Assurances are integral to the logic of deterrence. They clarify the choice: war or peace. Preventing war over Taiwan requires that we get this right and pair threats with assurance. Thanks Jessica Chen Weiss Bonnie Glaser / 葛來儀 🇺🇦 and Tom Christensen for this piece, and for the shout-out🙏

Deterrence has been widely misunderstood as simply a matter of signaling the capability and resolve to fight. Alongside credible threats, credible assurances are an integral part of deterrence, as theory and scholarship have shown reidpauly.com/home-1 journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.108…

'And it is precisely because the United States should ... help strengthen Taiwan’s defenses that it must also provide clearer and more persistently conveyed assurances.' 🎯

Gratified to see my work on assurances, along with Reid Pauly and others, applied to US-China policy.

1)
***Announcement***

The new Fall 2023 issue is online!

Read articles by Jonathan Mercer, Aroop Mukharji, Richard Maass, Kacie Miura, and Ling Chen and Miles Evers.
direct.mit.edu/isec/issue

<THREAD> Amid growing perceptions of regional insecurity, missile capabilities are quickly proliferating in Asia. My new Carnegie Endowment report examines the drivers and consequences of the spread of these new capabilities.

PDF: carnegieendowment.org/files/Panda_In…

1/n carnegieendowment.org/2023/10/31/ind…

Always glad to have you back Brown University Political Science, Lauren Sukin!

A pleasure to host you James W. Davis!

If you're interested in the The New York Times piece on psychology and nuclear use, you'll like this ungated piece in @Journal_IS from Reid Pauly and Rose McDermott at Brown University The MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social Belfer Center direct.mit.edu/isec/article/4…

The New York Times 2/2 For more, see the recent H-Diplo, with RJISSF roundtable, feat Rose McDermott, Reid Pauly, Marika Landau-Wells, Janice Stein, Jacques Hymans, and me issforum.org/policy-roundta…

Great H-Diplo, with RJISSF roundtable on @Journal_IS article from Reid Pauly and Rose McDermott. Brown University Belfer Center The MIT Press @mitpress.bsky.social

Great article on the need to revive nuclear philanthropy from my colleague Matthew Gentzel and Christian Ruhl:
#nuclear #oppenheimer vox.com/future-perfect…

Wake-up call for foundations and donors:

“filmmakers spent three times more money on a single movie about nuclear war than philanthropists are spending on preventing nuclear war.”
vox.com/future-perfect…

Here is the original @Journal_IS article on 'The Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship' (ungated): direct.mit.edu/isec/article/4…

'The Special Fear of Nuclear Weapons' - my contribution to a new H-Diplo, with RJISSF roundtable on Reid Pauly and Rose McDermott's @Journal_IS piece on brinkmanship issforum.org/policy-roundta…

An awesome new roundtable on nuclear brinkmanship! Thank you to H-Diplo, with RJISSF and the stellar lineup of collaborators: Jacques Hymans, Janice Stein, Rose McDermott, Josh Rovner, and Marika Landau-Wells.
issforum.org/ISSF/PDF/RJISS…

🧨This fall, I will chair a 'Climate Policy and Social Science' faculty search - open rank, open discipline - for Watson Institute. 🧨
The selected candidate will be also in a relevant dept (as I am, 50% polisci). Please consider applying! 👇
apply.interfolio.com/127027

Thrilled to share that as of July 1, I have joined the faculty at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I am now Associate Professor of Political Science and a member of the Security Studies Program. 1/4

ProfTalmadge joins the MITPoliticalScience faculty, bringing expertise in nuclear deterrence and escalation, U.S. military operations and strategy, and security issues in Asia and the Persian Gulf.

Read Rose McDermott, Reid Pauly, and Paul Slovic on the psychological biases and pathologies that can shape an individual’s perception of nuclear war—and how they may apply to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
trib.al/Ywx5cBs

Read Rose McDermott, Reid Pauly, and Paul Slovic on the psychological biases and pathologies that can shape an individual’s perception of nuclear war—and how they may apply to Russian President Vladimir Putin.
trib.al/IbL5pRT