at Nuffield College Oxford, IISS and the Royal Institute of International Affairs. Elected a Fellow of the British Academy in 1995 and awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) in 1996, he was appointed Official Historian of the Falklands Campaign in 1997. He was awarded the KCMG (Knight Commander of St Michael and St George) in 2003. In June 2009 he was appointed to serve as a member of the official inquiry into Britain and the 2003 Iraq War. Freedman has written extensively on nuclear strategy and the cold war, as well as commentating regularly on contemporary security issues. Among his books are Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos and Vietnam (2000), The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (3rd edition 2004), Deterrence (2005), the two volume Official History of the Falklands Campaign (second edition 2007) and an Adelphi Paper on The Transformation in Strategic Affairs (2004). A Choice of Enemies: America confronts the Middle East, won the 2009 Lionel Gelber Prize and Duke of Westminster Medal for Military Literature. His most recent book is Strategy: A History (2013) was awarded the W J McKenzie Book Prize by the Political Studies association. 

Keren Yarhi-Milo is the Director of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Her research and teaching focus on international relations and foreign policy, with a particular specialization in international security, including foreign policy decision-making, interstate communication and crisis bargaining, intelligence, and US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Yarhi-Milo’s first book (Princeton University Press, 2014) titled, Knowing The Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence Organizations, and Assessments of Intentions in International Relations, received the 2016 Furnnis Award for best book in the field of international security. Also, it is Co-Winner of the 2016 DPLST Book Prize, Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association. This book explores how and why civilian leaders and intelligence organizations select and interpret an adversary’s signals of intentions differently. Her new book, titled, Who Fights for Reputation? The Psychology of Leaders in International Conflict, came out with Princeton University Press (2018) and received the 2019 Best Book Award on Foreign Policy from the American Political Science Association. It also won the Biennial Best Foreign Policy Book Award from the International Studies Association, which will be presented at the 2021 ISA Annual Convention. The ISA committee stated that Yarhi-Milo’s book “considers a long-debated question in international relations — whether reputation matters,” and “impressively showcases how to integrate different theories and methods from multiple disciplines in understanding leaders’ decision making in Foreign Policy Analysis.”

Yarhi-Milo’s articles have been published or are forthcoming in International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, International Security, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Affairs, and Security Studies.

Before joining the faculty at Columbia University, she was an Associate Professor (with tenure) of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Politics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. She was previously a post-doc fellow at the Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a pre-doc fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University.

Richard K. Betts is the Leo A. Shifrin Professor of War and Peace Studies in the department of political science, and Director of the International Security Policy program in the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University. He served as the Saltzman  Institute Director for over 24 years.  Betts was Director of National Security Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations for four years, and is now an adjunct Senior Fellow there. Previously he was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and Adjunct Lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University’s Nitze School of Advanced International Studies. Betts also served at different times on the Harvard University faculty as Lecturer and Visiting Professor. He received his B.A., M.A., and Ph.D. in Government from Harvard.

A former staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, the National Security Council, and the Mondale Presidential Campaign, Betts has been an occasional consultant to the National Intelligence Council and Departments of State and Defense, served on the Military Advisory Panel for three Directors of Central Intelligence in the 1990s and later on the External Advisory Board for the Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, and was a member of the National Commission on Terrorism. He lectures occasionally at schools such as the National War College, Foreign Service Institute, and service academies. He served briefly as an officer in the U.S. Army.

Betts’ first book, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold War Crises, originally published by Harvard University Press, was issued in a second edition by Columbia University Press. He is author of two other Columbia University Press books: Enemies of Intelligence and American Force; three books published by the Brookings Institution: Surprise Attack, Nuclear Blackmail and Nuclear Balance, and Military Readiness; coauthor and editor of three other Brookings books: The Irony of Vietnam, Nonproliferation and U.S. Foreign Policy, and Cruise Missiles; editor of Conflict After the Cold War, published by Pearson; and coeditor of Paradoxes of Strategic Intelligence, from Cass. Betts has published numerous articles on foreign policy, military strategy, intelligence, conventional forces, nuclear weapons, arms trade, collective security, strategic issues in Asia and Europe, terrorism, and other subjects in professional journals. His writings won five prizes, and he received the International Studies Association’s ISSS Distinguished Scholar Award in 2005 and MIT’s Doolittle Award in 2012.