This Research Handbook provides a broad yet detailed treatment of international arms control law. It takes stock of existing arms control agreements, addresses current challenges and aims to indicate avenues for the future development of this distinct branch of public international law. Split across nine thematic parts, this comprehensive Handbook goes beyond the pure encyclopaedic approach by providing analytical and doctrinal guidance. Chapters provide extensive analysis of international arms control law, addressing both conventional weapons and new technologies, contextualising arms control law and politics through identifying actors, forums and regulatory approaches. The impressive list of contributors also explore geographical zones of arms control including Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America. Investigating both complex theoretical and recent practical approaches into arms control law, this Research Handbook will be an ideal read for interested students and academics as well as practitioners involved in conflict, security and international law.

Making a timely contribution to the legal literature, this important book discusses an under-analysed issue of great importance to international peace and security. It provides a comprehensive overview and analysis of the prevention of nuclear terrorism specifically through an international (arms control) law lens. Jonathan Herbach sets out a basis for better understanding how the international legal framework for nuclear security is structured and why it is structured that way, and offers a critical analysis of the component instruments that make up the framework. He highlights the strengths and analyzes possible gaps and weaknesses of these instruments and the legal framework as a whole, as well as explaining the framework's key characteristics, approaches and rationale. As nuclear security is by no means a static topic, with changing circumstances a defining feature of the area, the book also offers ideas for the path forward and conceptualizes ways to further strengthen the nuclear security legal framework. Offering a fresh perspective on the prevention of nuclear terrorism, this book will benefit academics and students of public international law, counter-terrorism and conflict and security law. It will also be a useful resource for governmental legal advisors, think-tanks and diplomats to inform their work on means and mechanisms to help strengthen the global nuclear security regime and to provide guidance for decision-making.

Despite recent attempts at 'negotiation', the attitudes of both Kim Jong-un's regime and the West seem unchanged. North Korea is still shrouded in mystery, and there are no clear plans for the future... Can we trust either side to bring about peace? And if so, how? This provocative insider's account blasts apart the myths which paint North Korea as a rogue state run by a mad leader. Informed by extraordinary access to the country's leadership, Glyn Ford investigates the regime from the inside, providing game-changing insights, which Trump and his administration have failed to do. Acknowledging that North Korea is a deeply flawed and repressive state, he nonetheless shows that sections of the leadership are desperate to modernise and end their isolation. With chapters on recent developments including the Trump / Kim summit, Ford supports a dialogue between East and West, whilst also criticising Trump's facile attempts. Talking to North Korea provides a road map for averting a war in North East Asia that would threaten the lives of millions.

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.

Globalization and technology have created new challenges to national governments. As a result, they now must share power with other entities, such as regional and global organizations or large private economic units. In addition, citizens in most parts of the world have been empowered by the ability to acquire and disseminate information instantly. However this has not led to the type of international cooperation essential to deal with existential threats. Whether governments can find ways to cooperate in the face of looming threats to the survival of human society and our environment has become one of the defining issues of our age. A struggle between renewed nationalism and the rise of a truly global society is underway, but neither global nor regional institutions have acquired the skills and authority needed to meet existential threats, such as nuclear proliferation. Arms control efforts may have reduced the excesses of the Cold War, but concepts and methodologies for dealing with the nuclear menace have not kept up with global change. In addition, governments have shown surprisingly little interest in finding new ways to manage or eliminate global and regional competition in acquiring more or better nuclear weapons systems. This book explains why nuclear weapons still present existential dangers to humanity and why engagement by the United States with all states possessing nuclear weapons remains necessary to forestall a global catastrophe. The terms of engagement, however, will have to be different than during the Cold War. Technology is developing rapidly, greatly empowering individuals, groups, and nations. This can and should be a positive development, improving health, welfare, and quality of life for all, but it can also be used for enormous destruction. This book reaches beyond the military issues of arms control to analyze the impact on international security of changes in the international system and defines a unique cooperative security agenda.

Peaceful War is an epic analysis of the unfolding drama between the clashing forces of the Chinese dream and American destiny. Just as the American experiment evolved, Deng Xiaoping's China has been using "Hamiltonian means to Jeffersonian ends" and borrowed the idea of the American Dream as a model for China's rise. The Chinese dream, as reinvented by President Xi Jinping, continues Deng's experiment into the twenty-first century. With a possible "fiscal cliff" in America and a "social cliff" in China, the author revisits the history of Sino-American relations to explore the prospects for a return to the long-forgotten Beijing-Washington love affair launched in the trade-for-peace era. President Barack Obama's Asia pivot strategy and the new Silk Road plan of President Xi could eventually create a pacific New World Order of peace and prosperity for all. The question is: will China ultimately evolve into a democratic nation by rewriting the American Dream in Chinese characters, and how might this transpire?

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.

This handbook provides critical analyses of the theory and practices of small arms proliferation and its impact on conflicts and organized violence in Africa. It examines the terrains, institutions, factors and actors that drive armed conflict and arms proliferation, and further explores the nature, scope, and dynamics of conflicts across the continent, as well as the extent to which these conflicts are exacerbated by the proliferation of small arms. The volume features rich analyses by contributors who are acquainted with, and widely experienced in, the formal and informal structures of arms proliferation and control, and their repercussions on violence, instability and insecurity across Africa. The chapters dissect the challenges of small arms and light weapons in Africa with a view to understanding roots causes and drivers, and generating a fresh body of analyses that adds value to the existing conversation on conflict management and peacebuilding in Africa. With contributions from scholars, development practitioners, defence and security professionals and civil society activists, the handbook seeks to serve as a reference for students, researchers, and policy makers on small arms proliferation, control and regulation; defence and security practitioners; and those involved in countering violence and managing conflicts in Africa.

In recent years, it has become increasingly clear to many observers that the Department of Defense must better communicate to the officers at the tactical end of the nuclear mission a rationale for nuclear weapons and deterrence, the critical role that they play in the post-Cold War strategy of the United States, and the value of nuclear weapons to the security of the American people. This report tracks the changing conceptual and political landscape of U.S. nuclear deterrence to illuminate the gap in prioritizing the nuclear arsenal and to build a compelling rationale for tactical personnel explaining the role and value of U.S. nuclear weapons.