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Tristan Volpe, PhD

Assistant Professor, Defense Analysis

Dr. Tristan Volpe has appeared in peer-review journals such as International Organization, Security Studies, the Journal of Strategic Studies, and the Nonproliferation Review. I also write for general policy audiences in journals such as Foreign Affairs, the Washington Quarterly, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Volpe lives and works on the Monterey Peninsula in California. In the past, heI was a fellow at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and then the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I received degrees in political science from Tthe George Washington University and the University of California, Los Angeles.

Volpe is the author of “Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology” (Oxford University Press, 2023). He has received the Robert O. Keohane Award for best research article published in the journal International Organization by untenured scholars.

"Merging field experience from students with high-level strategies about competition: that's the special mix for me at NPS. "

The Naval Postgraduate School emphasizes defense-focused graduate education and interdisciplinary research to advance operational effectiveness and technological leadership. How has the academic environment at NPS influenced your research, and in what ways does it contribute to the broader field of security studies?


I study how technology shapes military competition among nations. Consider the current arms race to field small autonomous drones or counterspace weapons. How might China leverage its commercial industry as cover to buildup these weapons? What opportunities exist for the United States to respond?  NPS is the perfect home to answer such questions. The academic environment here encourages systematic analysis of tough issues. Merging field experience from students with high-level strategies about competition: that's the special mix for me at NPS. As a scholar, I am encouraged to develop rigorous arguments backed by clear data. I can reach across campus to better understand almost any technical issue. But my work also benefits from constant contact with students who understand the operational side of the equation far better than I ever will.


Given your expertise in the intersection of emerging technology and national security, what do you see as the most pressing challenge for the U.S. in maintaining strategic superiority over the next decade?


Let me highlight a gap in our understanding of how best to arm against near-peer adversaries, notably China. Much attention has rightly been paid to maintaining a technological edge. Indeed, technology fuels how we compete by building arms and economic power. Yet arming happens in different ways across technologies. For example, many nations augment their strategic forces in plain sight. Although aspects of nuclear weapons are kept secret, basic information about arsenal size and composition tends to be well known. By contrast, space and cyber capabilities—including artificial intelligence (AI)—tend to be shrouded in secrecy and disguised behind peaceful auspices, making it difficult to determine if civilian investments are part of a covert arms race. Although arming is of central importance, we still don't have many accounts of how states manage this tension between concealing or revealing various weapons, let alone the role that technology plays in shaping these strategies. Wrapping our arms around these questions will help the United States to reap security returns on technology investments.

Given the evolving nature of global security threats, what future research directions do you envision, and how can institutions like NPS facilitate advancements in understanding and addressing these challenges?

Research on the relationship between technology and international security is likely to remainof central importance to both scholars and practitioners. As a hub for educating the next generation of military leaders, NPS can continue to play a key role in this space in several ways. Engagement with commands and sponsors helps ensure that course materials and underlying scholarship remain responsive to changing mission requirements and international security challenges. I've also found partnerships with key stakeholders who manage global technology issues, both within the joint force, US government, and private sector, to be instrumental in keeping me up to speed on new capability developments.

You’ve advised multiple organizations, from the Department of Defense to research think tanks. How do you bridge the gap between academic theory and actionable policy recommendations for decision-makers?


One way to bridge that oft mentioned gap is to make sure it doesn't exist from the outset. Start by asking questions that folks in the national security community need answers to. This enables scholars to build out the 'academic' analysis around a policy relevant topic. Knowing one's audience is key too. As I tell my students, I've never once used the phrase "theoretical framework" when briefing a flag officer. But I still try to communicate the core ideas from my theory without ever invoking that much maligned word.

Your book “Leveraging Latency: How the Weak Compel the Strong with Nuclear Technology” explores how states use the potential to acquire nuclear weapons to gain influence in international politics. Could you elaborate on the concept of nuclear latency and its significance in international relations?


In Leveraging Latency (Oxford University Press, 2023), I explain how smaller nations coerce superpowers with nuclear technology. A diverse club of countries—from Japan to North Korea and Iran—have played with building nuclear weapons as a diplomatic lever against superpowers who oppose proliferation, notably the United States. Yet leveraging nuclear latency—the technical capacity to build the bomb—only works in specific circumstances. I find that the leverage states gain from latency resembles an upside down “U” curve across the nuclear capability continuum: there are few bargaining advantages at low and high levels of latency, but there is potential for significant benefits in the middle zone. This “sweet spot” undermines the notion that more power is better for extracting concessions. Instead, states need enough nuclear capacity to underwrite credible threats, but not so much that it impedes their ability to make believable assurances. The book’s framework and empirics explain how nuclear latency shapes the severity of this trade-off between making coercive threats and assurances credible, thereby advancing the study of coercion, proliferation, and technology in world politics. This research agenda also fueled the publication of numerous articles and policy assessments about how states such as Germany, South Korea, or Saudi Arabia have leveraged the threat of going nuclear to wrest concessions from the United States.

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