Interests include the development of norms concerning the use of force, the management of hazardous technology, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Co-Director, Center for International Security and Cooperation

Recipient of the 1998-99 Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Winner of Stanford University's 1996 Laurance and Naomi Hoagland Prize for Undergraduate Teaching

Undergraduate Courses
International Security in a Changing World
Strategy, War, and Politics


Graduate Courses
Theoretical Issues in International Security

Books

Planning the Unthinkable:  New Powers and the Use of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons, co-edited with Peter Lavoy and James Wirtz (forthcoming, Cornell University Press, 2000).

The Spread of Nuclear Weapons:  A Debate, co-authored with Kenneth N. Waltz, (W.W. Norton, 1995).

The Limits of Safety:  Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton University Press, 1993).  Winner of the 1993/1994 Best Book Award from the Science, Technology, and Environmental Studies Section of the American Political Science Association.

Moving Targets:  Nuclear Strategy and National Security (Princeton University Press, 1989).

Living with Nuclear Weapons, co-authors Albert Carnesale, Paul Doty, Stanley Hoffman, Samuel P. Huntington and Joseph S. Nye (Harvard University Press, 1983).

Articles and Book Chapters

"The Commitment Trap:  Why the United States Should Not Use Nuclear Threats to Deter Biological and Chemical Weapon Attacks, International Security, Vol. 24, No. 4 (Spring 2000).

"The Origins of Military Doctrines and Command and Control Systems," in Lavoy, Sagan, and Wirtz (eds.) Planning the Unthinkable:  New Powers and the Use of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons (forthcoming, Cornell University Press, 2000).

"Conclusions:  Planning the Unthinkable," (with Peter Lavoy and Lewis Dunn) in Lavoy, Sagan, and Wirtz (eds.) Planning the Unthinkable:  New Powers and the Use of Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons (forthcoming, Cornell University Press, 2000).

"Review Symposium on Diane Vaughan's The Challenger Launch Decision"  (with review essays by Karl E. Weick, Scott D. Sagan, and Karlene H. Roberts),Administrative Science Quarterly (June 1997).

"Why Do States Build Nuclear Weapons?:  Three Models in Search of a Bomb," International Security (Winter 1996/97) [A revised version also appears as "The Causes of Nuclear Proliferation,"  Current History (April 1997).]

"Responses and Reflections,"  (A response to six review essays of The Spread of Nuclear Weapons:  A Debate), Security Studies (Summer 1995).

"Towards a Political Theory of Organizational Reliability, Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management (December 1994).

"The Perils of Proliferation:  Organization Theory, Deterrence Theory, and the Spread of Nuclear Weapons,"  International Security (Spring 1994).  [Also see the Peter D. Feaver, Scott D. Sagan and David J. Karl exchange of letters, published as: "Proliferation Pessimism and Emerging Nuclear Powers,"  International Security (Fall 1997).]

"Organized for Accidents,"  (A response to Bradley Thayer's "The risk of Nuclear Inadvertence:  A Review Essay"), Security Studies (Spring 1994).

"From Deterrence to Coercion to War:  The Road to Pearl Harbor," in Alexander L. George and William E. Simons (eds.), The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy (Boulder, CO:  Westview Press, 2nd edition, 1994).

"Rules of Engagement," Security Studies (Autumn 1991) and in Alexander L. George (ed.) Inadvertent War:  Problems of Crisis Management (Boulder, CO:  Westview Press, 1991).

"Reducing the Risks:  A New Agenda for Military-to-Military Talks," Arms Control Today (July-August 1991) and in Reducing the Risk of Dangerous Military Activities (Stanford:  Center for International Security and Arms Control, 1991).

"History, Analogy, and Deterrence Theory:  A Review Essay," Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Summer 1991).

"Change and Continuity in U.S. Nuclear Strategy" in Michael Mandelbaum (ed.), America's Defense (NY:  Holmes and meier, 1989).

"Origins of the Pacific War,"  Journal of Interdisciplinary History (Spring 1988).  Also in Robert I. Rotberg and Theodore K. Rabb (eds.), The Origin and Prevention of Major Wars (New York:  Cambridge University Press, 1989).

"SIOP-62:  The Nuclear War Plan Briefing to President Kennedy," International Security, (Summer 1987).

"1914 Revisited:  Allies, Offense and Instability,"  International Security (fall 1986).  Reprinted in Steven E. Miller, Sean M. Lynn-Jones, and Steven Van Evera (eds.) Military Strategy and the Origins of the First World War (Princeton:  Princeton University Press, 1991) and Richard K. Betts (ed.), Conflict After the Cold War (New York:  Macmillan, 1994).  [Also see Jack Snyder and Scott D. Sagan, "The Origins of Offense and the Consequences of Counterforce:  An Exchange,"  International Security (Winter 1986-87).]

"Nuclear Alerts and Crisis Management" International Security, (Spring 1985).  Reprinted in Sean Lynn-Jones, Steven E. Miller, and Steven Van Evera (eds.), Nuclear Diplomacy and Crisis Management (Cambridge, MA:  MIT Press, 1990).

Contributor to Strategic Survey 1982-1983 (International Institute for Strategic Studies, 1983).

"Lessons of the Yom Kippur Alert,"  Foreign Policy (Fall 1979).

"Congressional Demands for American Troop Withdrawals from Western Europe,"  (with Phil Williams), Journal of the Royal United Services Institute for Defense Studies (RUSI Journal), (September 1976).

"Senator Mansfield and the NATO Alliance,"  Royal Air Forces Quarterly (Summer 1976).