Professor explores nuclear proliferation, international cooperation

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Penn State Brandywine

It's no secret that the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom and other countries are suspicious of Iran's nuclear capabilities since discovering in September its covertly-built uranium enrichment plant.

And after a meeting on October 13, in Moscow between Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov and President Dmitry Medvedev, it is still unclear how these countries will respond to such a threat.

Penn State Brandywine

Penn State Brandywine professor Stephen Cimbala, a political science expert frequently quoted in the media on national security topics, speaks to the University's camera crew for President Graham Spanier's annual State of the Campus Address. As the world faces uncertainty in the face of possible nuclear growth in Iran, Cimbala's new book, published in September by Routledge, explores nuclear weapons proliferation in the 21st century.

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But while the U.S. tries to rally support for its stand against Iran's potentially dangerous nuclear growth, professor Stephen Cimbala, of Drexel Hill, looks at the prospects for international cooperation over nuclear weapons proliferation in the 21st century in his newly published book, Nuclear Weapons and Cooperative Security in the 21st Century: The New Disorder.

A distinguished professor of political science at Penn State Brandywine, Cimbala looks at the three forces that "threaten to undo or weaken the long nuclear peace and fast-forward states into a new and more dangerous situation: the existence of large U.S. and Russian nuclear weapons arsenals; the potential for new technologies, including missile defenses and long-range, precision conventional weapons and a collapse or atrophy of the nuclear nonproliferation regime; and the opening of the door for nuclear weapons to spread among more than the currently acknowledged nuclear states," according to a description of the book, published in September by Routledge.

"The 'trinity of terror' is nuclear arms control, disarmament and missile defenses," Cimbala said. "On all these issues, the U.S. and Russia must lead—by example, not merely by exhortation."

Cimbala serves on the editorial boards of various professional journals, has consulted for a number of U.S. government agencies and defense contractors and is frequently quoted in the media on national security topics. He is the author of numerous books and articles in the fields of international security studies, defense policy, nuclear weapons and arms control, intelligence and other fields. Cimbala received a B.A. in journalism in 1965 from Penn State and an M.A. in 1967 and a Ph.D. in 1969, both in political science, from the University of Wisconsin, Madison.