Managing Nuclear Risk

This seminar will begin with an examination of history's closest call to a major nuclear war: The Cuban missile crisis of October 1962 and research on the crisis over the past 25 years. Students will have online ccess to declassified documents, oral testimony and scholarly analysis of the crisis from all over the world. The seminar will then shift gears to an in-depth consideration of the degree to which the lessons of the missile crisis illuminate the evolving Iranian nuclear crisis. Each student will work with the insdtructors throughout the semester to identify a suitable topic for an original research paper which may be primarily historical, or policy oriented, or a hybrid of the two. The seminar is open to any student with a strong interest in these topics, regardless of departmental affiliation.