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X Zhang

@xunchaoz

International Security Fellow at @StanfordCISAC . #InternationalRelations Political Science PhD @UWMadison , formerly at @UChicago. zhangxunchao.com

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21.02.2025
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Latest posts by X Zhang @xunchaoz

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New START ends. But a one-year extension could bring many benefits Rose Gottemoeller, the formerย chief US negotiator for New START, explains that a one-year extension of the treaty limits would not prejudice any of the vital steps Washington is taking to respond to C...

Rose Gottemoeller, the former chief US negotiator for New START, explains that a one-year extension of the treaty limits would not prejudice any of the vital steps Washington is taking to respond to China's nuclear build-up.

- 9/n

#NewSTART #armscontrol #nukesky @stanfordcisac.bsky.social

06.02.2026 22:44 ๐Ÿ‘ 3 ๐Ÿ” 3 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Erik Lin-Greenberg, "The Remote Revolution: Drones and Modern Statecraft" (Cornell UP, 2025) - New Books Network

Great new book on the strategic implications of drones, including some interesting Cold War history of drone use along side interesting experiments newbooksnetwork.com/the-remote-r...

29.12.2025 03:49 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Iraq: Eras of Rupture & the Illusions of Nostalgia | Zainab Saleh
Iraq: Eras of Rupture & the Illusions of Nostalgia | Zainab Saleh YouTube video by afikra - ุนููƒุฑุฉ

Zainab Saleh discusses how the Iraq she grew up inโ€”during the Ba'ath Party reign and under Saddam Hussein and explores the concept of nostalgia for the Saddam era, which exists even among those who suffered under the regime, because of the basic services that were provided.
youtu.be/p5bjV3N0Zrw?...

27.12.2025 20:01 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Why Israel Wants to Strike Again: Inside Iran's Expanding Missile Threat Israeli officials are preparing to brief U.S.

New post on Iranian thinking after the June 2025 war and why missiles, not nuclear latency, are now at the center of Tehran's strategy. axesandatoms.substack.com/p/why-israel...

22.12.2025 22:33 ๐Ÿ‘ 21 ๐Ÿ” 6 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Helen DeWitt and Ilya Gridneffโ€™s Sweeping Anti-War Novel Your Name Here dramatizes the tensions and possibilities of political art.

Your Name Here is a fascinating bridge between literary fiction and foreign policy well worth reading. It warns that when a culture rewards ignorance and mendacity, politics is rarely far behind.
www.thenation.com/article/cult...

22.12.2025 18:22 ๐Ÿ‘ 1 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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An Audit of Social Science Survey Experiments Abstract. Survey experiments have become a popular methodology for causal inference across the social sciences. We study the efficacy of survey experiment

doi.org/10.1093/poq/...

21.12.2025 04:13 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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The paper by Rauf et al. (2025) shows faculty-led experiments succeed more often, likely because of both resources (sample size) and design experiences.
If youโ€™re a grad student, collaborate! Bringing an experienced experimentalist into the design stage raises your odds of success.

21.12.2025 04:13 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 1 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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A House of Dynamite (2025) w/ Scott Sagan | Ep. 54 Van and Lyle are joined by nuclear weapons and disarmament expert Scott Sagan to discuss A House of Dynamite, the 2025 political thriller that imagines nuclear catastrophe not as spectacle or obvious ...

๐ŸŽง What if nuclear war didnโ€™t look like chaos, but competence?
CISAC Co-Director Scott Sagan discusses A House of Dynamite and the real risks of nuclear decision-making on the Bang Bang Podcast. โคต๏ธ
www.bangbangpod.com/p/a-house-of...

19.12.2025 18:40 ๐Ÿ‘ 5 ๐Ÿ” 2 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Play the scramble, avoid the backlash? Partisan dynamics in the negotiation of bilateral investment treaties Sparked by a proliferation of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) at the turn of the century, the modern international investment regime now faces a backlash from dissatisfied states. We examine t...

๐Ÿ“ข New paper w/ @mcward.bsky.social in @ripejournal.bsky.social
: We show that left- and right-led governments negotiate fundamentally different bilateral investment treaties, with lasting consequences for treaty formation, design, and exit.

doi.org/10.1080/09692290.2025.2589412

18.12.2025 19:31 ๐Ÿ‘ 5 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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The Generalizability of IR Experiments beyond the Unitedย States The Generalizability of IR Experiments beyond the United States By Lotem Bassan-Nygate, Harvard University, Jonathan Renshon, University of Wisconsinโ€“Madison, Jessica L. P. Weeks, University of Wisconsinโ€“Madison and Chagai M. Weiss, Stanford University Theories of international relations (IR) typically make predictions intended to hold across many countries, yet existing experimental evidence testing their micro-foundations relies overwhelmingly on studies fielded in the United States.

The Generalizability of IR Experiments beyond the Unitedย States

The Generalizability of IR Experiments beyond the United States By Lotem Bassan-Nygate, Harvard University, Jonathan Renshon, University of Wisconsinโ€“Madison, Jessica L. P. Weeks, University of Wisconsinโ€“Madison and Chagai M. Weiss,โ€ฆ

18.12.2025 15:00 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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A house of mistakes: what Kathryn Bigelowโ€™s 'A House of Dynamite' gets radically rightโ€”and dangerously wrongโ€”about nuclear war A House of Dynamite gets so many details wrong that the lessons viewers take from the film will likely be counterproductive, even dangerous. If it is a wake-up call, the audience will wake up on the w...

Hollywood meets nuclear strategy, and itโ€™s messier than you think. CISAC Co-director Scott Sagan and Research Assistant Shreya Lad unpack what A House of Dynamite gets right about nuclear risk, and where it goes dangerously wrong.
thebulletin.org/2025/12/a-ho...

17.12.2025 16:40 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 2 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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So cool -> Quebec researchers tracked eye dilation + sweat when showing respondents political issues to see if they aligned with results from standard poll questions on issue importance. They did! And suggest asking people to choose their top issue is most reliable academic.oup.com/poq/article/...

16.12.2025 18:52 ๐Ÿ‘ 26 ๐Ÿ” 9 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 2
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"Hallo"? ๐Ÿคฃ

25.11.2025 22:55 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
Cycle of Suffering: Why Military Retaliation Provokes Rather Than Deters
Cycle of Suffering: Why Military Retaliation Provokes Rather Than Deters YouTube video by CISAC Stanford (CISACStanford)

Conventional wisdom suggests that states, when challenged, can demonstrate their resolve by retaliating militarily, thereby deterring future challenges. I argue that rather than deterring, retaliation provokes cyclical revenge.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuBM...

07.11.2025 22:48 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Grateful to have been in DC for the Stanton conference meeting fellows, scholars, alumni, and policy practitioners who are working on deterrence and nonproliferation from both social science and technical angles.

07.11.2025 22:45 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Explaining the Proliferation of Nuclear Delivery Vehicles How and why do nuclear delivery vehicles proliferate? This article identifies a permissive environment in the nonproliferation regime shaped by three drivers for proliferation: First, the multipurp...

๐Ÿšจ How & why do nuclear delivery vehicles proliferate? My article on the spread of delivery vehicles is out at Security Studies! #OpenAccess

It explains:
- Why the NPT allows nuclear delivery vehicles to spread
- How did India acquire its #nuclear delivery technology
tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

05.09.2025 13:56 ๐Ÿ‘ 30 ๐Ÿ” 11 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 2 ๐Ÿ“Œ 1
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CISAC Names 2025-2026 Fellows The Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) is pleased to welcome the fellows who will be joining us for the 2025-26 academic year. These scholars will spend the academic year genera...

Please join us in welcoming our 2025-2026 fellows! These scholars will spend the academic year generating new knowledge across a range of topics that can help all of us build a safer world.
cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/news/cisac-n...

16.06.2025 16:50 ๐Ÿ‘ 3 ๐Ÿ” 3 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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One understudied phenomenon in political science: how leaders (and publics) draw connections between seemingly unrelated eventsโ€”across domestic and foreign arenasโ€”simply because they happen concurrently, enabling unexpected cross-domain policy influence.

19.04.2025 21:04 ๐Ÿ‘ 0 ๐Ÿ” 0 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0
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Strategic Stability Dialogue between the United States and China in

Next week: "Strategic Stability Dialogue between the United States and China in Historical Perspective" with Alexandre Debs

RSVP hereโคต๏ธ
cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/events/strat...

27.03.2025 22:30 ๐Ÿ‘ 2 ๐Ÿ” 1 ๐Ÿ’ฌ 0 ๐Ÿ“Œ 0