Application deadline extended to May 23, 2008.
Tuition assistance available for graduate students.
A rapidly evolving nuclear landscape poses major challenges and opportunities for the United States. The most critical of these issues include the growing threat of nuclear proliferation and terrorism, the renaissance of civilian nuclear power, and the pressing need to renew the country’s aging intellectual infrastructure of specialists equipped to address America’s nuclear weapons policies.
The Public Policy and Nuclear Threats course is designed to cover important issues in U.S. nuclear strategy and policy, supported by an understanding of the scientific foundations of this policy. This course aims to give participants the knowledge and analytic tools to contribute to the debate on future U.S. nuclear policy.
The three-week course features lectures, discussions, debates and mini-workshops on a wide range of issues. During each week, participants will attend talks by distinguished researchers, academics, policy officials, and operational specialists from the University of California system and other leading universities, the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, the International Atomic Energy Agency, and federal government agencies dealing with nuclear policy, threat, detection, and safeguard issues.
Course Outline
The course is broken into three one-week modules.
Week One: Nuclear Opportunities and Challenges
This module examines the nuclear "renaissance" of civilian nuclear energy and the challenges for nonproliferation that this focus brings. This module also covers the historical development of the current U.S. nuclear force posture and U.S. nuclear strategy. It includes instruction in deterrence theory and practice, U.S. nuclear strategies and use doctrines, and an introduction to the U.S. nuclear policy process. This module introduces students to the fundamentals of technology that are relevant to U.S. nuclear policy, including past and present issues in U.S. warhead production and delivery and the nuclear fuel cycle.
Week One will cover:
Past and future of civilian nuclear power
| Deterrence theory |
| U.S. nuclear policy |
Technical and policy issues in the U.S. nuclear stockpile |
| Nuclear weapon design and delivery systems |
The demand for nuclear proliferation |
Week Two: Nuclear Nonproliferation and Counterproliferation
This module considers proliferation threats from the U.S. perspective. It builds a technical foundation by examining opportunities presented by attribution science. It also examines the challenges of nuclear terrorism and counter-terrorism. Also included are several panels on why actors seek nuclear weapons and the utility of international institutions as tools for nonproliferation and counterproliferation.
Week Two will cover:
The international nonproliferation regime
|
Attribution science and nuclear forensics |
| Counterproliferation strategies |
Nuclear terrorism |
| Safeguards systems, technologies and issues |
|
Week Three: Nuclear Policy Today and Tomorrow
This module assesses the new nuclear threats to the United States from different regions and the potential policy solutions. First, the United States faces a continuing need to consider the changing nuclear postures of great powers like China and Russia. Second, the United States must face the strategic implications posed by new and potential regional nuclear powers, such as North Korea, Iran, India, Pakistan, and the Middle East. The module concludes by comparing these different sources of nuclear threats and examining the competing policy options open to the United States.
Week Three will cover:
U.S. National Nuclear Strategy |
Major power nuclear strategies and doctrines |
| U.S. deterrence policy |
Nuclear proliferation concerns on the Korean Peninsula, Iran, and the Middle East |
For more information about any aspect of hte program, please email igcc-recruiting@ucsd.edu. | 
