Nuclear weapons expert to speak at Columbus State about ‘greatest threats’ to U.S.

A nuclear weapons expert will speak this week at Columbus State University in a lecture titled “The Greatest Nuclear Threats to the U.S.”

Mark Fitzpatrick, a former U.S. diplomat, is scheduled to start his presentation Thursday in the Cunningham Center Conference Center at 7:30 p.m.

According to CSU’s news release, Fitzpatrick served in the U.S. State Department for 26 years before joining the International Institute for Strategic Studies to run its Non-Proliferation and Nuclear Policy Programme. He is the author of “Asia’s Latent Nuclear Powers: Japan, South Korea and Taiwan,” “Overcoming Pakistan’s Nuclear Dangers,” and “The Iranian Nuclear Crisis: Avoiding Worst-Case Outcomes.” He earned a master’s degree in public policy from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and a bachelor’s degree in international relations from the University of Minnesota.

In his lecture at CSU, Fitzpatrick is expected to note “how Moscow’s nuclear arsenal -- the largest in the world -- has long been directed at the U.S. and its allies, and how recent interactions have sparked renewed nuclear sabre-rattling by the Kremlin,” the release says. “Fitzpatrick, however, will argue that the gravest nuclear challenges are to be found in North Korea and South Asia. Pyongyang’s accelerated nuclear and missile tests demonstrate an intention, or at least an ability, to hit the United States with a nuclear-tipped missile.”

Fitzpatrick’s visit is part of the Hallock Speaker Series, supported by the Richard R. Hallock Foundation and coordinated by CSU’s Department of Political Science and Public Administration. The series was established in 2007 to “address issues of national security for the university community and others interested in this topic,” according to CSU’s website.

Hallock was a decorated paratrooper in World War II, an intelligence aide for Gen. Lucius D. Clay, who oversaw the Berlin Airlift and the post-war reconstruction of Germany. At 32, Hallock became the youngest major to be a battalion commander in Korea. He retired from the U.S. Army as a colonel in 1967 after 25 years of active service. He became an adviser to Defense Secretary James Schlesinger and a consultant for political and military affairs, especially in the Middle East. He and his wife, Myriam Johnston Hallock, established the foundation before he died at 79 in 1999 in Oberlin, Ohio. He is buried at Fort Benning, where he was stationed for several years.

Previous speakers in the series have included:

▪ The Hon. Sterling Johnson, Jr. of the District Court of the Eastern District of New York

▪ M. Zuhdi Jasser, President of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy

▪ Professor Jeffrey Addicott, Director of the Terrorism Law Center at St. Mary's University School of Law

▪ Ambassador Charles L. "Jack" Pritchard, former Special Envoy to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea

▪ Allan R. Millett, Director of the Eisenhower Center for American Studies and Stephen E. Ambrose, Professor of History at the University of New Orleans

▪ Conrad C. Crane, Director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute

▪ Ambassador Ronald Neumann, former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, who is now the President of the American Academy of Diplomacy

▪ Duyeon Kim, Deputy Director of Nuclear Non-Proliferation at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

▪ David Crist, Senior Historian for the Joint Chiefs of Staff

▪ Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense Democracies

▪ Amy Smithson, Senior Fellow, the Center for Nonproliferation Studies

▪ Ambassador Lino Gutiérrez, former U.S Ambassador to Argentina and Nicaragua

▪ Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, Senior Fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies

▪ Ambassador Thomas Pickering, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations.

▪ Mark Tokola, vice president of the Korea Economic Institute of America

For more information about the Hallock Speaker Series, call CSU political science professor Tom Dolan at 706-507-8727.

This story was originally published February 20, 2017 at 1:45 PM with the headline "Nuclear weapons expert to speak at Columbus State about ‘greatest threats’ to U.S.."