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Reid Pauly

Dean's Assistant Professor of Nuclear Security and Policy
Reid_Pauly@brown.edu
+1 401 863 2827
Room 335
Personal Website
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Areas of Expertise Nuclear Weapons, US Foreign Policy
Areas of Interest Nuclear proliferation, nuclear strategy, coercion, wargaming, international security.

Biography

Reid Pauly is Assistant Professor of Political Science and the Dean’s Assistant Professor of Nuclear Security and Policy at Brown University's Watson School of International and Public Affairs. He studies nuclear proliferation, nuclear strategy, and coercion in international politics. Pauly is the author of "The Art of Coercion: Credible Threats and the Assurance Dilemma" (Cornell University Press, 2025). His scholarship has also been published in International Security, International Studies Quarterly, the European Journal of International Relations, and Foreign Affairs. Pauly earned his Ph.D. from MIT and has held fellowships at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, the Schmidt Futures International Strategy Forum, and Dartmouth College’s Dickey Center for International Understanding.

Research

Reid Pauly studies coercion, nuclear proliferation, nuclear strategy, deterrence, and wargaming. He is the author of "The Art of Coercion: Credible Threats and the Assurance Dilemma" (Cornell University Press, 2025). His research agenda examines how states negotiate and resolve disputes short of conflict, how they manage crises, and how leaders make high-stakes foreign policy decisions. A nuclear expert, Pauly studies these topics in generalizable ways to contribute to broader debates beyond the nuclear domain about coercive bargaining, state secrecy, normative regimes and their enforcement, the role of institutions in international politics, and crisis stability and escalation. Pauly has also been a pioneer of wargaming and crisis simulation methods for the study of international relations.

Publications

“How Coercive Diplomacy Works: Making Threats in International Crises,” in Hillary Rodham Clinton and Keren Yarhi-Milo (eds.), Inside the Situation Room: The Theory and Practice of Crisis Decision Making (Oxford University Press, 2025). With Jessica Chen Weiss. 

“Damned If They Do, Damned If They Don’t: The Assurance Dilemma in International Coercion,” International Security, Vol. 49, No. 1 (Summer 2024): 91-132. 

“The Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship” International Security, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Winter 2022/2023): 9-51. With Rose McDermott.

“Wargaming for International Relations Research,” European Journal of International Relations, Vol. 28, No. 1 (2022): 83-109. With Erik Lin-Greenberg and Jacquelyn Schneider. Reviewed in H-Diplo.

“Deniability in the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime: The Upside of the Dual-Use Dilemma,” International Studies Quarterly, Vol. 66, Iss. 1 (2022).

“Caught Red-Handed: How States Wield Proof to Coerce Wrongdoers,” International Security, Vol. 46, No. 2 (Fall 2021). With Cullen G. Nutt.

“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:

“Putin and the Psychology of Nuclear Brinkmanship,” Foreign Affairs, May 30, 2023. With Rose McDermott and Paul Slovic.

“Don’t Be So Confident in Nuclear Decision-Making,” Lawfare, February 26, 2023. With Rose McDermott.

“What to Do When Predicting Pandemics,” Foreign Policy, September 11, 2020.

“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.

Recent News

El Mercurio

Contradictory Messages from the U.S. and Iran on the Eve of Negotiations, Under the Shadow of the End of the Truce (comments by Reid Pauly)

Reid Pauly told El Mercurio that the most viable path to preventing Iran from developing a nuclear weapon would be a deal allowing limited, strictly monitored enrichment, with verification as the cornerstone of any lasting agreement.
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