The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) has named author and strategic foresight expert Peter Scoblic as the new Sam Nunn Distinguished Fellow. This position is designed to seed innovation in threat reduction, building on the legacy of NTI Co-Founder and Co-Chair Sam Nunn, who served as chief executive officer from 2001-2017.
Scoblic will support NTI’s program work on nuclear risk management, with a particular focus on the ways in which AI could impact decision-making during a nuclear crisis. Peter has published widely on strategic foresight, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Science, Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Affairs. His 2018 article on the CIA’s forecasting office won the Bobby R. Inman Award in Intelligence Studies, and his 2020 article “Learning from the Future” was anthologized in Harvard Business Review’s 10 Must Reads on Organizational Resilience.
“Peter’s diverse background, his innovative thinking, and his passion for NTI’s mission make him an ideal person to help us develop creative new approaches to addressing nuclear threats,” said NTI Co-Chair and CEO Ernest J. Moniz. “Peter will bring new energy and new tools as our new Sam Nunn Distinguished Fellow. We look forward to having him on board in the new year.”
Beginning January 6, Scoblic will spend one year in residence at NTI.
About Peter Scoblic
A former journalist, Scoblic served as Executive Editor of both The New Republic and Foreign Policy. Early in his career, he was Editor of Arms Control Today.
Previously, Scoblic served as Deputy Staff Director of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, where he worked on approval of the New START agreement and was the chief foreign policy speechwriter for Chairman John Kerry. In 2008, Viking Press published his book, U.S. vs. Them, an intellectual history of the modern conservative movement and its impact on American nuclear policy.
In 2020, Scoblic co-founded Event Horizon Strategies, a foresight consultancy, and he has served as Director of Strategic Foresight for Metaculus, a prediction platform, and as Chief Strategy Officer for FutureSearch, an AI startup.
He has published widely on strategic foresight, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Science, Harvard Business Review, and Foreign Affairs. He is currently writing an intellectual history for Simon & Schuster on the quest to quantify decision-making and the effort to preserve a role for human judgment, from early attempts to optimize strategy to recent advances in artificial intelligence.
Scoblic has been a National Fellow at New America, as well as a Senior Fellow in its Future Security program. He has also held affiliations with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Peter received his doctorate from Harvard Business School, where his research on strategic foresight won the Wyss Award for Excellence. He has certificates in wargaming from the Naval War College and the Military Operations Research Society, as well as a certificate in scenario planning from the Oxford Scenarios Programme at Saïd Business School. He received his A.B. in political science, with honors, from Brown University.
About the Sam Nunn Distinguished Fellow Program
The Sam Nunn Distinguished Fellow Program honors NTI Co-Founder and Co-Chair Sam Nunn for his significant impact on the field of WMD-related risk reduction by bringing outstanding talent to NTI on a term basis for the purpose of advancing a strategic priority or seeding new directions in threat reduction.
For more than five decades, Sam Nunn has worked to strengthen U.S. national and global security, reduce nuclear risks, and advance bipartisan solutions to the world’s greatest challenges. During his tenure in the United States Senate (D-GA, 1972-1996), Senator Nunn conceived of and then co-authored legislation with Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN) creating the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, widely known as the “Nunn-Lugar program,” which provided assistance for more than 20 years to Russia and the former Soviet republics for securing and destroying their excess nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
Since retiring from the Senate, Sam Nunn has continued to build a safer and more peaceful world. As co-chairman and chief executive officer of NTI from January 2001 through May 2017, he led the organization’s work to secure nuclear materials globally, reduce the chance of a dirty bomb attack, raise awareness of nuclear and biological dangers, and strengthen non-proliferation efforts. Nunn continues to serve as one of NTI’s co-chairs, alongside Moniz and fellow NTI co-founder Ted Turner.
The Sam Nunn Distinguished Fellow program is made possible through generous donations from Chevron, Edlow International, the Hess Foundation, the Michael A. Peterson Foundation, Major General Arnold and Jan Punaro, and Southern Company Foundation, Inc., among others.
About NTI
The Nuclear Threat Initiative is a nonprofit, nonpartisan global security organization focused on reducing nuclear, biological, and emerging technology threats imperiling humanity.
CONTACT: Cathy Gwin, 202-270-5942, [email protected]
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