Major Fellowship Activities: While at FAS, Bleek focused on ballistic missile defense and dealerting of nuclear weapons. He published three op-eds on national missile defense: “Missile Defense: A Dangerous Move” in the Washington Post and International Herald Tribune (with Frank von Hippel); “Missile Defense: A Threat to US Security” (with Charles Ferguson) which was carried by the Knight-Ridder Syndicate and ran in the Miami Herald, Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal and Rome (GA) News-Tribune; and “Nuclear Dominoes,” through Scripps Howard News Service which was printed in the Deseret News and Nando Times. Bleek also published two letters-to-the-editor: “Nuclear Stalemate” in the Washington Post and “More Reaction to the Test Ban Treaty Vote” in the Washington Times (with Charles Ferguson). At ACA, Bleek worked on strategic nuclear issues, missile defense, the comprehensive test ban, and fissile material protection, control, and accounting (MPC&A) efforts in the former Soviet Union. He published several short articles in Arms Control Today including “US, Russia Negotiate Spent Fuel Reprocessing Moratorium,” “US, Russia Reassess Reactor Conversion Agreement,” “Russia Adopts New Security Concept; Appears to Lower Nuclear Threshold” and “After Stumble, HEU Deal Back on Track.” He helped one of Senator John Kerry’s aides write a foreign policy speech in which the senator compared the U.S. and Chinese nuclear arsenals. He was cited in an “Inside the Air Force” article: “Senate Armed Services Chief Declares Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Dead” arguing that while the CTBT may not be 100% verifiable, ratifying it is nonetheless in the best interests of the United States. He attended the Carnegie Endowment’s International Non-Proliferation Conference 2000, and served as a rapporteur for the “Missile Defense: Will It Work?” panel. He published a letter to the editor in the Los Angeles Times: “U.S. Nuclear Missile Shield” (with Charles Ferguson).
Current Activities: Bleek is an Associate Professor in the Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies Program at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, Fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and Coordinator of the Cyber Collaborative. His work focuses on the causes, consequences, and amelioration of chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons threats at the intersection of academia, non-governmental
organizations, and government.
In 2012-13, he served as Senior Advisor to the Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs. In
that capacity, he worked a broad portfolio, including staffing the
Pentagon-based, interagency Syria Chemical Weapons Senior Integration
Group.
He has been a fellow at the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy
School, Council on Foreign Relations, Center for Strategic and
International Studies, Center for a New American Security, Truman
National Security Project, and Global Public Policy Institute (Berlin). He is a former Term Member of the Council on Foreign
Relations.
He has served as an advisor to several political campaigns, a consultant to the U.S. government and non-governmental organizations, and regularly participates in Track 2 dialogues.
His faculty page, including publications, is accessible at
https://www.middlebury.edu/institute/people/philipp-c-bleek.