January 22, 2007

UCSB Scholar to Discuss International Security, Regional Politics, and the Nuclear Club

Following the end of the Cold War, both North Korea and Iran defied international regulatory agreements to develop nuclear weapons programs, and in recent years have stepped up their production activities. The addition of these nations to the Nuclear Club poses new threats to the international community.

Jessica Chapman, executive director of the Center for Cold War Studies and a faculty fellow in the Department of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara, will explore the past and future of international security and regional politics in light of this new wave of nuclear development in a lecture titled "What's Happening to the Nuclear Club? International Security and Regional Politics in Asia and the Middle East."

Sponsored by the UCSB History Associates and the UCSB Affiliates, Chapman's talk will take place Tuesday, Feb. 6, at 5:30 p.m. at Chase Palm Park Recreation Center, 236 E. Cabrillo Blvd. A reception at 5 p.m. precedes the lecture. Admission is $10 for UCSB History Associates, UCSB Affiliates, and Chancellor's Council members, and $11 for the general public. Advance registration is recommended by calling the UCSB Office of Community Relations at 893-4388.

North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs have rendered the old international regulatory system moot, Chapman says, thereby challenging the global community to devise an adequate response to the new nuclear threat.

Chapman received her Ph.D. from UCSB in 2006, with a dissertation titled "Debating the Will of Heaven: South Vietnamese Politics and Nationalism in International Perspective, 1953-56." Her articles have appeared in the journals Diplomatic History, The Public Historian, and Magazine of History, a publication of the Organization of American Historians.

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