Nuclear Arms Control in a Divided World with Ambassador Steven Pifer

WorldDenver is thrilled to welcome Ambassador Steven Pifer to provide his insights on the current state of U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control.  He will discuss the factors that led Washington and Moscow to pursue nuclear arms control in the first place, the achievements and failures of the past 50 years, and what might be expected in the future. He will also address the factors that will complicate efforts to limit and reduce nuclear arms, such as the expansion of China’s nuclear force and missile defense.

Location: Grant-Humphreys Mansion, 770 Pennsylvania Street, Denver, CO 80203

Event Agenda: 
6:00 p.m. | Registration, networking, & hors d'oeuvres
6:30 p.m. | Speaker program followed by audience Q&A
8:00 p.m. | Evening concludes

Tickets: 
$35 for Future Members
$25 for WorldDenver Members
$10 for Young Professional Members

About Our Speaker

Ambssador Steven Pifer
Author and Former US Ambassador to Ukraine

Steven Pifer is a nonresident senior fellow in the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Initiative, Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy, and Technology, and the Center on the United States and Europe at the Brookings Institution, and an affiliate of the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. He previously was a resident fellow, then senior fellow at Brookings from April 2008-July 2017, a William J. Perry Fellow at CISAC from September 2018-June 2022, and a fellow at the Robert Bosch Academy in Berlin from January-May 2021.

He focuses on nuclear arms control, Ukraine, and Russia. He has offered commentary on these issues on National Public Radio, PBS NewsHour, CNN, Fox News, BBC, and VOA, and his articles have run in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times, National Interest, Moscow Times, and Kyiv Post, among others. He is the author of “The Eagle and the Trident: U.S.-Ukraine Relations in Turbulent Times” (Brookings Institution Press, 2017), and co-author with Michael O’Hanlon of “The Opportunity: Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Arms” (Brookings Institution Press, 2012).

A retired Foreign Service officer, his more than 25 years with the State Department focused on U.S. relations with the former Soviet Union and Europe, as well as arms control and security issues. He served as deputy assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs with responsibilities for Russia and Ukraine (2001-2004), ambassador to Ukraine (1998-2000), and special assistant to the president and senior director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia on the National Security Council (1996-1997). In addition to Ukraine, Ambassador Pifer served at the U.S. embassies in Warsaw, Moscow, and London as well as with the U.S. delegation to the negotiation on intermediate-range nuclear forces in Geneva. From 2000 to 2001, he was a visiting scholar at Stanford’s Institute for International Studies.

Ambassador Pifer is a 1976 graduate of Stanford University with a bachelor’s in economics.

Note: As a nonpartisan convener of global affairs programming, WorldDenver provides an unbiased forum for experts, world leaders, diplomats, and representatives from the public and private sectors to share their expertise and views on a broad spectrum of issues that matter to the world. We aim for our events to inspire curiosity and further reading, discussion, and civic engagement among our members and the Denver community on the global issues that we present.