A Nuclear Iran - Promoting Stability or Courting Disaster?

Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz use the context of Iran to update the debate that began with their seminal work, `The Spread of Nuclear Weapons:  A Debate`, published in 1995.

In 1995, Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz published their seminal work, "The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate." They staked out opposite ends of the theoretical spectrum with Waltz arguing that "more [nuclear armed states] could be better" and Sagan responding that "more will be worse."

On February 8th, 2007 at SIPA, they updated their famed debate in the context of Iran. Will a nuclear-armed Iran be a source of stability in the world, or will it bring the Middle East to the brink of disaster?

Sagan and Waltz debate this question along with questions on the appropriate U.S. foreign policy in the Gulf, the efficacy of sanctions in restraining Iranian nuclear ambitions, the likely response of Iran's neighbors and many others.

Scott Sagan is co-director of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and served as a special assistant to the director of the organization of the Joint Chief of Staff in the Pentagon.

Kenneth Waltz is one of the pillars of American political science and co-founder of the structural realism theory of international relations. He is a Senior Research Scholar at Columbia University and a Ford professor emeritus at UC Berkeley.

Richard Betts is the director of Columbia's Satlzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and has served on the both the National Security Council and the National Commission on Terrorism.

(Feb 8, 2007 at Columbia University, School of International and Public Affairs)

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