The End of Strategic Stability? Nuclear Weapons and the Challenge of Regional Rivalries

Lawrence Rubin

Lawrence Rubin is an Associate Professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at the Georgia Institute of Technology. His research focuses on Middle East politics and international security, and he has conducted fieldwork in Morocco, Egypt, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.

From 2017–2018, Rubin served as a Senior Advisor in the Office of the Secretary of Defense for Policy through a Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship in nuclear security, sponsored by the Stanton Foundation. In this role, he worked in both the Middle East Policy and Countering WMD offices.

Rubin is the author and editor of three books: The End of Strategic Stability? Nuclear Weapons and the Challenge of Regional Rivalries (Georgetown University Press, 2018, with Adam Stulberg), Islam in the Balance: Ideational Threats in Arab Politics (Stanford University Press, 2014), and Terrorist Rehabilitation and Counter-Radicalisation: New Approaches to Counter-Terrorism (Routledge, 2011, with Rohan Gunaratna and Jolene Jerard). His academic and policy work has appeared in International Studies Review, Politics, Religion & Ideology, Democracy and Security, International Area Studies Review, Middle East Policy, Terrorism and Political Violence, Contemporary Security Policy, British Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, Lawfare, the Brookings Institution, The National Interest, The Washington Quarterly, and The Washington Post.

He has held positions at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs (Harvard Kennedy School), the Crown Center for Middle East Studies (Brandeis University), National Defense University, and the RAND Corporation. Rubin currently serves as Associate Editor for Terrorism and Political Violence and as a Senior Advisor for the United States Institute of Peace’s Task Force on Extremism in Fragile States.

He earned his PhD in Political Science from UCLA (2009) and holds degrees from the University of Oxford, the London School of Economics, and UC Berkeley.

Adam N. Stulberg

Neal Family Professor, Associate Chair for Research, and Co-Director, Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy (CISTP)
Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology

Adam N. Stulberg is the Neal Family Professor, Associate Chair for Research, and Co-Director of the Center for International Strategy, Technology, and Policy (CISTP) in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech. He teaches undergraduate and graduate courses on international security; global nuclear security and (non)proliferation; energy and international security; Eurasian politics and security affairs; and interdisciplinary courses on science, technology, and international security policy. His current research focuses on strategic stability, illicit nuclear trafficking networks, nuclear fuel cycle internationalization, diffusion of tacit nuclear knowledge, nuclear industry and nonproliferation, Russia’s gray-zone conflict behavior, and energy security statecraft.

Dr. Stulberg earned his PhD in Political Science from UCLA, an MA in International Affairs from Columbia University, and a BA in History from the University of Michigan. He previously served as a Political Consultant at RAND (1987–1997) and Senior Research Associate at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), Monterey Institute of International Studies (1997–1998). He has worked closely with former Senator Sam Nunn on policy recommendations for the U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, Euro-Atlantic confidence building, regional and energy security regimes in Central Asia and the South Caucasus, and U.S.–Russia strategic engagement.

His past roles include Post-Doctoral Fellow at CNS (2000–2001), Policy Scholar at the EastWest Institute, and consultant to the Carnegie Corporation of New York (2000–2010) and the Office of Net Assessment, U.S. Secretary of Defense (2000–2016). He serves on the Executive Committee of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Technical Group, American Nuclear Society, and is Associate Director of Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Institute.

Dr. Stulberg is the author or editor of five books, including The End of Strategic Stability? Nuclear Weapons and the Challenge of Regional Rivalries (Georgetown University Press, 2018, with Lawrence Rubin), The Nuclear Renaissance and International Security (Stanford University Press, 2013, with Matthew Fuhrmann), and Well-Oiled Diplomacy: Strategic Manipulation and Russia’s Energy Statecraft in Eurasia (SUNY Press, 2007). His work has been published in Foreign Affairs, Security Studies, Review of International Political Economy, Energy Research & Social Science, Orbis, Problems of Post-Communism, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and other leading journals.

He has served as Principal Investigator or Co-PI on numerous institutional grants supported by the Department of Defense, Carnegie Corporation of New York, MacArthur Foundation, Scaife Foundation, and Korea Foundation, among others. He is currently a member of the “Strategic Stability Working Group” of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.