There was an expectation that the end of the Cold War would herald a new era of peace and stability in which the importance of nuclear weapons was marginalized. Instead, we have been left with a fractious, inter-dependent international community rife with ethnic and religious tension and unbound by super-power competition. The challenges of climate change, demographic shifts and resource competition have further altered the security environment. As if this were not enough, nuclear proliferation is once again at the top of the international agenda.

In the last decade the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty (NPT) has been challenged from within by Iraq, Iran and Libya while India s, Pakistan s and North Korea's nuclear weapon capabilities are threatening the non-proliferation norm from without. The new proliferators are predominantly, but not exclusively, aggressive, unstable and authoritarian regimes, considered by many in the international community to be outside the constraints of international normative behaviour. Some have even been labelled outlaw, or rogue states. Although inter-continental nuclear war is not presently considered a danger, the increased number of nuclear weapons states combined with the nature of those states and the strategic environment in which they exist makes the possibility of a lesser nuclear exchange potentially much greater. In parallel, the 9/11 atrocities raised fears of the prospect of apocalyptic terrorists acquiring nuclear weapons. Indications that the NPT is failing to rise to the challenge have resulted in policy decisions that have arguably reversed both the disarmament and non-proliferation norms.

This volume delves deep into the changing global nuclear landscape. The chapters document the increasing complexity of the global nuclear proliferation dynamic and the inability of the international community to come to terms with a rapidly changing strategic milieu. The future, in all likelihood, will be very different from the past, and the chapters in this volume develop a framework that may helps gain a better understanding of the forces that will shape the nuclear proliferation debate in the years to come.

Part I examines the major thematic issues underlying the contemporary discourse on nuclear proliferation.

Part II gives an overview of the evolving nuclear policies of the five established nuclear powers: the USA, Russia, the United Kingdom, France and the People's Republic of China.

Part III looks at the three de facto nuclear states: India, Pakistan and Israel.

Part IV examines two problem states' in the proliferation matrix today: Iran and North Korea.

Part V sheds light on an important issue often ignored during discussions of nuclear proliferation cases where states have made a deliberate policy choice of either renouncing their nuclear weapons programme, or have decided to remain a threshold state. The cases of South Africa, Egypt and Japan will be the focus of this section.

The final section, Part VI, will examine the present state of the global nuclear non-proliferation regime, which most observers agree is currently facing a crisis of credibility. The three pillars of this regime the NPT, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and the Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty will be analyzed.

"We are dropping cyber bombs. We have never done that before."-U.S. Defense Department official. A new era of war fighting is emerging for the U.S. military. Hi-tech weapons have given way to hi tech in a number of instances recently: A computer virus is unleashed that destroys centrifuges in Iran, slowing that country's attempt to build a nuclear weapon. ISIS, which has made the internet the backbone of its terror operations, finds its network-based command and control systems are overwhelmed in a cyber attack. A number of North Korean ballistic missiles fail on launch, reportedly because their systems were compromised by a cyber campaign. Offensive cyber operations like these have become important components of U.S. defense strategy and their role will grow larger. But just what offensive cyber weapons are and how they could be used remains clouded by secrecy. This new volume by Amy Zegart and Herb Lin is a groundbreaking discussion and exploration of cyber weapons with a focus on their strategic dimensions. It brings together many of the leading specialists in the field to provide new and incisive analysis of what former CIA director Michael Hayden has called "digital combat power" and how the United States should incorporate that power into its national security strategy.

In 1974 Richard Nixon's defense secretary, James Schlesinger, announced that the United States would change its nuclear targeting policy from "assured destruction" to "limited nuclear options." In this account of the Schlesinger Doctrine based on newly declassified documents and extensive interviews with key actors, Terry Terriff challenges the Nixon administration's official explanation of why and how this policy innovation occurred.

The biannual, peer-reviewed Journal of Romanian Studies, jointly developed by The Society for Romanian Studies and ibidem Press, examines critical issues in Romanian studies, linking work in that field to wider theoretical debates and issues of current relevance, and serving as a forum for junior and senior scholars. The journal also presents articles that connect Romania and Moldova comparatively with other states and their ethnic majorities and minorities, and with other groups by investigating the challenges of migration and globalization and the impact of the European Union. Issue No. 3 contains: Alexandra Chiriac: Ephemeral Modernisms, Transnational Lives: Reconstructing Avant-Garde Performance in Bucharest; Petru Negura: Compulsory Primary Education and State Building in Rural Bessarabia (1918-1940); Vladimir Solonari: Record Weak: Romanian Judiciary in Occupied Transnistria; Delia Popescu: A Political Palimpsest: Nationalism and Faith in Petre Tuteas Thinking; Cynthia M. Horne: What Is too Long and When Is too Late for Transitional Justice? Observations from the Case of Romania; Brindusa Armanca and Peter Gross: Searching for a Future: Mass Media and the Uncertain Construction of Democracy in Romania.