Belfast Conference to Explore Nuclear Proliferation Pathways
Contact: Joe Carr at (207) 581-3571
NEWS ADVISORY
ORONO — More than 20 international experts will be in Belfast Thursday July 17 and Friday July 18 to participate in a conference examining the factors that could lead to the spread of nuclear weapons in various hot spots around the world.
The University of Maine’s School of Policy and International Affairs (SPIA) and the Naval Postgraduate School will host the conference, “Tomorrow’s Proliferation Pathways: Weak States, Rogues and Non-States” at UMaine’s Hutchinson Center. The Defense Threat Reduction Agency’s Advanced Systems Concepts Office is the conference sponsor.
Sessions are scheduled for 8 a.m.-5 p.m. each day. A conference agenda is online.
The potential for nuclear weapons to fall into the hands of terrorists groups and states is one of the most vexing problems in contemporary international security discussions and planning. At the conference, experts will discuss this issue from various geographic perspectives, including South Asia, the Middle East and Russia. Sessions will also focus attention on rogue states and non-states, along with methods for detecting and shutting down proliferation pathways.
This conference represents another example of SPIA’s ongoing collaboration with leading national and international organizations to increase high-level discourse about important international relations issues. In addition to the Naval Postgraduate School and Defense Threat Reduction Agency, SPIA has partnered with National Defense University, Emirates Center for Strategic Studies and Research, and other educational and research institutions on these projects during the past two years.