For the last three years, Georgetown professor Phillip Karber, with his undergraduate students, assembled a lengthy study concerning China’s stockpile of nuclear weapons.

After a Washington Post story published two weeks ago suggested that Karber and his team would conclude that China may have as many as 3,000 nuclear warheads, fierce criticism of the study emerged from the nuclear arms-control community.

Although the study reveals much information about China’s secretive development of what it calls their “Underground Great Wall” to protect its nuclear arsenal, Karber’s claim that China may have 3,000 nuclear warheads has been the statement that has brought widespread national and international attention to the study.

In a presentation at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs Wednesday, Karber defended the study from its detractors. Karber asserted that when the study is released, it will be clear that they make no claim about the size of China’s actual nuclear stockpile. “People are going to be terribly disappointed because it does not reference how many nuclear weapons China has. I found no conclusion on that,” Karber said at GW.

However, Karber did admit that he was the source for the high number: “Lately, me shooting off my mouth and saying ‘Well, they could have 3,000’ has created a lot of controversy. My purpose on this report had nothing to do with estimating the Chinese nuclear stockpile.”

During the lecture, he emphasized that the undergraduates’ research was “good, old-fashioned, empirical academic work.” However, one of the principle frustrations of several nuclear arms experts is how Karber and the Georgetown students used primary sources. At the GW presentation, Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies at Middlebury College, criticized a slide, pictured here, that depicts the increase in the number of Chinese nuclear warheads over the past forty years as well as a prediction of its current stockpiles.

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Yesterday, four Georgetown academics–Samer Shehata, Steven Heydemann, Hesham Sallam, and John Voll–encouraged President Barack Obama to throw his support behind a week-long uprising against Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

“As political scientists, historians, and researchers in related fields who have studied the Middle East and U.S. foreign policy, we the undersigned believe you have a chance to move beyond rhetoric to support the democratic movement sweeping over Egypt,” the letter, which was signed by 101 professors from around the country, read. “As citizens, we expect our president to uphold those values.”

Both Shehata and Voll work within the School of Foreign Service, while Sallam is a PhD student in Georgetown College. Heydemann is an associate professor who mainly works in the Georgetown Public Policy Institute.

After urging Obama support the revolution, the letter goes on to suggest a new era of diplomacy between the United States and Egypt.

“In order for the United States to stand with the Egyptian people it must approach Egypt through a framework of shared values and hopes, not the prism of geostrategy,” it added. “For that reason we urge your administration to seize this chance, turn away from the policies that brought us here, and embark on a new course toward peace, democracy and prosperity for the people of the Middle East.”

After the jump, we’ve republished the letter.

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Georgetown University Law Professor Martin D. Ginsburg, who was considered one of the foremost U.S. tax law experts, died on Sunday at age 78. Professor Ginsburg had taught with the GU Law faculty since 1980 when his wife, Ruth Bader Ginsburg became a Supreme Court Justice a Judge of the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. (Ginsburg become a Supreme Court Justice in 1993.)

In addition to teaching courses on taxes and corporations, Professor Ginsburg also practiced at the D.C. law firm Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. The Brooklyn-born, Long Island native served as the chair of councils within the American Bar Association and the Bar Association of the City of New York. He was also the author of many influential articles on corporate taxation and business acquisitions.

“Marty Ginsburg was not only one of the most innovative legal thinkers of our time, he was a gifted teacher and respected colleague,” Georgetown Law Interim Dean Judith Areen said in a GU Law press release. “He will be deeply missed.’”

Professor Ginsburg did his undergraduate studies at Cornell University, where he met Ruth Bader, and received his law degree from Harvard after briefly serving in the Army. According to the press release, “Ginsburg was known to friends and colleagues as a superb chef, an outstanding golfer and a stellar wit.”

Another Lazarus has been raised; not from the dead this time, but from the Georgetown University Law Center.

Richard Lazarus, the Justice William J. Brennan, Jr. Professor of Law and co-director of the Supreme Court Institute, has been tapped to lead the investigation in to the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

Lazarus will be the executive director of the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling.  The commission, headed by former Senator Bob Graham of Florida and former EPA director William Reilly, has been set on a fact-finding mission to determine the cause of the spill—which is in its 66^th day—as well as how to prevent future similar catastrophes.

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