Return to Armageddon covers the extraordinary years spanning the Reagan, Bush, and Clinton administrations, a period when the United States, through its victory in the Cold War, led the world away from the brink of nuclear annihilation, and then slowly became aware of the increased threat of nuclear confrontation in a world more splintered than ever before and more at the mercy of fanatics and zealots.

This book, first published in 1995, explores how the everyday person reasons about nuclear strategy. James DeNardo's data reveals surprising patterns of thinking on basic issues from SDI, arms control, and proliferation to the end of the Cold War. The book describes a fascinating cast of players, including 'Nice Hawks' like Ronald Reagan, who wanted to give SDI to the Russians, and the 'NIFFs,' whose procurement rule, expressed simply, was: 'If they have it, we don't want it, but they don't have it, we should get it.' To explain his remarkable evidence, Professor DeNardo presents an innovative theory of intuitive deterrence reasoning. He then confronts the theory with data from professional nuclear strategists. His discovery that the amateur's strategic reasoning defies all conventional theories lays the groundwork for a new understanding of national security politics. His demonstration that professional strategists reason like novices - that we are all Amateur Strategists - challenges the intellectual foundations of modern deterrence theory, public opinion studies, and game theory.

This book, first published in 1995, explores how the everyday person reasons about nuclear strategy. James DeNardo's data reveals surprising patterns of thinking on basic issues from SDI, arms control, and proliferation to the end of the Cold War. The book describes a fascinating cast of players, including 'Nice Hawks' like Ronald Reagan, who wanted to give SDI to the Russians, and the 'NIFFs,' whose procurement rule, expressed simply, was: 'If they have it, we don't want it, but they don't have it, we should get it.' To explain his remarkable evidence, Professor DeNardo presents an innovative theory of intuitive deterrence reasoning. He then confronts the theory with data from professional nuclear strategists. His discovery that the amateur's strategic reasoning defies all conventional theories lays the groundwork for a new understanding of national security politics. His demonstration that professional strategists reason like novices - that we are all Amateur Strategists - challenges the intellectual foundations of modern deterrence theory, public opinion studies, and game theory.

The massive movement against nuclear weapons began with the invention of the atomic bomb in 1945 and lasted throughout the Cold War. Antinuclear protesters of all sorts mobilized in defiance of the move toward nuclear defense in the wake of the Cold War. They influenced U.S. politics, resisting the mindset of nuclear deterrence and mutually-assured destruction. The movement challenged Cold War militarism and restrained leaders who wanted to rely almost exclusively on nuclear weapons for national security. Ultimately, a huge array of activists decided that nuclear weapons made the country less secure, and that, through testing and radioactive fallout, they harmed the very people they were supposed to protect. Rethinking the American Antinuclear Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and figures, the strengths and weaknesses of the activists, and its lasting effects on the country. It is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the American antinuclear movement and the massive reach of this transnational concern.

The massive movement against nuclear weapons began with the invention of the atomic bomb in 1945 and lasted throughout the Cold War. Antinuclear protesters of all sorts mobilized in defiance of the move toward nuclear defense in the wake of the Cold War. They influenced U.S. politics, resisting the mindset of nuclear deterrence and mutually-assured destruction. The movement challenged Cold War militarism and restrained leaders who wanted to rely almost exclusively on nuclear weapons for national security. Ultimately, a huge array of activists decided that nuclear weapons made the country less secure, and that, through testing and radioactive fallout, they harmed the very people they were supposed to protect. Rethinking the American Antinuclear Movement provides a short, accessible overview of this important social and political movement, highlighting key events and figures, the strengths and weaknesses of the activists, and its lasting effects on the country. It is perfect for anyone wanting to obtain an introduction to the American antinuclear movement and the massive reach of this transnational concern.

International nuclear disarmament is at a standstill. A Nuclear-Weapon-Free World discusses steps that should be taken to restart the disarmament process, including de-alerting nuclear weapons, ending production of fissile material, and introducing policies of 'no first use'. The book includes a history of attempts to eliminate nuclear weapons, together with a summary of the arguments for and against; an analysis of whether nuclear weapons prevented a war in Europe between 1945 and 1991; and a worldwide survey of public opinion on nuclear weapons.

The Nobel Symposium on A Future Arms Control Agenda was organized by SIPRI to consider how arms control can contribute to creating a cooperative security system based on the peaceful resolution of disputes and the gradual demilitarization of international relations. The proceedings of the symposium include comprehensive discussions of the new normative and structural elements of the post-cold war global security system and the objectives and limits of arms control within that evolving system.

In this book, Christoph Bluth provides an original analysis of one of the most perplexing periods of Soviet foreign and military policy--the build up of strategic forces from the death of Stalin to the SALT I agreement. Bluth outlines Soviet strategic arms policy in this period, identifies the principal interest groups involved and studies a number of critical decisions taken in relation to strategic bombers, strategic nuclear forces based at sea, ballistic missile defence and the military uses of space. Strategic arms policy in the Khrushchev period exhibited a number of apparent paradoxes which the author explains. As well as examining external threat assessment and wider foreign policy, he pays particular attention to the role of domestic factors such as Khrushchev's endeavours to shift resources away from the military industries to agriculture and the production of consumer goods. Bluth is therefore able to demonstrate how domestic priorities and internal power struggles account for some of the seeming inconsistencies of military and foreign policy. Given current reassessments of the nature of the Soviet military threat and the revival of interest in the Khrushchev period, this book is most topical. Using source material hitherto unavailable, Bluth combines, for the first time, an analysis of foreign, military and domestic policy. Soviet strategic arms policy before SALT will, therefore, be of interest to a wide range of students and specialists of Soviet affairs, strategic studies and international relations.

World-renowned political thinkers and scientists write on nuclear weapons and war in the twenty-first century. The contributors include Mikhail Gorbachev, who first declared 'A nuclear war cannot be won and must not be fought', Robert McNamara, US Defense Secretary at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis and Vietnam War; and Nobel Peace Laureate Joseph Rotblat, the only scientist to resign from the Manhattan Project, where the world's first nuclear weapons were produced.

Applying recent advances in game theory to the study of nuclear deterrence, the author examines some of the most complex and problematic issues in deterrence theory. Game-theoretic analysis allows the author to model the effects on deterrence strategies of first-strike advantages, of limited retaliation, and of the number of nuclear superpowers involved in the international system. With the formalizations he develops, the author is able to demonstrate the fundamental similarity of the two seemingly disparate deterrence strategies that have evolved in response to the superpower arms buildup; the strategy that leaves something to chance and the strategy of limited retaliation.

The Cold War may be over, but you wouldn't know it from the tens of thousands of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons of mass destruction still held by Russia, the United States, and other world powers. Arguing that the time has come to dispense with incremental approaches to arms control, Admiral Stansfield Turner, the former head of the CIA and an experienced senior military commander, proposes a practical yet safe plan--strategic escrow--that would move the world into a new and secure millennium. The paperback edition of this widely acclaimed work has been updated to consider the implications of such a build-down if applied to non-nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Specifically, Admiral Turner details how a plan for weapons reduction could be carried out for biological and chemical weapons and what tactical and strategic differences exist between de-escalation of nuclear and non-nuclear weapons.

Established in 1986 as an independent, nonprofit organization of scientists VERTIC provides reliable information on verification, a process which establishes whether all parties are complying with their obligations under an agreement. These agreements may be international agreements on arms control or the environment, or agreements between different communities within a state. For many TV and radio journalists, VERTIC is the first port of call: It is frequently consulted for its knowledge of international and national agreements and for its technical expertise.

The first VERTIC yearbook, on verification-related issues in the spheres of arms control and the environment, was published in 1991. In 1993, its subject matter was expanded to include peacekeeping. The new 1997 volume is divided into two parts. The first half of the book contains twelve original essays analyzing the arms control, peacekeeping, and environmental issues in 1996. The second half contains a greatly expanded collection of twenty-one primary documents that scholars and policy practitioners will find indispensable-- from the Cairo Declaration to the Declaration of the Moscow Nuclear Safety Summit to the complete text of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the attendant declarations.

With the end of the Cold War, the UN has shown a new dynamism, reflecting a qualitative change in attitudes and perceptions of the international community. The focus of this book is on the ability of the UN to sustain this dynamism into the future. It examines the roles of the UN in the vital areas of international peace and security as well as the realms of human rights, disarmament and arms control and economic development. The contributors, who are experts on the UN, address the conditions which can make the UN more effective and present suggestions on the ways to improve the utilization of the world organization so as to increase its efficacy.

Why did the Carter Administration's conventional arms transfer restraint policy fail? What can be learnt from that failure? Using the theoretical lens of the implementation approach this book examines the origins, context, development and fate of the Administration's conventional arms transfer restraint policy.

While many books discuss how nations can prevent the proliferation of biological and nuclear weapons, this unique and controversial volume begins with the premise that these weapons will certainly multiply despite our desperate desire to slow this process. How worried should we be and what should we do? In From Lambs to Lions, Thomas Preston examines current trends in the proliferation of nuclear and biological weapons capabilities, know-how, and technologies for both state and non-state actors-and then projects these trends over the coming ten to fifteen years to assess how they might impact existing security relationships between states. With a new preface to the paperback edition, Thomas Preston also addresses the threat of biological and nuclear weapons proliferation that faces the Obama administration. How might a nuclear North Korea or Iran constrain U.S. freedom of action in its foreign or military policies? How might U.S. security be impacted by the current biotechnical revolution and spread of bioweapons know-how to opponents? How might terror groups like Al Qaeda make use of such weapons in future attacks against the United States or its allies around the world? These are the central, most fundamental questions facing American security policy over the coming decades, and to ignore them is to put ourselves at risk for new 9/11-style surprises. For answers, and for some potentially surprising reassurances, this clear and informative book will be invaluable.

Resisting the Bomb continues the story, begun in the award-winning One World or None, of humanity's efforts to avert nuclear destruction. Beginning with the catastrophic atmospheric nuclear weapons tests of 1954, it describes the gradual development of a grassroots, worldwide movement for nuclear disarmament. By the late 1950's and early 1960's, this campaign had taken on mass dimensions in many nations, with antinuclear protests simultaneously drawing hundreds of thousands of people in dozens of countries.

The movement engaged the efforts of some of the world's most prominent and revered intellectuals, such as Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell, and had a substantial impact on major political, labor, and religious groups, as well as on public opinion. Even within the relatively closed confines of Communist countries, antinuclear activities emerged and exerted pressure on public officials. As a result, the public policy of numerous countries began to shift away from a reliance upon nuclear war and toward curbing the nuclear arms race -- a process that culminated in the partial test ban treaty, the nuclear nonproliferation treaty, and other arms control measures of the 1960's.

This is the first comprehensive account of worldwide nuclear disarmament activism and its consequences during these years. The book is based on extensive research, in fifteen countries, on more than a hundred peace groups and government agencies. Many of the documents -- such as those drawn from the files of the U.S. State Department, the Atomic Energy Authority of Great Britain, and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union -- were until recently classified as top secret. Now,together with personal interviews and material drawn from peace movement periodicals, they contribute to a vivid panorama of the global antinuclear campaign and provide startling revelations about the efforts of government officials to repress, contain, and, finally, accommodate to popular protest.

Today, despite the end of the cold war, more countries have more sophisticated weapons from more numerous suppliers than ever before. This is partly a product of continuing and growing conflicts--especially regional and interethnic ones--but it also reflects the political and economic difficulties of weaning public and private enterprise away from powerful and highly lucrative defense manufacturing and sales.In this compact yet comprehensive volume, Frederic Pearson surveys the broad terrain covered by the concept of "the security dilemma" and points out landmarks along the route proceeding from proliferation to economic interests, to potential "conversion," to the future of defense production and marketing. Along the way we experience the lure of arms sales expositions and fairs and the quandary of deciding whether to arm victims of aggression. The author meticulously describes and documents the twin motives of "welfare and security" in the arms market: who buys weapons, who sells them, where they are produced, and how they are--and are not--used. Through a combination of data, anecdotes, illustrations, and narration accompanied by special feature boxes, we see how arms races have mounted historically and how they might be defused in this, the gathering post-Cold War order.From spears and axes to the radar-eluding stealth aircraft, "The Global Spread of Arms" charts the history of the arms dilemma and brings us up-to-date on myths and recent trends in weapons development internationally. Touching on issues ranging from multinational arms manufacturers to black and gray market consumers, from arms verification to arms autonomy, and from peace dividends to "peace through strength," Pearson presents a balanced view of the policy debate about defense economies, collective security, and how to manage them.Governments of developed and developing countries alike talk about arms control but often fail to act in curtailing arms trade and transfers. Nowhere is the paradox of the "sovereign right to arm" more apparent than in current hot spots detailed by Pearson, including the Balkans, the former Soviet Union, Iraq, North Korea, and South Asia. We see an array of arms trends played out to devastating effect: sanctions, embargoes, multilateral trade and negotiations, smuggling, "arms balancing," and, ultimately, proliferation and escalation cycles. Potential escape routes from weapons dilemmas also are offered in a full review of arms transfer controls.Students of international relations and international political economy, from peace studies to security studies, will join industry and government professionals as well as general readers in finding this primer indispensable to understanding the past and future global arsenal.

"A pioneering political-scientific history. . . . Lucidly composed, meticulously documented, and handsomely presented."--The Annals
"A fascinating and compelling story of the beginnings of the Chinese nuclear weapon program."--Arms Control Today

This book examines the importance of global nuclear order, emphasising the importance of perspective in our understanding of it, and its significance in international politics. Addressing a gap in existing literature, this book provides an introduction to nuclear weapon states and their relationship with the global nuclear order/disorder paradigm. It explores four main themes and aims to: 1. conceptualise the dichotomous paradigm of global nuclear order/disorder; 2. outline the different phases of global nuclear order/disorder from 1945 to present; 3. address the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the wider international nuclear non-proliferation regime; 4. provide an overview of every nuclear weapon state's national nuclear doctrines throughout the years. The book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, global governance, security studies, Cold War studies, foreign policy and IR, more generally.

This book offers a novel approach to understanding the puzzle of nuclear proliferation by examining how leaders' beliefs and perceptions about the international system influence states' decisions to acquire nuclear weapons. Today, there is a persisting dilemma over the spread of nuclear weapons for both practitioners and scholars of international affairs. Uncertainty remains whether determined proliferators can be stopped, as shown by the cases of North Korea and Iran. These instances of proliferation raise questions about regional stability, the use of pre-emptive military action, and the potential for reactive-proliferation by neighbouring countries. Despite the serious implications surrounding the spread of these weapons, proliferation scholarship has thus far failed to solve what has been described as the "proliferation puzzle"- why do some countries choose nuclear weapons while others do not? The author argues that understanding basic psychological motivations, such as the role of power and perceptions of self and others, forms a strategic context which provides answers about a leader's willingness to proliferate. Proliferation willingness is a critical, yet frequently overlooked, part of the proliferation equation. Ultimately, it is the combination of willingness and proliferation opportunity (i.e. technical and scientific capabilities) that determines whether a country 'goes nuclear'. By examining several historical instances of proliferation decision-making-in South Africa, India, Libya and Australia-the book's findings highlight the fundamental role of leaders' beliefs in shaping proliferation outcomes. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, political psychology, security studies and IR in general.

This book is an authoritative account of the nuclear weapons inspections regime in Iraq from 1991 to 1998. Without a proper understanding of those years, the 2003 US invasion of Iraq after a futile WMD search remain unintelligible. In the 1990s, after adapting to a completely new kind of intrusive inspections with unprecedented access rights, the IAEA discovered and dismantled Iraq's clandestine nuclear weapons program and put in place an efficient monitoring system which could have contained Saddam Hussein's attempts to reconstitute his nuclear programs - had he ever tried to. However, the politicisation of the inspection process led to an end of the inspections in 1998. Based on various sources including inspection reports and other documents in the archive of the IAEA Iraq Action Team at the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Dismantling the Iraqi Nuclear Programme presents completely new information about the weapons inspection regime in Iraq and offers valuable lessons for future non-proliferation and disarmament cases. The book also draws on discourse from Iraqi scientists, which provides a close look into not only the motivation of involved Iraqis, but also Iraqi concealment mechanisms. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, arms control, Middle Eastern politics, diplomacy, international security and IR.

Atomic Steppe tells the untold true story of how the obscure country of Kazakhstan said no to the most powerful weapons in human history. With the fall of the Soviet Union, the marginalized Central Asian republic suddenly found itself with the world's fourth largest nuclear arsenal on its territory. Would it give up these fire-ready weapons-or try to become a Central Asian North Korea? This book takes us inside Kazakhstan's extraordinary and little-known nuclear history from the Soviet period to the present. For Soviet officials, Kazakhstan's steppe was not an ecological marvel or beloved homeland, but an empty patch of dirt ideal for nuclear testing. Two-headed lambs were just the beginning of the resulting public health disaster for Kazakhstan-compounded, when the Soviet Union collapsed, by the daunting burden of becoming an overnight nuclear power. Equipped with intimate personal perspective and untapped archival resources, Togzhan Kassenova introduces us to the engineers turned diplomats, villagers turned activists, and scientists turned pacifists who worked toward disarmament. With thousands of nuclear weapons still present around the world, the story of how Kazakhs gave up their nuclear inheritance holds urgent lessons for global security.

Despite deep roots in local community organizing and peace activism, the peacebuilding field over the past two decades has evolved into a stratified, and often disconnected, community of academics, policymakers, and practitioners. While the growth into a more recognized and professionalized field has led to significant improvements in how decision-makers and influential thinkers accept peace and conflict resolution theory and practice, it has also left certain communities behind. Individual activists, community-based groups, and locally-led civil society organizations - in other words, the people most directly experiencing the results of violent conflict and striving to overcome and transform it - remain notably on the margins of what has become the more recognized "international peacebuilding field." As a result, the inherent links between policies and practices of the global North, particularly the United States, where much of the professional peacebuilding community is concentrated, and the daily realities of rising violence and collapsing order experienced by communities in the global South, are glossed over or apportioned to the fields of political science or international affairs. Similarly, the daily community level efforts of people and groups within the United States and other global North countries seeking to address drivers of violence and injustice in their own communities are largely disconnected from the struggles of communities living inside recognized war zones for a more peaceful and just future. These disconnects within the peacebuilding field have increasingly become obstacles to its further evolution and improvement. Without a serious shift in direction toward more integrated, interconnected, and intersectional understanding and approaches, the peacebuilding field threatens to become just another Western-driven industry in which powerful decision-makers, politicized funding, and large international bureaucracies sustain themselves. Reconnecting the field with its roots of community-based activism, organizing, and courageous leadership is urgently needed, and a necessary step to improving our collective efforts to build a more peaceful, just, and sustainable world. Drawing on the voices and experiences of community-based peace leaders around the world, this book envisions a new way of working together as a truly local and global peacebuilding field - one in which undoing the roots of violence and injustice is not something that takes place "in the field", but in the streets of our own neighborhoods and in solidarity with others around the world.