Reid Pauly

Dean's Assistant Professor of Nuclear Security and Policy

Biography

Reid Pauly writes and teaches on coercion and nuclear weapons proliferation, nuclear strategy and wargaming, and interstate secrecy and deniability. Prior to joining the Brown faculty, Reid was a Stanton postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, a predoctoral fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, and a Summer Associate at the RAND Corporation. Reid earned a PhD in Political Science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Security Studies Program. He was an undergraduate at Cornell University. His wife, Natalie, is a Brown alum.

Research

Reid Pauly studies coercion, nuclear weapons proliferation, nuclear strategy, interstate secrecy and deniability, and wargaming. 

His book project examines the “assurance dilemma” at the heart of coercion—when and why targets of coercion believe that they will not be punished after they comply with demands. 

He also studies why states sometimes cover up the transgressions of adversaries. This work applies especially to the nuclear nonproliferation regime, where the deniable nature of dual-use technologies actually aids enforcers. Violators are more likely to come into compliance if they can deny that they were ever out of compliance. 

He is also working to bring wargaming methods to the study of international relations. Wargames can introduce human interaction to the social scientific study of crisis decision-making—all of the human fallibility, miscommunication, emotions, hubris, pride, and reputations that color decision-making in group settings. 

Publications

Peer-Reviewed Articles:

“Would U.S. Leaders Push the Button? Wargames and the Sources of Nuclear Restraint,” International Security, Vol. 43, No. 2 (Fall 2018): 151-192. 

“Bedeviled by a Paradox: Nitze, Bundy, and an Incipient Nuclear Norm,” The Nonproliferation Review, Vol. 22, Iss. 3-4 (2015): 441-455. 

Policy Writing: 

“Why Invading Iran Would Be a Military Disaster,” The National Interest, January 12, 2020. With Daniel Khalessi. 

“This is Why Trump’s Strategy for Iran Will Fail,” The National Interest, December 21, 2017. With Mahsa Rouhi and Sahar Nowrouzzadeh. 

“The Tangled Fates of Pittsburgh and Paris,” War on the Rocks, June 12, 2017. 

Teaching

Nuclear Proliferation and International Security, Graduate Seminar, Spring 2021

Coercion: Deterrence and Compellence, Undergraduate Seminar, Fall 2020