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.

In How Nuclear Weapons Spread, Frank Barnaby examines the far-reaching effects - both beneficial and detrimental - of nuclear weapons. He looks in detail at the nuclear programmes of Third World countries, including India, Israel and Pakistan which have or could very rapidly acquire nuclear weapons, and assesses the nuclear capabilities of countries such as Iran, Iraq and North Korea. He also considers the alarming possibility that terrorists might obtain nuclear weapons, and considers methods of controlling their spread.

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In this book, the authors explore the controversial Iranian nuclear programme through the conceptual lens of nuclear hedging. In 2002, revelations regarding undeclared nuclear facilities thrust Iran's nuclear activities under the spotlight and prompted concerns that Tehran was pursuing nuclear weapons. Iran has always denied nuclear weapons aspirations, yet it cannot be disputed that the Islamic Republic has gone well beyond what is required for a civil nuclear programme based on energy production and scientific research. What, then, is the nature and significance of Iran's nuclear behaviour? Does it form part of a coherent strategy? What can Iran's actions in the nuclear field tell us about Tehran's intentions? And what does the Iranian case teach us about proliferation behaviour more generally? This book addresses these questions by exploring the nature of nuclear hedging and how this approach might be identified, before applying this logic to the Iranian case. It provides fresh insights into the inherently opaque area of nuclear proliferation and a more nuanced interpretation of the Iranian nuclear challenge.

North Korea is perilously close to developing strategic nuclear weapons capable of hitting the United States and its East Asian allies. Since their first nuclear test in 2006, North Korea has struggled to perfect the required delivery systems. Kim Jong-un's regime now appears to be close, however. Sung Chull Kim, Michael D. Cohen, and the volume contributors contend that the time to prevent North Korea from achieving this capability is virtually over; scholars and policymakers must turn their attention to how to deter a nuclear North Korea. The United States, South Korea, and Japan must also come to terms with the fact that North Korea will be able to deter them with its nuclear arsenal. How will the erratic Kim Jong-un behave when North Korea develops the capability to hit medium- and long-range targets with nuclear weapons? How will and should the United States, South Korea, Japan, and China respond, and what will this mean for regional stability in the short term and long term? The international group of authors in this volume address these questions and offer a timely analysis of the consequences of an operational North Korean nuclear capability for international security.

Global politics has changed with unaccustomed swiftness since the end of the Cold War. Eastern Europe is free; the Soviet Union has broken up; China presses free market economic reform; and the United States and Russia have declared a joint commitment to end nuclear war. The force of these changes has created a new agenda for global politics and security policy. This does not mean that nuclear weapons have lost their centrality. Nuclear development programs continue in the major holders of advanced weapons. In Israel, Pakistan, India, North Korea, Iraq, and Iran nuclear intentions are subject to widespread speculation and scrutiny. Negotiations for renewal of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty remind us that the treaty requires serious efforts to abolish nuclear weapons. Nuclear Choices points out that the Cold War's end has not banished mistrust. Instead, it has opened the door to frank conversation about the usefulness of force and the need to address common fears. States now face a global choice among alternative nuclear futures. If they desire to avoid runaway nuclear development, the choices come down to three: the status quo, disengagement, or abolition. Larkin argues that if they chose the status quo, they elect a world in which only terror and self-restraint keep devastation at bay, a world in which instant destruction is possible. This study focuses on the nuclear weapons programs of Great Britain, China, and France, because they may be less familiar to students of international affairs. Each of these countries has developed a substantial nuclear capability that could decisively shape the result of coming global nuclear decisions. Larkin concludes that these three minipowers could conclude that nuclearism serves their interests, refuse disengagement, and encourage proliferation. If they are prepared to abandon nuclearism, they have tremendous political leverage on Russia, the United States, and also on undeclared and aspiring nuclear weapons states. For now, only the United Kingdom, France, and China maintain sufficient warhead inventories and production capabilities to have strong effects on how the United States and Russia view their own strategic capabilities. Nuclear Choices asserts that governments, polities, and parties today do not know how to guarantee themselves against weapons of mass destruction. They must either acquire the political and social means to achieve such guarantees or accept a world in which nuclearism will continue to cast its shadow over all aspects of nation building. It will be of interest to political scientists, policymakers, military analysts, and those interested hi the nuclear issue.

What is a realist response to nuclear weapons? This book is animated by the idea that contemporary attempts to confront the challenge of nuclear weapons and other global security problems would benefit from richer historical foundations. Returning to the decade of deep, thermonuclear anxiety inaugurated in the early 1950s, the authors focus on four creative intellectuals - Gunther Anders, John H. Herz, Lewis Mumford and Bertrand Russell - whose work they reclaim under the label of 'nuclear realism'. This book brings out an important, oppositional and resolutely global strand of political thought that combines realist insights about nuclear weapons with radical proposals for social and political transformation as the only escape from a profoundly endangered planet. Nuclear Realism is a highly original and provocative study that will be of great use to advanced undergraduates, graduates and scholars of political theory, International Relations and Cold War history.

This examination of nuclear arms control addresses the question of what kind of posture do second generation nuclear weapons states adopt in a world in which the presumption of non-proliferation is accepted?

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

China's nuclear capability is crucial for the balance of power in East Asia and the world. As this book reveals, there have been important changes recently in China's nuclear posture: the movement from a minimum deterrence posture toward a medium nuclear power posture; the pursuit of space warfare and missile defence capabilities; and, most significantly, the omission in the 2013 Defence White Paper of any reference to the principle of No First Use. Employing the insights of structural realism, this book argues that the imperatives of an anarchic international order have been the central drivers of China's nuclear assertiveness. The book also assesses the likely impact of China's emerging nuclear posture on its neighbours and on the international strategic balance, especially with the United States. The book concludes by examining China's future nuclear directions in the context of its apparent shift toward a more offensive-oriented international strategy.

This tightly argued and profoundly thought provoking book tackles a huge subject: the coming of the nuclear age with bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and the ways in which it has changed our lives since. Dr Heuser sets these events in their historical context and tackles key issues about the effect of nuclear weapons on modern attitudes to conflict, and on the ethics of warfare. Ducking nothing, she demystifies the subject, seeing `the bomb' not as something unique and paralysing, but as an integral part of the strategic and moral context of our time. For a wide multidisciplinary and general readership.

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.

Nuclear weapons are the elusive 'toys' of modern warfare and are hankered after by every Middle Eastern government. Although no Middle eastern government has formally admitted that the purpose of its investment in nuclear research is to develop weapons, it is certain that two countries, Israel and Pakistan, have mastered the technology for making nuclear bombs and that others are attempting to manipulate their nuclear hardware to this end. The combination of these nuclear ambitions, the large amounts of money that can be made available for research and the area's political instability make the region a powerful example of both the drive towards, and the dangers of, nuclear proliferation. This book, first published in 1988, examines the evolution of nuclear research and development in the region. It shows that it is the product of a complex web of internal and external factors, fuelled by considerations of international prestige and local rivalries. Whilst concluding that it is probably no longer possible to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons technology to the Middle East, it suggests ways in which the rate of proliferation can be slowed down.

Pioneering antinuclear activist Helen Caldicott assembles the world's leading nuclear scientists and thought leaders to assess the political and scientific dimensions of the threat of nuclear war today. Chapters include the size and distribution of the current global nuclear arsenal and the history and politics of nuclear weapons. The book ends with a devastating description of what a nuclear attack on Manhattan would look like, followed by an overview of contemporary antinuclear activism. Both essential and terrifying, this book is sure to become the new bible of the antinuclear movement.

Australia's Nuclear Policy: Reconciling Strategic, Economic and Normative Interests critically re-evaluates Australia's engagement with nuclear weapons, nuclear power and the nuclear fuel cycle since the dawn of the nuclear age. The authors develop a holistic conception of 'nuclear policy' that extends across the three distinct but related spheres - strategic, economic and normative - that have arisen from the basic 'dual-use' dilemma of nuclear technology. Existing scholarship on Australia's nuclear policy has generally grappled with each of these spheres in isolation. In a fresh evaluation of the field, the authors investigate the broader aims of Australian nuclear policy and detail how successive Australian governments have engaged with nuclear issues since 1945. Through its holistic approach, the book demonstrates the logic of seemingly conflicting policy positions at the heart of Australian nuclear policy, including simultaneous reliance on US extended deterrence and the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. Such apparent contradictions highlight the complex relationships between different ends and means of nuclear policy. How successive Australian governments of different political shades have attempted to reconcile these in their nuclear policy over time is a central part of the history and future of Australia's engagement with the nuclear fuel cycle.

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The Handbook of Nuclear Proliferation 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 aids 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. 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.

Abolition of Nuclear Weapons as a Moral Imperative argues that the use of nuclear weapons as a threat in policies of nuclear deterrence violate basic principles of morality and consequently the abolition of nuclear weapons from the world is a moral imperative nations that have them. The focus is on the United States since it will have to take the lead in any program of abolition. The argument is formulated in terms accessible to theorists in different disciplines and activists in a large range of causes. It appeals to principles that are widely shared but whose application to national policies, especially to deterrence by threats of mass destruction, has been debated ever since nuclear weapons were developed. The book explains what is meant by the "immorality" of a national policy, the stake which citizens have in their agents acting morally and the role of their opinions in seeing that they do. The argument of the book is couched in terms of consequences. The effects of the U.S.'s nuclear deterrent on the probability of nuclear war are difficult to calculate; but the harms for the country and others across the globe caused by the immense apparatus necessary to make U.S. threats credible are sufficient to condemn the policy. The last part of the book is devoted to way the U.S. can take the lead in safe and effective steps necessary to abolish the weapons and prevent their reintroduction into the world.

General Leslie Groves and J. Robert Oppenheimer were the two men chiefly responsible for the building of the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos, code name "The Manhattan Project." As the ranking military officer in charge of marshalling men and material for what was to be the most ambitious, expensive engineering feat in history, it was General Groves who hired Oppenheimer (with knowledge of his left-wing past), planned facilities that would extract the necessary enriched uranium, and saw to it that nothing interfered with the accelerated research and swift assembly of the weapon.This is his story of the political, logistical, and personal problems of this enormous undertaking which involved foreign governments, sensitive issues of press censorship, the construction of huge plants at Hanford and Oak Ridge, and a race to build the bomb before the Nazis got wind of it. The role of groves in the Manhattan Project has always been controversial. In his new introduction the noted physicist Edward Teller, who was there at Los Alamos, candidly assesses the general's contributions,and Oppenheimer's,while reflecting on the awesome legacy of their work.

This book studies the reactions of India, Brazil, and South Africa the three main non-proliferation actors of the Global South to Iran's nuclear program. Their responses are explained and situated in wider foreign policy context.

Since the end of the Cold War, significant attention has focussed on the issue of nuclear deterrence and in particular whether formal nuclear security guarantees from nuclear weapons states to non-nuclear weapons states involving the possible use of nuclear weapons have a place in the twenty-first century global strategic landscape. Growing support for nuclear disarmament in the US and elsewhere has seen serious doubts being raised about the ongoing utility of extended nuclear deterrence. This book provides the first detailed analysis of the way in which extended nuclear deterrence operates in contemporary Asia. It addresses the following key questions: What does the role of extended nuclear deterrence in Asia tell us about the broader role of extended nuclear deterrence in the contemporary international system? Is this role likely to change significantly in the years ahead? O'Neil uses a theoretical and historical framework to analyse the contemporary and future dynamics of extended nuclear deterrence in Asia and challenges many of the existing orthodox perspectives on the topic. Providing a new perspective on debates surrounding extended nuclear deterrence, this book will be of interest not only to students and scholars of Asian politics, international relations and security studies, but also to policy makers and professionals.

The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is the largest and most diverse political grouping of states engaged on issues related to nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. Drawing on the authors' first-hand experiences as members of NAM observer-state delegations in NPT and IAEA negotiations, as well as the findings of a larger CNS research project on NAM nuclear politics, the book will provide important new insights about how a small subset of NAM states has tended to dominate NAM politics and have promoted policies that are often at odds with those advanced by Western states on issues such as nuclear terrorism, IAEA safeguards, nuclear export controls, multinational fuel arrangements, proliferation in the Middle East, NPT, and nuclear arms control and disarmament. Based on an analysis of NAM perspectives, politics, and priorities, the book will provide practical recommendations for engaging NAM members in a more constructive fashion on issues related to nuclear nonproliferation, disarmament, peaceful use, and counter-nuclear terrorism. Particular attention will be given to problems likely to be encountered when Iran assumes the chairmanship of NAM in 2012 and how these difficulties can best be mitigated in the lead up to the next NPT Review Conference.

A PDF version of this book is available for free in open access via www.tandfebooks.com as well as the OAPEN Library platform, www.oapen.org. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 3.0 license and is part of the OAPEN-UK research project. This book examines the current debate on nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament, notably the international non-proliferation regime and how to implement its disarmament provisions. Discussing the requirements of a new international consensus on nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, this book builds on the three pillars of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT): non-proliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear energy. It reviews the impact of Cold War and post-Cold War policies on current disarmament initiatives and analyses contemporary proliferation problems: how to deal with the states that never joined the NPT (India, Pakistan and Israel); how states that have been moving toward nuclear weapons have been brought back to non-nuclear-weapon status; and, in particular, how to deal with Iran and North Korea. The analysis centres on the relationship between disarmament and non-proliferation in an increasingly multi-centric world involving China and India as well as the US, the European powers and Russia. It concludes with a description and discussion of three different worlds without nuclear weapons and their implications for nuclear disarmament policies. This book will be of great interest to all students of arms control, strategic studies, war and conflict studies, and IR/security studies in general Sverre Lodgaard is a Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, Oslo

'In this tightly focused, lucidly written and thoroughly researched book, Ferenc Morton Szasz, a professor of history at the University of New Mexico, describes the events, personalities and scientific processes that led to the detonation of the first atomic bomb in an isolated stretch of New Mexican desert...' ---New York Times Book Review

In Who Is the Dreamer Who Dreams the Dream? A Study of Psychic Presences, James Grotstein integrates some of his most important work of recent years in addressing fundamental questions of human psychology and spirituality. He explores two quintessential and interrelated psychoanalytic problems: the nature of the unconscious mind and the meaning and inner structure of human subjectivity. To this end, he teases apart the complex, tangled threads that constitute self-experience, delineating psychic presences and mystifying dualities, subjects with varying perspectives and functions, and objects with different, often phantasmagoric properties. Whether he is expounding on the Unconscious as a range of dimensions understandable in terms of nonlinear concepts of chaos, complexity, and emergence theory; modifying the psychoanalytic concept of psychic determinism by joining it to the concept of autochthony; comparing Melanie Klein's notion of the archaic Oedipus complex with the ancient Greek myth of the labyrinth and the Minotaur; or examining the relationship between the stories of Oedipus and Christ, Grotstein emerges as an analyst whose clinical sensibility has been profoundly deepened by his scholarly use of mythology, classical thought, and contemporary philosophy. The result is both an important synthesis of major currents of contemporary psychoanalytic thought and a moving exploration of the nature of human suffering and spirituality.