Status
Senior Lecturer
Contact
plavoy@nps.edu
Research Interests
Asymmetric conflict; WMD proliferation and counterproliferation; South Asia |
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Biography
Peter R. Lavoy is Director of the Center for Contemporary Conflict and Senior Lecturer in the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School. Based at NPS since 1993, he teaches graduate courses and supervises Master’s theses on nuclear strategy, weapons proliferation and counterproliferation, South Asian politics and security, and other topics in international relations. He has published numerous articles and book chapters on weapons proliferation and South Asian security issues. He co-edited Planning the Unthinkable: How New Powers Will Use Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapons (Cornell University Press, 2000). His newest books are Learning to Live with the Bomb: India and Nuclear Weapons, 1947-2002 (Palgrave-Macmillan, forthcoming 2006) and Asymmetric Warfare in South Asia: The Causes and Consequences of the Kargil Conflict (forthcoming, 2006).
From January 1998 to December 2000, Dr. Lavoy took leave from the Naval Postgraduate School to serve in the Office of Secretary of Defense, most recently acting as Principal Director for Requirements, Plans and Counterproliferation Policy. From June 1998 to June 2000, Dr. Lavoy served as Director for Counterproliferation Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, a position he occupied as an International Affairs Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. At the Pentagon, Dr. Lavoy oversaw a staff that was responsible for developing policies to improve U.S. military capabilities to deter, combat, and defend against the use of nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC) weapons and missiles, and to help allies and coalition partners prepare their armed forces and populations to counter NBC threats. He served as Co-Chair of the Deputy Secretary of Defense Working Group on Readiness Standards and Reporting, Steering Committee Co-Chair of the NATO Senior Defense Group on Proliferation (DGP), U.S. Chair of the U.S.-Israel Counterproliferation Working Group, and Co-Chair of the U.S.-Kuwait, U.S.-Bahrain, U.S.-Oman, and U.S.-Jordan Cooperative Defense Steering Committees. In addition, he participated in the Department's war plans review and in its efforts to craft U.S. policy toward India and Pakistan in the wake of their 1998 nuclear tests. For these efforts, Dr. Lavoy received the Secretary of Defense Medal for Exceptional Civilian Service.
Dr. Lavoy received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley and a B.A. in Government from Oberlin College, where he graduated with High Honors. He has held research positions at the Center for Security and Technology Studies at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University. He is on the editorial board of Defence Studies. He speaks and reads Hindi, Urdu and French. He holds TS/SCI security clearances.
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