Nuclear expert to discuss speculative novel on Korean conflict

Nuclear expert Jeffrey Lewis will visit Salve Regina next week to discuss his speculative novel “The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States.”

Lewis will speak at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 5 in the Bazarsky Lecture Hall as part of the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy’s fall lecture series. To RSVP, visit the Pell Center’s Eventbrite page.

Presented as a sobering report on the findings of the National Commission on the Nuclear Attacks against the United States, Lewis’ novel imagines a nuclear war with North Korea in March 2020. Lewis addresses questions such as: Did President Trump and his advisers understand North Korean views about nuclear weapons? Did they appreciate the dangers of provoking the country’s ruler with social media posts and military exercises? Did the tragic milestones of that fateful month inevitably lead to war? Or did America’s leaders have the opportunity to avert the greatest calamity in the history of our nation?

Lewis is the founding publisher of the blog network Arms Control Wonk. He is the director of the East Asia nonproliferation program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. Lewis is also a non-resident affiliate at Stanford University’s Center for Security and International Cooperation and a contributing editor to Survival.

For more information, contact the Pell Center at (401) 341-2927 or pellcenter@salve.edu. For students in the “Crew” cohort of the Navigator program, the lecture fulfills the core value of controversy with civility.