After considering trends in the role of nuclear weapons and some lessons from history, this presentation examines nuclear signaling in the context of the evolving role of nuclear weapons (for deterrence and dissuasion, among other purposes) and likely developments of U.S. nuclear forces and their concepts of operation for regional crises. Following the development of a 2015 regional crisis scenario, the utility of potential signaling options are examined in light of current U.S. nuclear force development trends. Options for future U.S. nuclear force and concepts development for signaling as part of overall tailored deterrence are identified and examined.

Owen Price is a consulting visiting fellow in the Center for Strategic and International Studies International Security Program, on sabbatical until March 2007 from the U.K. Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE), where he has worked for 12 years. Most recently, he led a team of systems engineers working on AWE capability programs, work designed to ensure that AWE continues to be able to design and field new warheads of tasked to do so by the British government. From 2000 to 2003, he led the AWE Verification Research Program, was a technical adviser to the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and was a member of the U.K. delegation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty Preparatory Committee Meetings in 2003 and 2004. Price holds an MA in engineering from the University of Cambridge, England, and an MBA in engineering management from the University of Bradford, England. He is currently reading (part time) for an MSc in systems engineering at the U.K. Defense Academy, Cranfield University, Shrivenham, England. He is a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies and is a British national.

Ian McEwan was born in Aldershot, England, but spent much of his childhood in the Far East, Germany, and North Africa. He returned to England to attend Sussex University where he received a BA degree in English Literature in 1970. He was the first student of the MA Creative Writing course established at the University of East Anglia by novelists Malcolm Bradbury and Angus Wilson.

McEwan is a Fellow of both the Royal Society of Literature and the Royal Society of Arts, a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and was awarded the Shakespeare Prize by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation, Hamburg, in 1999. He was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) in 2000.

His works, ranging from novels to short-fiction collections to screenplays, have earned him worldwide critical acclaim. His commendations include the Somerset Maugham Award in 1976 for his first collection of short stories First Love, Last Rites; Whitbread Novel Award (1987) and Prix Fémina Etranger (1993) for The Child in Time; and Germany's Shakespeare Prize in 1999. He has been shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction three times, winning the award for Amsterdam in 1998. His novel Atonement received the WH Smith Literary Award (2002), National Book Critics' Circle Fiction Award (2003), Los Angeles Times Prize for Fiction (2003), and the Santiago Prize for the European Novel (2004).

http://www.ianmcewan.com/

Event cosponsored by the Forum on Contemporary Europe.

Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei is the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an intergovernmental organization that is part of the United Nations system. He was appointed to the office effective December 1, 1997, and reappointed to a third term in September 2005.

Dr. ElBaradei was born in Cairo, Egypt, in 1942. He earned a Bachelor´s degree in Law in 1962 at the University of Cairo, and a Doctorate in International Law at the New York University School of Law in 1974. He began his career in the Egyptian Diplomatic Service in 1964. From 1974 to 1978 he was a special assistant to the Foreign Minister of Egypt. In 1980 he left the Diplomatic Service to join the United Nations and became a senior fellow in charge of the International Law Program at the United Nations Institute for Training and Research. From 1981 to 1987 he was also an Adjunct Professor of International Law at the New York University School of Law.

In October 2005, Dr. ElBaradei and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for efforts "to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy for peaceful purposes is used in the safest possible way." In addition, he has received multiple other awards for his work. These include the International Four Freedoms award from the Roosevelt Institute, the James Park Morton Interfaith Award, and the Golden Plate Award from the Academy of Achievement. Dr. ElBaradei is also the recipient of a number of honorary degrees and decorations, including a Doctorate of Laws from New York University and the Nile Collar - the highest Egyptian decoration.

Dr. ElBaradei is married to Aida Elkachef, an early childhood teacher. They have a daughter, Laila, a lawyer in private practice, and a son, Mostafa, a studio director with a television network, both of whom live and work in London, England.

Introduction by Professor John W. Etchemendy, Provost, Stanford University.

The United Nations Secretariat--the main part of the UN bureaucracy directly under the Secretary-General--has arguably changed or been challenged more than any other part of the UN system in recent years, with more and more mandates and rising expectations. Though much attention has been given to the reform of the Security Council, and though Washington has made UN 'management reform' a core pillar of its UN policy since the Oil-for-Food scandal, the UN Secretariat has nevertheless proved singularly impervious to even the common sense suggestions for improvement. In many ways, there is a greater gap today than at any time in the past between what the Secretariat does, what it's meant to do, and the capacity it has. Why has improvement been so difficult and what have been the recurrent mistakes of UN reform efforts? With the election of a new Secretary-General due in late 2006, can we think about the UN bureaucracy in a different and more practical way?

Thant Myint-U is a visiting senior fellow at the International Peace Academy. He is also a senior advisor to the Conflict Prevention and Peace Forum at the Social Science Research Council and a Fellow of the Cambridge University Centre for History and Economics.

From 2000-2006 he worked in the United Nations Secretariat, first for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and then for the Department of Political Affairs (DPA). From 2004-5 he was Chief of DPA's Policy Planning Unit of the Department of Political and in 2005-6 he was a Senior Political Officer in the Executive Office of the Secretary-General. In 2004 he was also a member of the Secretariat of the Secretary-General's High Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change.

Thant Myint-U has also served on three United Nations peacekeeping operations, with UNTAC in Cambodia in 1992-3 and with UNPROFOR and UNMIBH in the former Yugoslavia from 1994-6. In 1994 he was the UN's senior spokesman in Sarajavo.

From 1994-1999 Thant Myint-U was a fellow of Trinity College Cambridge, where he researched and taught Asian and British imperial history. He received his bachelor's degree from Harvard University in 1988, his master's degree in international relations from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in 1992 and his PhD in history from Cambridge University in 1996.

He is the author of several published and broadcast works, including two books: The Making of Modern Burma (Cambridge University Press, 2000) and The River of Lost Footsteps: Remembering Burma's Past (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, 2006 forthcoming).

Christopher Hitchens is a columnist for Vanity Fair. His most recent book is Thomas Jefferson: Author of America. His most recent collection of essays is titled Love, Poverty, and War. Mr. Hitchens, longtime contributor to The Nation, wrote a wide-ranging, biweekly column for the magazine from 1982 to 2002. With trademark savage wit, he flattens hypocrisy inside the Beltway and around the world, laying bare the "permanent government" of entrenched powers and interests. Mr. Hitchens has been Washington editor of Harper's and book critic for Newsday, and regularly contributes to such publications as Granta, The London Review of Books, Vogue, New Left Review, Dissent and the Times Literary Supplement.

Born in 1949 in Portsmouth, England, Mr. Hitchens received a degree in philosophy, politics and economics from Balliol College, Oxford, in 1970.

Event Synopsis:

In this presentation Mr. Hitchens presents a "balance sheet" from point of view of those, like him, who advocated regime change in Iraq and hoped that it would have positive effects in Saudi Arabia and Iran as well. He presents areas where progress has not materialized, such as attempts to revive Iraq's badly damaged oil industry. However, he points out political progress made by Kurds in the north of Iraq, and growing pressure on the regimes of Bashar al-Assad in Syria and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya. Attempts to "dry up the swamp" where terrorism breeds have not eliminated but have isolated Islamic fundamentalist terrorism. He urges the international community to "make friends" with moderate forces in Muslim countries which reject terrorism, and to pursue policies that continue to isolate extremist groups.

 A discussion period following the talk raised such questions as: Is there a secular democratic alternative to Hamas? In light of difficulties encountered in establishing democratic governance in Iraq, shouldn't there be a reassessment of the belief system that led to the Iraqi operation? What evidence can be found that Iraq was on the verge of collapse prior to the recent military intervention? How do the happenings in the Middle East translate into a policy regarding North Korea, which is vocal about acquiring weapons of mass destruction? With Saddam Hussein gone, can Iraq remain one country? Is there a risk that intervention in places like Iraq has a galvanizing effect on other enemy groups?