I am an assistant professor in the Defense Analysis Department at the Naval Postgraduate School and a nonresident fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
I study how technology shapes coercion, cooperation, and competition among nations.
Book Manuscript
My book explains how the weak coerce the strong with nuclear technology.
In Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology (Oxford University Press, 2023), I present a new framework to explain when small states can use nuclear latency—the capacity to build atomic weapons—to compel concessions from larger superpowers.
I find that coercion creates a dilemma between making threats and assurances credible. States need just enough bomb-making capacity to threaten proliferation, but not so much that it becomes too difficult to promise nuclear restraint.
Recent Research
How does technology shape international cooperation? In a new article for International Organization, Jane Vaynman and I find that the dual use nature of modern technology plays a key role in enabling or blocking arms control agreements. We characterize technology along two dual use dimensions: the ease of distinguishing military from civilian uses; and the degree of integration within military enterprises and the civilian economy. As these attributes vary, so do prospects for cooperation. We develop a new qualitative dataset that assesses these factors across all technologies that states have used to arm themselves in the modern era. Our research also specifies why contemporary efforts to control Artificial Intelligence face major challenges.
About Me
My work has appeared in peer-review journals such as International Organization, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and the Nonproliferation Review. I also write for general policy audiences in journals such as Foreign Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
I live and work on the Monterey Peninsula in California, USA. In the past, I was a fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and then the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I received degrees in political science from the George Washington University (Ph.D.) and the University of California, Los Angeles (B.A.). You can reach me via email: tvolpe1[at]nps.edu.