Dr. James M. Acton

Dr. James M. Acton is Co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is a prolific writer in the field of nuclear policy, and was a recipient of the competitive Carnegie Corporation of New York grant on New Technologies and the Nuclear Threat that funds his ongoing research into the escalation implications of advanced conventional weapons.

James M. Acton holds the Jessica T. Mathews Chair and is Co-director of the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

A physicist by training, Acton was a recipient of the competitive Carnegie Corporation of New York grant on New Technologies and the Nuclear Threat that funds his ongoing research into the escalation implications of advanced conventional weapons.

Acton’s publications span the field of nuclear policy. He recently published a Carnegie report, ‘Wagging the Plutonium Dog: Japanese Domestic Politics and its International Security Implications’, and is the author of two Adelphi books, Deterrence During Disarmament: Deep Nuclear Reductions and International Security and Abolishing Nuclear Weapons (with George Perkovich). He wrote, with Mark Hibbs, ‘Why Fukushima Was Preventable, a groundbreaking study into the root causes of the accident’. His analysis on proliferation threats, including Iran and North Korea, has been widely disseminated by major journals, newspapers, and websites. An expert on hypersonic conventional weapons, he is also the author of the Carnegie report, ‘Silver Bullet? Asking the Right Questions About Conventional Prompt Global Strike’. He has published in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, Science & Global Security, Survival, and The Washington Quarterly. He has appeared on CNN’s State of the Union, NBC Nightly News, CBS Evening News, and PBS NewsHour.