How did Andrei Sakharov, a theoretical physicist and the acknowledged father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, become a human rights activist and the first Russian to win the Nobel Peace Prize? In his later years, Sakharov noted in his diary that he was "simply a man with an unusual fate." To understand this deceptively straightforward statement by an extraordinary man, The World of Andrei Sakharov, the first authoritative study of Andrei Sakharov as a scientist as well as a public figure, relies on previously inaccessible documents, recently declassified archives, and personal accounts by Sakharov's friends and colleagues to examine the real context of Sakharov's life.
In the course of doing so, Gennady Gorelik answers a fascinating question, whether the Soviet hydrogen bomb was really fathered by Sakharov, or whether it was based on stolen American secrets. Gorelik concludes that while espionage did initiate the Soviet effort, the Russian hydrogen bomb was invented independently. Gorelik also elucidates the reasons that brought about the seemingly sudden transformation of the top-secret physicist into a public figure in 1968, when Sakharov's famous essay "Progress, Peaceful Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom" was distributed in samizdat in the USSR and smuggled out to the West. Recently declassified documents show that Sakharov's metamorphosis was caused by professional concerns, particularly regarding the development of an anti-ballistic missile defense. An insider's view of how the upper echelons of the Soviet regime functioned had led Sakharov to the conclusion that the goals of peace, progress, and human rights were inextricably linked. His free thinking and free feeling were manifested in his hope that scientific thought and religious perception would find a profound synthesis in the future.

The most significant challenge to the post-Cold War international order is the growing power of ambitious states opposed to the West. Iran, Russia and China each view the global structure through the prism of historical experience. Rejecting the universality of Western liberal values, these states and their governments each consider the relative decline of Western economic hegemony as an opportunity. Yet cooperation between them remains fragmentary. The end of Western sanctions and the Iranian nuclear deal; the Syrian conflict; new institutions in Central and East Asia: in all these areas and beyond, the potential for unity or divergence is striking. In this comprehensive study, Ariane Tabatabai and Dina Esfandiary address the substance of this `triple axis' in the realms of energy, trade, and military security. In particular they scrutinise Iran-Russia and the often overlooked field of Iran-China relations. Their argument - that interactions between the three will shape the world stage for decades to come - will be of interest to anyone looking to understand the contemporary international security puzzle.

On August 6 and August 9, 1945, the world became aware of the destructiveness of nuclear energy when the U.S. Army Air Corps dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even before the bombs were detonated, though, President Harry Truman had directed his thoughts toward non-military uses of the atom, recognizing that the atomic bomb had given man a new understanding of the forces of nature. This book examines the history and development of nuclear power from the perspective of the U.S. Army's nuclear power program, telling its story from the creation of the Office of Research and Development through the program's days of growth,and on to its eventual decline. This history examines the development of the United States Army's nuclear power program from its inception, through the development and operation of six small nuclear power plants throughout the Western Hemisphere, to its evolution into a military support agency. The Manhattan Project District Engineer, General Kenneth Nichols, who generated the idea for the program, worked for the development of atomic energy for peaceful purposes. From the initial plans to develop nuclear power plants at remote bases, the book traces the path the Army took in getting its proposals approved by the Atomic Energy Commission, formally organizing the nuclear program, and building a prototype of a nuclear power plant. Separate chapters are devoted to Fort Greely, the nuclear program at the height of its success and accomplishment, and its subsequent decline and transitional period. With its list of suggestions for further reading and a comprehensive index, this volume will be a valuable resource for courses in military history, energy issues, and the development of atomic power. It will also represent an important addition to college, university, and public libraries.

For more than fifty years, the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the wider nuclear nonproliferation regime have worked to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Analysts and pundits have often viewed the regime with skepticism, repeatedly warning that it is on the brink of collapse, and the NPT lacks many of the characteristics usually seen in effective international institutions. Nevertheless, the treaty continues to enjoy near-universal membership and high levels of compliance. This is the first book to explain why the nonproliferation regime has been so successful, bringing to bear declassified documents, new data on regime membership and weapons pursuit, and a variety of analytic approaches. It offers important new insights for scholars of nuclear proliferation and international security institutions, and for policymakers seeking to strengthen the nonproliferation regime and tighten international constraints on the spread of nuclear weapons.

We are at a time when international law and the law of war are particularly important. The testing of nuclear weapons that is being used in the rhetoric surrounding threats of war is creating new fears and heightening current tensions. Richard Falk has for decades been an outspoken authority calling for nuclear disarmament and the enforcement of non-proliferation treaties. In this collection of essays, Falk examines the global threats to all humanity posed by nuclear weapons. He is not satisfied with accepting arms control measures as a managerial stopgap to these threats and seeks no less than to move the world back from the nuclear precipice and towards denuclearization. Falk's essays reflect the wisdom and innovative thinking he has brought to his long career as a scholar and activist, as he reminds nuclear weapons states of their obligation under international law and moral imperative to seek nuclear disarmament.

Drawing on previously unpublished Russian archival materials, this book is the first detailed history and current analysis of the North Korean nuclear program. The contributors discuss Soviet-North Korean nuclear relations, economic and military aspects of the nuclear program, the nuclear energy sector, North Korea's negotiations with the Korean Peninsula Energy Development Organization, cooperative security, and U.S. policy. Unique in its focus on North Korean attitudes and perspectives, The North Korean Nuclear Program also includes Russian interviews with North Korean officials.

Nuclear weapons have not been used in anger since the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. Yet even after the Cold War, the Bomb is still the greatest threat facing humankind. As President Bill Clinton's first secretary of defence, Les Aspin, put it: 'The Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is no more. But the post-Cold War world is decidedly not post-nuclear'. For all the efforts to reduce nuclear stockpiles, the Bomb is here to stay. This Very Short Introduction looks at the science of nuclear weapons and how they differ from conventional weapons. Tracing the story of the nuclear bomb, Joseph Siracusa chronicles the race to acquire the H-bomb, a thermonuclear weapon with revolutionary implications; and the history of early arms control, nuclear deterrence, and non-proliferation. He also tracks the development of nuclear weapons from the origins of the Cold War in 1945 to the end of Moscow-dominated Communism in 1991, and examines the promise and prospect of missile defence, including Ronald Reagan's 'Star Wars' and George W. Bush's National Missile Defence. This third edition includes a new chapter on the development of nuclear weapons and the policies they have generated since the end of the Cold War. ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

The Nuclear Club reveals how a coalition of powerful and developing states embraced global governance in hopes of a bright and peaceful tomorrow. While fears of nuclear war were ever-present, it was the perceived threat to their preeminence that drove Washington, Moscow, and London to throw their weight behind the 1963 Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) banishing nuclear testing underground, the 1967 Treaty of Tlatelolco banning atomic armaments from Latin America, and the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) forbidding more countries from joining the most exclusive club on Earth. International society, the Cold War, and the imperial U.S. presidency were reformed from 1945 to 1970, when a global nuclear order was inaugurated, averting conflict in the industrial North and yielding what George Orwell styled a "peace that is no peace" everywhere else. Today the nuclear order legitimizes foreign intervention worldwide, empowering the nuclear club and, above all, the United States, to push sanctions and even preventive war against atomic outlaws, all in humanity's name.

In Understanding and Explaining the Iranian Nuclear 'Crisis': Theoretical Approaches, Halit M.E. Tagma and Paul E. Lenze, Jr. analyze the 'crisis' surrounding Iran's nuclear program through a variety of theoretical approaches, including realism, world-systems theory, liberal institutionalism, domestic politics, and multi-level games. Through these theories, Tagma and Lenze use established academic perspectives to create a more objective understanding and explanation of the debates and issues. Introducing the concept of eclectic pluralism to the study of international relations, Understanding and Explaining the Iranian Nuclear 'Crisis' presents theoretical approaches side by side to explore a complex and evolving international dispute.

On November 10, 2017, Pope Francis became the first pontiff in the nuclear era to take a complete stand against nuclear weapons, even as a form of deterrence. At a Vatican conference of leaders in the field of disarmament, he made it clear that the possession of the bomb itself was immoral. A World Free from Nuclear Weapons presents the pope's address and original testimony from Nobel Peace Prize laureates, religious leaders, diplomats, and civil society activists. These luminaries, which include the pope and a Hiroshima survivor, make the moral case against possessing, manufacturing, and deploying nuclear arms. Drew Christiansen, a member of the Holy See delegation to the 2017 United Nations conference that negotiated the Treaty to Prohibit Nuclear Weapons, helps readers to understand this conference in its historical context. A World Free from Nuclear Weapons is a critical companion for scholars of modern Catholicism, moral theology, and peace studies, as well as policymakers working on effective disarmament. It shows how the Church's revised position presents an opportunity for global leaders to connect disarmament to larger movements for peace, pointing toward future action.

In November 1983, Soviet nuclear forces went on high alert when intelligence reported alarming activity on US bases. In response, the Soviets planned for a nuclear strike by NATO on Eastern Europe. And then Able Archer 83, a vast NATO war game exercise, ended. What the West didn't know was that the Soviets thought Operation Able Archer 83 was real and were preparing for a surprise missile attack from NATO. This close scrape with Armageddon was unknown until 2015, when the US released an analysis. Able Archer 83 vividly recreates the atmosphere that nearly unleashed nuclear war.

These essays (non-technical), written since the end of WWII by the eminent physicist and outspoken advocate of nuclear disarmament, focus on weapons research, arms control, and nuclear power (of which he approves) and include reflections on friends and colleagues as well as a summary of Bethe's own

This book examines the law relating to the possession, threat or use of nuclear weapons. By addressing in logical sequence the law regarding sovereignty, the threat or use of force, the conduct of nuclear hostilities, neutrality, weapons law and war crimes, the book illustrates the topics that an effective national command, control and communications system for nuclear weapons must address. Guidance is given on intractable issues, such as the responsibilities of remote submarine commanders. The continuing relevance of the ICJ's Nuclear Advisory Opinion is assessed, and the prospects for the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons are discussed. The book has been written in an accessible style so that it will be equally useful to lawyers and practitioners, including relevant commanders, politicians, policy staffs and academics. The objective is to state the law accurately and to explain its implications and provide practical guidance in this most sensitive area. This book is also available as open access.

There is a high risk that someone will use, by accident or design, one or more of the 17,000 nuclear weapons in the world today. Many thought such threats ended with the Cold War or that current policies can prevent or contain nuclear disaster. They are dead wrong-these weapons, possessed by states large and small, stable and unstable, remain an ongoing nightmare. Joseph Cirincione surveys the best thinking and worst fears of experts specializing in nuclear warfare and assesses the efforts to reduce or eliminate these nuclear dangers. His book offers hope: in the 1960s, twenty-three states had nuclear weapons and research programs; today, only nine states have weapons. More countries have abandoned nuclear weapon programs than have developed them, and global arsenals are just one-quarter of what they were during the Cold War. Yet can these trends continue, or are we on the brink of a new arms race-or worse, nuclear war? A former member of Senator Obama's nuclear policy team, Cirincione helped shape the policies unveiled in Prague in 2009, and, as president of an organization intent on reducing nuclear threats, he operates at the center of debates on nuclear terrorism, new nuclear nations, and the risks of existing arsenals.

Whether one is interested in learning about anthrax, sarin, the neutron bomb-or any other weapon of mass destruction-this thorough and detailed reference is the place to find answers. The threat posed by weapons of mass destruction (WMD), whether nuclear, radiological, chemical, or biological, is the number-one topic of concern for the intelligence community, first responders, policymakers, and myriad non-governmental organizations-and many members of the general public. This authoritative reference will serve all of those parties by covering the full spectrum of mass-casualty weapons. The guide will not only enable people to educate themselves, but also to separate the truth from the spurious information that abounds. The book offers an A-to-Z listing of major topics, making finding information about concepts, scientific theories, and realities of WMD fast and easy. While the framework of WMD goes back centuries, the major focus of this reference is on weapons that date from the use of chemical warfare in World War I. The book also covers WMD from the early nuclear era (World War II), the Cold War, and the present (Syria, North Korea, etc.). Each entry is written in a clear, accessible style and includes crucial background information, making this book an essential resource for both lay readers and specialists. Armed with this portable database, readers will have the confidence to deal with, discuss, or write about WMD of all kinds based on an understanding of relevant concepts, policies, and scientific fundamentals. Includes a comprehensive A-to-Z listing and discussion of significant weapons of mass destruction in their historical and present-day contexts Offers straightforward narratives that place these threats into a practical framework Presents the most crucial aspects about each WMD topic, distilling decades of research and analysis Features non-technical discussions of the fundamental concepts as well as the basic science concerning each WMD threat Analyzes the real and perceived threats of WMD from their beginnings in World War I into the future Provides primary source documents, including a full listing of Australia Group export controlled substances, technologies, and biological agents

This book examines the crucial formative period of Chinese attitudes toward nuclear weapons - the immediate post-Hiroshima/Nagasaki period and the Korean War. It provides a detailed account of U.S. actions and attitudes during this period and China's response, which was especially acute after both countries had entered the Korean conflict as enemies. This response dispels some of the myths that have long existed regarding China's perceptions of nuclear war.

The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (2017) sets out to challenge deterrence policies and military defence doctrines, taking a humanitarian approach intended to disrupt the nuclear status quo. States with nuclear weapons oppose its very existence, neither participating in its development nor adopting its final text. Civil society groups seem determined, however, to stigmatize and delegitimize nuclear weapons towards their abolition. This book analyzes how the Treaty influences the international security architecture, examining legal, institutional and diplomatic implications of the Treaty and exploring its real and potential impact for both states acceding to the Treaty and those opposing it. It concludes with practical recommendations for international lawyers and policymakers regarding non-proliferation and disarmament matters, ultimately noting that nuclear weapons threaten peace, and everyone should have the right to nuclear peace and freedom from nuclear fear.

The story of U. S. nuclear testing between 1945 and 1963 is a vivid and exciting one, but also one of profound importance. It is a story of trailblazing scientific progress, weapons of mass destruction, superpower rivalry, accidents, radiological contamination, politics, and diplomacy. The testing of weapons that defined the course and consequences of the Cold War was itself a crucial dimension to the narrative of that conflict. Further, the central question of why conduct nuclear tests was debated among politicians, generals, civilians, and scientists. The book focuses on this question and on the United States as it was the first nation to test and use nuclear weapons. The U.S. also has remained ahead of all other powers in achieving significant testing milestones and has conducted more nuclear tests than any other nuclear power. It first argues that nuclear weapons testing was for the most part a rational state act that provided essential information about nuclear weapons and their use. This information, in turn, illuminated other important issues, such as the details of test cessation agreements.Second, crucial to the history of nuclear testing as a rational state act was the idea of its normalization, a process that began under Truman. The norm of nuclear testing as an acceptable state action however was undermined by Eisenhower's moratorium of 1958-1961. The ensuing political dilemma surrounding the tests led under Kennedy found a resolution only through the Limited Test Ban Treaty. Lastly, the book argues that part of the reason why Washington accepted the Limited Test Ban Treaty in 1963 was because it recognized that it had accomplished all that could realistically be expected from atmospheric weapons testing. Overall, it was a victory for those who argued in favor of national security over diplomatic and environmental costs that normalized nuclear weapons tests. Today, as states continue to pursue nuclear weaponry, nuclear testing remains an important political issue in the 21st century, making the study of its history vital.

This book brings together cutting-edge scholarship from the United States and Europe to address political as well as cultural responses to both the arms race of the 1980s and the ascent of nuclear energy as a second, controversial dimension of the nuclear age. Diverse in its topics and disciplinary approaches, Nuclear Threats, Nuclear Fear and the Cold War of the 1980s makes a fundamental contribution to the emerging historiography of the 1980s as a whole. As of now, the era's nuclear tensions have been addressed by scholars mostly from the standpoint of security studies, focused on the geo-strategic deliberations of political elites and at the level of state policy. Yet nuclear anxieties, as the essays in this volume document, were so pervasive that they profoundly shaped the era's culture, its habits of mind, and its politics, far beyond the domain of policy.

In this book, a leading authority on India's nuclear program offers an informed and thoughtful assessment of India's nuclear strategy. He shows that the country's nuclear-strategic culture is generally in accord with the principle of minimum deterrence, but is sometimes inconsistent and has a tendency to drift into a more open-ended process. He addresses areas of concern, notably the relationship between minimum deterrence and subnuclear conflict, the threat from nuclear terrorism, and the special challenges nuclear weapons pose for a democratic society.

From the dawn of the atomic age to today, nuclear weapons have been central to the internal dynamics of US alliances in Europe and Asia. But nuclear weapons cooperation in US alliances has varied significantly between allies and over time. This book explores the history of America's nuclear posture worldwide, delving into alliance structures and interaction during and since the end of the Cold War to uncover the underlying dynamics of nuclear weapons cooperation between the US and its allies. Combining in-depth empirical analysis with an accessible theoretical lens, the book reveals that US allies have wielded significant influence in shaping nuclear weapons cooperation with the US in ways that reflect their own, often idiosyncratic, objectives. Alliances are ecosystems of exchange rather than mere tools of external balancing, the book argues, and institutional perspectives can offer an unprecedented insight into how structured cooperation can promote policy convergence. -- .

This collection of essays offers a fresh look at the 1970s, the crucial decade when the nuclear non-proliferation regime took shape. Exploring a broad array of newly declassified archival sources from different countries across the globe, and moving freely across methodological and national barriers, historians from Europe, North and South America, Asia and Africa discuss the making of the global nuclear order from truly international and transnational perspectives. The result is a fascinating and innovative volume which will remain an essential reference for historians of the nuclear age, of the cold war, and more generally of the evolution of the international system in the second half of the twentieth century. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of The International History Review.

This book focuses on the disagreements which existed in British political and military circles over nuclear strategy during the period from 1945 to 1964. Based on recently released documents, the book argues that British policy in this important area was much more ambiguous and much less coherent than is usually supposed.