Outlier States: American Strategies to Change, Contain, or Engage Regimes

This lecture examines the role of the United States as an enforcer against the development of nuclear weapons in the international community.  In the Bush era Iran and North Korea were branded "rogue" states for their flouting of international norms, and changing their regimes was the administration's goal.  The Obama administration has chosen instead to call the countries nuclear "outliers" and has proposed means other than regime change to bring them back into "the community of nations."  The successor to his influential Regime Change: U.S. Strategy through the Prism of 9/11 (2007), Robert S. Litwak, Ph.D., Vice President for Scholars and Director of International Security Studies at the Woodrow Wilson Center, explores this significant policy adjustment and raises questions about its feasibility and its possible consequences.