Nick Ritchie
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Senior Lecturer, Department of Politics, University of York.Nick Richie mainly researches and teaches on issues surrounding nuclear weapons, disarmament, arms control , and UK, US foreign policy as well as International relations.
Mentor Background
What is your area of expertise?
Are you interested in mentoring high school or college students, or both?
How did you become interested in this area?
Interest began at 19 years old when Nick Ritchie spent six months in India.
After that, he went to University of Bradford and its famous school of Peace studies where he completed his undergraduate in education . It was at that time in 1998, where India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons, he was unable to comprehend the reasons behind potentially destroying and devastating such a rich, diverse and vibrant country/ countries and societies. Especially, due to his experience of having lived in India himself. This is where his interests began.
What was your career path to get here?
NGO experience was part of his career path, he never meant to stay in academia but due to his curiosities he wanted to understand global affairs further, he got funding for his PHD and eventually, worked at a university that enabled him to teach but also continue researching what interests him.
Why should the public care?
The public should care because risks of catastrophe are present and its systemic. The threat of nuclear violence and nuclear weapons in the hands of the wrong people could result in severe crisis and therefore, the public should care and try to understand, interpret, and respond to policy makers. Our luck will eventually run out therefore, people should not care out of fear but through the motivation to eliminate nuclear weapons to create a better world.
What is a current issue or trend that concerns you?
This would be the overlapping ecological crises.
What themes or topics would you be interested in lecturing or discussing with a class?
- Nuclear weapon policy, Disarmament, Arms control, Global politics of nuclear weapons.
Educational Resources
Description
This is a short simulation of the Cuban Missile Crisis for a 1.5-hour seminar class with 12-15 participants.
Learning Objectives
- To appreciate the complexities of putting nuclear deterrence theory and strategy into practice
Related Material
Co-authored Resources
Description
Nuclear studies tend to centre on nuclear weapons technologies and doctrines, the theory and practice of nuclear deterrence, strategic stability and arms control, nuclear non-proliferation and counter-proliferation, East-West strategic competition, extended deterrence and alliance dynamics.
The historiography of the nuclear age is generally one of the Manhattan Project and WWII leading into the Cold War, threats of nuclear use associated with proxy wars such as Korea and Vietnam, the NPT and periods of detente and arms control negotiations, through to the post-Cold War period of ‘rogue’ states, nuclear terrorism, and now the geopolitics of nuclear multipolarity.
What tends to get left out are the experiences, perspectives and agency of states, organisations and people that are not part of the central cast of the Northern nuclear Cold War story, notably women and people, and the states and organisations of the global South.
The purpose of this section is to introduce you to the central connections between anti-colonialism, anti-imperialism and anti-nuclearism, the idea of non-alignment as a political force in world politics, especially in the Cold War, and what its champions had to say about nuclear weapons and disarmament.