Professor; Director, East Asia Nonproliferation Project (EANP)
- Office
- 499 Van Buren Street, Rm. 229
- Tel
- (831) 647-6616
- jlewis@miis.edu
Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is the director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at CNS. Before coming to CNS, he was the director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation. Prior to that, he was executive director of the Managing the Atom Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, executive director of the Association of Professional Schools of International Affairs, a visiting fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and a desk officer in the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Policy.
At the Middlebury Institute, He teaches courses on arms control issues in Northeast Asia and Chinese nuclear policy. The work of his team was recently covered in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and VICE. He is the author of Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (MIT Press, 2007), and Paper Tigers: China’s Nuclear Posture (IISS, 2014). He is a regular columnist for Foreign Policy, and has published articles in Foreign Affairs, the Washington Post, and The New York Times. He is the founder of ArmsControlWonk.com, the leading blog and podcast on disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation.
Courses Taught
Courses offered in the past two years.
- Current term ●
- Upcoming term(s) ○
NPTG 8517 / IEPG 9517 / ITDG 9517 / DPPG 9517 - IntlCrisis NegotiationExercise
International Crisis Negotiation Exercise
This exercise will use the Korean Six-Party talks to provide participants with the opportunity to learn and apply skills in regional situation analysis, negotiation techniques, strategic thinking, leadership, planning, crisis management, decision-making, team-building and time management. Along with participants from other area educational institutions, participants are divided into delegations representing the six participating nations (China, North Korea, South Korea, Japan, the United States, and Russia). Under the mentorship of faculty and guest experts, students organize delegations, plan, strategize, negotiate, and promote national interests in an attempt to resolve the escalating nuclear crisis on the Korean Peninsula.
The International Strategic Crisis Negotiation Exercise (ISCNE) is a US Army War College sponsored, Middlebury Institute hosted simulation that allows participants to tackle real-world, contemporary geopolitical problems. This exercise is designed to engage and educate participants in the process and substance of crisis negotiations at the international level over a three-day period. The intent is for the participants to gain experience in negotiations at the strategic level to come away with a greater understanding of the complexity of the problem and the effort that goes into the pursuit of a resolution to a regional crisis that has broad international implications. The educational rigor is drawn from the participant’s own endeavors as members selected to be part of a nation’s negotiation team. Each team engages with their counterparts within the framework of a United Nations’ mandated peace conference in an effort to resolve a long-standing, potentially volatile crisis. This experiential learning event will help expose students to the complexity of negotiating with nations that have diverse and often irreconcilable positions and objectives. The key learning objective is the realistic search for overlapping interests that could permit progress to be made in resolving conflict.
Spring 2020 - MIIS, MIIS Workshop
NPTG 8510 - Security&ArmsCntrl-N East Asia ●
This course will examine contemporary issues relating to nuclear arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation in Northeast Asia. Topics to be examined include China's strategic modernization, North Korea's nuclear and ballistic missile programs, and US extended deterrence commitments to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.
Spring 2019 - MIIS, Spring 2020 - MIIS
NPTG 8563 - Evolutn ofChineseNuclearPolicy
This course, on the evolution of Chinese nuclear policy, is divided into three parts. The first part outlines early Chinese attitudes to nuclear weapons, proliferation and disarmament, prior to and immediately following China’s nuclear test in 1964. The second part examines enduring concepts in Chinese nuclear policy, such as No First Use, and introduces students to important debates in China since the 1980s on nuclear deterrence. The third part focuses on contemporary issues and challenges that shape Chinese nuclear policy, from ballistic missile defense, to the South Asian nuclear tests in 1999, and the North Korean nuclear crisis. The nature of the US-China nuclear relationship will also be explored. The principal objective of the course is to give students a better understanding of China’s nuclear policy, both past and present. A secondary objective is to introduce to students key literature and sources, both in English and Chinese, on this issue.
Fall 2018 - MIIS, Fall 2019 - MIIS
INTD 1219 - Nonproliferation Tools & Tech
Applying New Tools and Technologies to Today's Security challenges on the Korean Peninsula
In 2017, North Korea tested a missile capable of delivering a powerful thermonuclear weapon against cities throughout the United States. How do scholars study international security challenges like the spread of nuclear weapons? In this course, students will develop an open source intelligence toolkit applicable to a broad universe of international security challenges, with special focus on nuclear weapons and North Korea. No prior knowledge is assumed, and students outside political science are encouraged to participate. The tools covered, such as satellite imagery, have broad applicability beyond nonproliferation, to areas such as human trafficking, climate change, oceans policy, and counterterrorism.
WTR
Winter 2019
Areas of Interest
Dr. Jeffrey Lewis is interested in nonproliferation and arms control issues in Asia, the role of intelligence, and applying new tools to open source intelligence.
Programs
Research Centers
Academic Degrees
- PhD in Policy Studies (International Security and Economic Policy), University of Maryland
- BA in Philosophy and Political Science, Augustana College
Dr. Lewis has been teaching at the Institute since 2012.
Publications
Dr. Lewis is the author of Minimum Means of Reprisal: China's Search for Security in the Nuclear Age (MIT Press, 2007) and publishes ArmsControlWonk.com, the leading blog on disarmament, arms control and nonproliferation.
