Despite the global spread of nuclear hardware and knowledge, at least half of the nuclear weapons projects launched since 1970 have definitively failed, and even the successful projects have ...generally needed far more time than expected. To explain this puzzling slowdown in proliferation, Jacques E. C. Hymans focuses on the relations between politicians and scientific and technical workers in developing countries. By undermining the workers' spirit of professionalism, developing country rulers unintentionally thwart their own nuclear ambitions. Combining rich theoretical analysis, in-depth historical case studies of Iraq, China, Yugoslavia and Argentina and insightful analyses of current-day proliferant states, Achieving Nuclear Ambitions develops a powerful new perspective that effectively counters the widespread fears of a coming cascade of new nuclear powers.
Lottaz, Iwama, and their contributors investigate the role of neutral and nonaligned European states during the negotiations for the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Focusing ...on the years from the Irish Resolution of 1958 until the treaty’s opening for signatures ten years later, the nine chapters written by area experts highlight the processes and reasons for the political and diplomatic actions the neutrals took, and how those impacted the multilateral treaty negotiations. The book reveals new aspects of the dynamics that lead to this most consequential multilateral breakthrough of the Cold War. In part one, three chapters analyze the international system from a bird’s eye perspective, discussing neutrality, nonalignment, and the nuclear order. The second part features six detailed case studies on the politics and diplomacy of Ireland, Sweden, Finland, Switzerland, Austria, and Yugoslavia. Overall, this study suggests that despite the volatile and dangerous nature of the early Cold War, the balance of the strategic environment enabled actors that were not part of one or the other alliance system to play a role in the interlocking global politics that finally created the nuclear regime that defines international relations until today. A valuable resource for scholars of nonproliferation, the Cold War, neutrality, nonalignment, and area studies.
This book is a compilation of government reports on weapons of mass destruction. The first chapter is a bill that seeks to ensure the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has the structure, ...authority, and tools it needs to counter the threat of weapons of mass destruction. Chapter 2 discusses the continuation of the national emergency with respect to the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Chapter 3 reports on the Department of Homeland Security's organization to counter weapons of mass destruction. The danger North Korea poses to the world is more than just its rogue nuclear program and ballistic missile brinksmanship as discussed In chapter 4. Chapter 5 examines (1) DHS programs and activities to prevent and protect against domestic chemical attacks and (2) the extent to which DHS has integrated and coordinated all of its chemical defense programs and activities. Chapter 6 examines (1) information the federal government has about the procurement, distribution, use, and disposition of Agent Orange; (2) DOD and VA efforts to make information about where Agent Orange and its components were tested and stored available; and (3) challenges associated with Agent Orange testing.
Nuclear Reactions analyzes how nuclear weapons change the calculations states make in their foreign policies, why they do so, and why nuclear weapons have such different effects on the foreign ...policies of different countries.
Mark S. Bell argues that nuclear weapons are useful for more than deterrence. They are leveraged to pursue a wide range of goals in international politics, and the nations that acquire them significantly change their foreign policies as a result. Closely examining how these effects vary and what those variations have meant in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, Bell shows that countries are not generically "emboldened"—they change their foreign policies in different ways based on their priorities. This has huge policy implications: What would Iran do if it were to acquire nuclear weapons? Would Japanese policy toward the United States change if Japan were to obtain nuclear weapons? And what does the looming threat of nuclear weapons mean for the future of foreign policy? Far from being a relic of the Cold War, Bell argues, nuclear weapons are as important in international politics today as they ever were.
Thanks to generous funding from the University of Minnesota and its participation in TOME, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes, available from Cornell Open (cornellopen.org) and other repositories.
Grappling with the Bomb is a history of Britain’s 1950s program to test the hydrogen bomb, code name Operation Grapple. In 1957–58, nine atmospheric nuclear tests were held at Malden Island and ...Christmas Island—today, part of the Pacific nation of Kiribati. Nearly 14,000 troops travelled to the central Pacific for the UK nuclear testing program—many are still living with the health and environmental consequences. Based on archival research and interviews with nuclear survivors, Grappling with the Bomb presents i-Kiribati woman Sui Kiritome, British pacifist Harold Steele, businessman James Burns, Fijian sailor Paul Ah Poy, English volunteers Mary and Billie Burgess and many other witnesses to Britain’s nuclear folly.
At the dawn of the Atomic Age, Americans encountered troubling new questions brought about by the nuclear revolution: In a representative democracy, who is responsible for national public safety? How ...do citizens imagine themselves as members of the national collective when faced with the priority of individual survival? What do nuclear weapons mean for transparency and accountability in government? What role should scientific experts occupy within a democratic government? Nuclear weapons created a new arena for debating individual and collective rights. In turn, they threatened to destabilize the very basis of American citizenship. As Sarah E. Robey shows in Atomic Americans, people negotiated the contours of nuclear citizenship through overlapping public discussions about survival. Policymakers and citizens disagreed about the scale of civil defense programs and other public safety measures. As the public learned more about the dangers of nuclear fallout, critics articulated concerns about whether the federal government was operating in its citizens' best interests. By the early 1960s, a significant antinuclear movement had emerged, which ultimately contributed to the 1963 nuclear testing ban. Atomic Americans tells the story of a thoughtful body politic engaged in rewriting the rubric of rights and responsibilities that made up American citizenship in the Atomic Age.
Concerns about CBRN (chemical, biological, radioactive, nuclear) weapons have featured prominently in both political debates and media reporting about the ongoing threat from al Qaeda since 9/11. ...This book provides a chronological account of al Qaeda's efforts to acquire a CBRN weapon capability, and the evolution of the al Qaeda leadership's approach to actually using CBRN weapons, set against the context of the politicisation of the threat of CBRN terrorism in US security debates. Ben Cole explores how the inherently political nature of terrorist CBRN threats has helped to shape al Qaeda's approach to CBRN weapons, and shows how the heightened political sensitivities surrounding the threat have enabled some governments to manipulate it in order to generate domestic and international support for controversial policies, particularly the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Leading analysts have predicted for decades that nuclear weapons would help pacify international politics. The core notion is that countries protected by these fearsome weapons can stop competing so ...intensely with their adversaries: they can end their arms races, scale back their alliances, and stop jockeying for strategic territory. But rarely have theory and practice been so opposed. Why do international relations in the nuclear age remain so competitive? Indeed, why are today's major geopolitical rivalries intensifying? In The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution, Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press tackle the central puzzle of the nuclear age: the persistence of intense geopolitical competition in the shadow of nuclear weapons. They explain why the Cold War superpowers raced so feverishly against each other; why the creation of "mutual assured destruction" does not ensure peace; and why the rapid technological changes of the 21st century will weaken deterrence in critical hotspots around the world. By explaining how the nuclear revolution falls short, Lieber and Press discover answers to the most pressing questions about deterrence in the coming decades: how much capability is required for a reliable nuclear deterrent, how conventional conflicts may become nuclear wars, and how great care is required now to prevent new technology from ushering in an age of nuclear instability.
The Nuclear Taboo Tannenwald, Nina
12/2007, Letnik:
v.Series Number 87
eBook
Why have nuclear weapons not been used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945? Nina Tannenwald disputes the conventional answer of 'deterrence' in favour of what she calls a nuclear taboo - a ...widespread inhibition on using nuclear weapons - which has arisen in global politics. Drawing on newly released archival sources, Tannenwald traces the rise of the nuclear taboo, the forces that produced it, and its influence, particularly on US leaders. She analyzes four critical instances where US leaders considered using nuclear weapons (Japan 1945, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War 1991) and examines how the nuclear taboo has repeatedly dissuaded US and other world leaders from resorting to these 'ultimate weapons'. Through a systematic analysis, Tannenwald challenges conventional conceptions of deterrence and offers a compelling argument on the moral bases of nuclear restraint as well as an important insight into how nuclear war can be avoided in the future.
Prominent research holds that the use of weapons of mass destruction is taboo. But how strong are these norms? Investigating this question among the mass public, we argue that some citizens actually ...support taboo policies in private but are unwilling to express counter-normative opinions openly due to fear of social sanction. These insincere norm-holders are difficult to identify empirically because they are observationally equivalent to sincere norm-holders in direct-question surveys. To overcome this challenge, we use a list design, which allows survey respondents to indirectly express sensitive opinions. The results from three list experiments show that between 10% and 17% of Americans falsify their preferences over chemical weapons use when asked directly. In an extension, we explore our framework in the realm of nuclear weapons and elite behavior. Our findings advance a specific debate on the strength of weapons taboos, while our conceptualization of insincere norm-holders and methodological application have broader implications for how scholars might think about and measure norms in international politics.
PDF
