This important book analyzes nuclear weapon and energy policies in Asia, a region at risk for high-stakes military competition, conflict, and terrorism. The contributors explore the trajectory of debates over nuclear energy, security, and nonproliferation in key countries-China, India, Japan, Pakistan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, and other states in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Arguing against conventional wisdom, the contributors make a convincing case that domestic variables are far more powerful than external factors in shaping nuclear decision making. The book explores what drives debates and how decisions are framed, the interplay between domestic dynamics and geopolitical calculations in the discourse, where the center of gravity of debates lies in each country, and what this means for regional cooperation or competition and U.S. nuclear energy and nonproliferation policy in Asia.

Most observers who follow nuclear history agree on one major aspect regarding Israel's famous policy of nuclear ambiguity; mainly that it is an exception. More specifically, it is largely accepted that the 1969 Nixon-Meir understanding, which formally established Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity and transformed it from an undeclared Israeli strategy into a long-lasting undisclosed bilateral agreement, was in fact a singularity, aimed at allowing Washington to turn a blind eye to the existence of an Israeli arsenal. According to conventional wisdom, this nuclear bargain was a foreign policy exception on behalf of Washington, an exception which reflected a relationship growing closer and warmer between the superpower leading the free world and its small Cold War associate. Contrary to the orthodox narrative, this research demonstrates that this was not the case. The 1969 bargain was not, in fact, an exception, but rather the first of three Cold War era deals on nuclear tests brokered by Washington with its Cold War associates, the other two being Pakistan and South Africa. These two deals are not well known and until now were discussed and explored in the literature in a very limited fashion. Bargaining on Nuclear Tests places the role of nuclear tests by American associates, as well as Washington's attempts to prevent and delay them, at the heart of a new nuclear history narrative.

In recent decades the debate on nuclear weapons has focused overwhelmingly on proliferation and nonproliferation dynamics. In a series of "Wall Street Journal" articles, however, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn called on governments to rid the world of nuclear weapons, helping to put disarmament back into international security discussions. More recently, U.S. president Barack Obama, prominent U.S. congressional members of both political parties, and a number of influential foreign leaders have espoused the idea of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Turning this vision into reality requires an understanding of the forces driving disarmament forward and those holding it back. "Slaying the Nuclear Dragon" provides in-depth, objective analysis of current nuclear disarmament dynamics. Examining the political, state-level factors that drive and stall progress, contributors highlight the challenges and opportunities faced by proponents of disarmament. These essays show that although conditions are favorable for significant reductions, numerous hurdles still exist. Contributors look at three categories of states: those that generate momentum for disarmament; those with policies that are problematic for disarmament; and those that actively hinder progress--whether openly, secretly, deliberately, or inadvertently.
Nuclear deterrence was long credited with preventing war between the two major Cold War powers, but with the spread of nuclear technology, threats have shifted to other state powers and to nonstate groups. "Slaying the Nuclear Dragon" addresses an urgent need to examine nuclear disarmament in a realistic, nonideological manner.

Local Peacebuilding and National Peace is a collection of essays that examines the effects of local peacebuilding efforts on national peace initiatives. The book looks at violent and protracted struggles in which local people have sought to make their own peace with local combatants in a variety of ways, and how such initiatives have affected and have been affected by national level strategies. Chapters on theories of local and national peacemaking are combined with chapters on recent efforts to carry out such processes in warn torn societies such as Africa, Asia, and South America, with essays contributed by experts who were actually actively involved in the peacemaking process. With its unique focus on the interaction of peacemaking at local and national levels, the book will fill a gap in the literature. It will be of interest to students and researchers in such fields as peace studies, conflict resolution, international relations, postwar recovery and development.

From the destruction of Hiroshima to the conclusion of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, the international community struggled to halt the nuclear arms race and to prevent the annihilation of humanity. This study offers an accessible and authoritative account of European policy in this critical dimension of world politics. How much influence did Europeans exert in Washington? Why were European objectives often at variance with U.S. expectations? To what extent did differing national agendas on non-proliferation cause friction within the Western Alliance? Schrafstetter and Twigge examine five initiatives designed to prevent or restrain the nuclear arms race: the international option, the commercial option, the moral option, the multilateral option, and the legal option. Their conclusions show the extent to which non-proliferation policy dominated European politics and the transatlantic relationship. The international option focuses on early UN plans for international control of atomic energy (1946-48). The commercial option assesses the influence of Eisenhower's Atoms for Peace proposal of 1953 and the impact of civil nuclear power. The moral option charts international attempts to outlaw the testing of nuclear weapons, resulting in the 1963 Partial Test Ban Treaty. The multilateral option discusses the role of collective nuclear forces in addressing West German demands for nuclear equality within NATO. The legal option explores British, French, and West German attitudes to nuclear disarmament and charts the international drive to stop the spread of nuclear weapons culminating in the signing of the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968. Throughout the analysis, attention isfocused on the role of the European powers and their influence on both Washington and Moscow.

This edited collection considers the future of nuclear weapons in world politics in terms of security issues that are important for U.S. and other policy makers. The spread of nuclear weapons also is related to the equally dangerous proliferation of other weapons of mass destruction, including chemical and biological weapons, and of ballistic missiles of medium and longer ranges.

Cold War studies of nuclear weapons emphasized the U.S.-Soviet relationship, deterrence, and bilateral arms control. A less structured post-Cold War world will require more nuanced appreciation of the diversity of roles that nuclear weapons might play in the hands of new nuclear states or non-state actors. As the essays suggest as well, the possibility of terrorism by means of nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction introduces other uncertainties into military and policy planning. An important analysis for scholars, students, and researchers involved with defense, security, and foreign policy studies.

The Evolution of Arms Control: From Antiquity to the Nuclear Age is the first world history of arms control through time. Drawing on his knowledge of the comparative history of warfare and arms control across preliterate, ancient, medieval, and modern polities, Richard Dean Burns focuses longitudinally on such perennial arms control issues as negotiation, verification, and compliance. Although he does not, for example, allege that war elephants and nuclear weapons are of equal destructive potential, he does discern instructive similarities between Carthage in 202 BCE and Iraq in 1991 AD. Arms control and disarmament measures have been pursued and adopted throughout the history and prehistory of human warfare: sometimes as protocols recognizing evolving humanitarian taboos; sometimes as terms imposed by the victors on the vanquished; and sometimes as accords negotiated between rivals fearful of mutual destruction. Arms control measures ramped up in significance and urgency at the dawn of the 20th century by the introduction of rapid-fire weapons, aircraft, chemical agents, and submarines, and again at mid-century with the advent of weapons of mass destruction-nuclear, chemical, and bacteriological-with sophisticated delivery systems. As Burns makes clear, the enormous increase in destructive potential brought about by thermonuclear weaponry essentially changed the nature of war and, therefore, of arms control. 15 illustrations

This book analyzes the elimination of intermediate- range nuclear force missiles through vivid, fresh impressions by those who conducted the INF negotiations. The Reagan-Gorbachev Arms Control Breakthrough brings this period to life through the writing of key participants in the seminal negotiations leading to the completion of the INF Treaty and the ensuing epic struggle to secure its ratification by the U.S. Senate. The book provides an astute balance between the assessments of senior negotiators; "nuts and bolts" observations on specific elements of the Treaty by in-the-trenches negotiators; the tangles that challenged the keenest of legal minds; and the political maneuvers required to bring it through the pits and deadfalls of the Senate. Additionally, The Reagan-Gorbachev Arms Control Breakthrough provides an often-forgotten perspective of the moment, offering the opportunity for retrospective judgment. Is there a test that time demands? Are there "lessons learned," conceived at the time, that still pass that test? The INF Treaty was a pivotal moment in history, which was seized and resulted in a precedent-setting agreement and coincidental lessons from which much of arms control of the past quarter century has advantageously built.

The Cold War did not culminate in World War III as so many in the 1950s and 1960s feared, yet it spawned a host of military engagements that affected millions of lives. This book is the first comprehensive, multinational overview of military affairs during the early Cold War, beginning with conflicts during World War II in Warsaw, Athens, and Saigon and ending with the Cuban Missile Crisis.
A major theme of this account is the relationship between government policy and military preparedness and strategy. Author Jonathan M. House tells of generals engaging in policy confrontations with their governments' political leaders--among them Anthony Eden, Nikita Khrushchev, and John F. Kennedy--many of whom made military decisions that hamstrung their own political goals. In the pressure-cooker atmosphere of atomic preparedness, politicians as well as soldiers seemed instinctively to prefer military solutions to political problems. And national security policies had military implications that took on a life of their own. The invasion of South Korea convinced European policy makers that effective deterrence and containment required building up and maintaining credible forces. Desire to strengthen the North Atlantic alliance militarily accelerated the rearmament of West Germany and the drive for its sovereignty.
In addition to examining the major confrontations, nuclear and conventional, between Washington, Moscow, and Beijing--including the crises over Berlin and Formosa--House traces often overlooked military operations against the insurgencies of the era, such as French efforts in Indochina and Algeria and British struggles in Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus, and Aden. Now, more than fifty years after the events House describes, understanding the origins and trajectory of the Cold War is as important as ever. By the late 1950s, the United States had sent forces to Vietnam and the Middle East, setting the stage for future conflicts in both regions. House's account of the complex relationship between diplomacy and military action directly relates to the insurgencies, counterinsurgencies, and confrontations that now occupy our attention across the globe.