[Sci-tech-public] STS Brown Bag Lunch Talk, November 7th at noon

[Debbie Meinbresse]

Please join us next Wednesday, November 7th, for an STS BROWN BAG LUNCH TALK

Understanding Successful Proliferators: How the 
most undeveloped nations get the world's most dangerous weapons

Speaker: Geoff Forden, MIT

12:00 noon, MIT, E51-191

Dr. Forden has been at MIT since 2000 where his 
research includes the analysis of Russian and 
Chinese space systems as well as trying to 
understand how proliferators acquire the know-how 
and industrial infrastructure to produce weapons 
of mass destruction.  In 2002-2003, Dr. Forden 
spent a year on leave from MIT serving as the 
first Chief of Multidiscipline Analysis Section 
for UNMOVIC, the UN agency responsible for 
verifying and monitoring the dismantlement of 
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Previous to 
coming to MIT, he was a strategic weapons analyst 
in the National Security Division of the 
Congressional Budget Office after having worked 
at a number of international particle accelerator centers.

Abstract:
The world is at the brink of a sea change in the 
proliferation of weapons of mass 
destruction.  Twenty years ago, supply-side 
regimes like the Nuclear Suppliers Group could 
fairly effectively slow down or even stop the 
spread of nuclear weapons by tightening up the 
export controls of a small group of 
countries.  Today, as the A. Q. Khan network has 
shown, the necessary industrial base is spreading 
around the world.  This talk will examine a 
number of cases where proliferators were 
successful­and several where they were not­in 
getting nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons 
was well as ballistic missiles.  Some of the 
factors that made the difference between 
successful proliferation and failure will be 
discussed.  Future nonproliferation regimes can 
then use those facts to limit the spread of WMD.

Feel free to bring your lunch; coffee and dessert will be provided.
For more information, 617-452-2390





Debbie Meinbresse
STS Program, MIT
617-452-2390
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.mit.edu/pipermail/sci-tech-public/attachments/20071101/52738d60/attachment.htm