The book examines Bernard Brodie's strategic and philosophical response to the nuclear age, embedding his work within the classical theories of Carl von Clausewitz. Bernard Brodie (1910-1978) was a leading 20th century theorist and philosopher of war. A key architect of American nuclear strategy, Brodie was one of the first civilian defense intellectuals to cross over into the military world. "State of Doom" explores Brodie's evolution as a theorist and his response to the technological innovations that transformed warfare from WWII to the Vietnam War. It situates his theoretical development within the classical theories of Carl von Clausewitz (1780-1831), as Brodie came to be known as "America's Clausewitz." While his first influential works focused on naval strategy, his most lasting impact came within the field of nuclear strategic thinking. Brodie helped conceptualize America's strategy of deterrence, later taking into account America's loss of nuclear monopoly, thermonuclear weapons, and intercontinental missiles. This in-depth exploration of Brodie's strategic and philosophical response to the nuclear age and of his effort to reconcile Clausewitz's theories to the new challenges of the nuclear era will make this book a must read to anyone in strategic studies, international relations, and philosophy of war.

"Packed with startling revelations, this inside look at the secret side of the Cold War exposes just how close America came to total annihilation

"During the Cold War, a flight crew had 15 minutes to get their nuke-laden plane in the air from the moment Soviet bombers were detected--15 minutes between the earliest warning of an incoming nuclear strike and the first flash of an enemy warhead. This is the chilling true story of the incredibly risky steps our military took to protect us from that scenario, including:

- Over two thousand loaded bombers that crossed American skies. They sometimes crashed and at least nine times resulted in nuclear weapons being accidentally dropped

- A system that would use timers and rockets to launch missiles even after everyone was dead

- Disastrous atmospheric nuclear testing including the horrific runaway bomb--that fooled scientists and put thousands of men in uniform in the center of a cloud of hot fallout

- A plan to use dry lake beds to rebuild and launch a fighting force in the aftermath of nuclear war

Based on formerly classified documents, military records, press accounts, interviews and over 10 years of research, "15 Minutes "is one of the most important works on the atom bomb ever written.

Based on an exhaustive review of formerly classified government documents-as well as previously unexplored corporate filings, office diaries and unguarded interviews-Grant F. Smith has written a riveting story of the 1960s diversion of US weapons-grade nuclear material from an Israeli front company in Pennsylvania into the clandestine Israeli atomic weapons program. The talented but highly conflicted founder of the Nuclear Materials and Equipment Corporation (NUMEC)-Dr. Zalman Mordecai Shapiro alongside his close friend and financial backer David Lowenthal-engaged in a ferocious clandestine drive to funnel the most valuable military material on earth that forever tilted the balance of power between Israel and the world. Divert chronicles Zalman Shapiro's journey from crafting ingenious innovations for the Nautilus nuclear submarine in the 1950s to his costly pursuit of America's most advanced hydrogen bomb designs in the 1970s. Tasked during secret summits with high-level Israeli intelligence agents, guided by Israel's top nuclear arms designers, and defended by Israel and its US lobby, Shapiro and NUMEC drove the CIA and FBI from furious outrage to despair. Presidents from LBJ to Jimmy Carter secretly grappled with how to respond to Israel's brazen theft of American nuclear material before finally deciding to bury the entire affair in classified files. But NUMEC's toxic secrets have refused to be buried alive. Newly declassified wiretaps have risen from the grave, detailing Shapiro's utter contempt for worker and nuclear safety. David Lowenthal's role as an international refugee smuggler between the US, Europe and Israel-before organizing financing for NUMEC-is placed under new scrutiny. This explosive story emerges even as the US Army Corps of Engineers struggles to quietly clean NUMEC's toxic waste near Apollo, Pennsylvania with $170 million in taxpayer funding. At a time when America is coming under intense pressure to attack on the mere suspicion that Iran is diverting nuclear material, Divert stands as the ultimate cautionary tale of how US Middle East policy is continually undermined from within by corruption, immunity, deceit and unwarranted secrecy.

The international nuclear nonproliferation regime is under severe strain. North Korea is the first state in the history of the forty-year-old Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) to have signed the treaty as a nonnuclear weapon state and subsequently developed nuclear weapons. The intentions behind the Iranian nuclear program are ambiguous at best. And a number of other states, particularly in the Middle East, are proceeding with programs that could allow them to become latent or actual nuclear weapon states. Curtailing the spread of nuclear weapons will be critical to U.S. and international security in the decades to come. It will require a durable and effective international regime based on the NPT and supported by multilateral and bilateral arrangements.

In this timely report, Paul Lettow explains the current and looming nuclear challenges facing the United States and points a way ahead. He analyzes the important flaws in the regime and sets out a comprehensive strategy that the United States can pursue in the next two years to bolster it. His plan includes restricting the spread of dangerous dual-use technologies and strengthening the ability to detect and respond to noncompliance with the regime's rules.

In the last two weeks of October 1962, the world came closer to nuclear warfare than it ever has. For 14 tense days, United States President John F Kennedy and Soviet Premiere Nikita Kruschev stood eyeball to eyeball, each with his hand on the nuclear trigger. In the end, both sides blinked. This volume is a collection of declassified documents from American and Soviet archives, detailing the history of those two weeks. Preface gives an overview and timeline of the crisis.

William B. Scott is a retired Rocky Mountain bureau chief for "Aviation Week & Space Technology" magazine and a former U.S. Air Force flight-test engineer. He served with the National Security Agency and as aircrew on nuclear sampling missions. Michael J. Coumatos is a former U.S. Navy test pilot, the former U.S. Space Command director of wargaming, and a former National Security Agency counterterrorism adviser. With the help of bestselling author William J. Birnes, these renowned experts have joined forces to grippingly depict how the first hours of World War III might play out in the year 2010.

Coumatos and Scott take the reader inside U.S. Strategic Command, where top military commanders, space-company executives, and U.S. intelligence experts are conducting a DEADSATS II wargame, exploring how the loss of critical satellites could lead to nuclear war. The gamers don't know that the war they are playing has already begun, miles above them, in the lifeless, silent cold of space. Jam-packed with the actual systems and secret technologies the United States has or will soon field to protect its assets, "Space Wars "describes a near-future nuclear nightmare that terrorists will relish but politicians prefer to ignore. In a quieter, more peaceful time, "Space Wars" would be an exciting work of fiction. But with the United States now at war, "Space Wars" is all too real.

It has been over six decades since nuclear weapons were invented and used with devastating effect during the closing stages of World War II, on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Among the weapons of mass destruction invented so far, nuclear weapons remain unique, not only due to the large-scale destruction they can inflict almost instantaneously, but also due to the insidious and long-term threat they pose to humanity. In spite of being in existence for such a long time, some of the facets of nuclear weapons, especially their immediate and long-term effects remain an enigma for most people. This book is an attempt to demystify some of these aspects and effects of nuclear weapons, so that our civil and military defence planners have a reasonable idea about the scale and magnitude of disaster that will follow a nuclear attack. As a natural corollary, it then examines the type and nature of post-attack disaster management operations that may have to be launched following a counter-value strike. The study also dwells on the various problems associated with the conduct of military operations in a radiologically contaminated environment, with a view to derive viable and technically sound working parameters.

From his years at Los Alamos and the Nevada Test Site to his meetings with nuclear arms experts in Moscow, former weapons designer Stephen M. Younger has witnessed firsthand the making of nuclear policy. With a deep understanding of both the technology and the politics behind nuclear weapons, he guides us from the Manhattan Project to the Cold War and into the present day, illuminating how nuclear weapons fit into our globalized, war-plagued world. Does the United States genuinely need a massive stockpile in an era of precision bombs and missile defense? Under what circumstances might we need nuclear weapons in the future? How does the proliferation of weapons in the hands of other nations affect our own nuclear policy?

With startling clarity, Younger reveals how weapons work, the myths and realities of what happens after a nuclear explosion, and how our nuclear policy evolved to what it is today. "The Bomb" is a compelling call to debate, and to action, that no one can afford to ignore.

During the 20th century, hundreds of thousands of people died from the use of nuclear weapons in Nuclear War I and other nuclear disasters. Dr. Newtan's book describes the disastrous consequences of the following nuclear developments all of which occurred in the 20th century: The Trinity Test of a nuclear device (explosion) The destruction of Hiroshima by a uranium bomb The destruction of Nagasaki by a plutonium bomb The hydrogen bomb, neutron bomb, and cobalt bomb Radioactive fallout Radiological weapons The BRAVO Test (hydrogen bomb) Three Mile Island nuclear reactor disaster Chernobyl nuclear reactor disaster Fermi I breeder reactor disaster Nuclear submarine disasters (U.S., U.S.S.R.) Thresher nuclear submarine disaster Scorpion nuclear submarine disaster Nuclear satellite disasters Lost nuclear weapons Lost nuclear fissile materials for weapons Nuclear waste disasters Acts of war on nuclear facilities Nuclear terrorism Proliferation of nuclear weapons Nuclear reactors in space Nuclear weapons in space Nuclear waste - can it be safely stored for millennia?

Now in paperback, Jonathan Schell's "The Seventh Decade" lays bare the fearful shape that nuclear danger has unexpectedly assumed in the twenty-first century. Far from disappearing with the cold war, the bomb is today in the midst of a worldwide revival. The invasion of Iraq, the nuclear programme of North Korea and Iran, the rising danger of nuclear terrorism, and the reinvigoration of the nuclear establishments among the old cold war rivals have all put the nuclear issue back on the world's front pages and returned it to the centre of geopolitical strife.Schell addresses the fundamental questions: How and why has nuclear danger revived? Where are we heading? What can be done? And, he argues that half measures will no longer suffice, nor will piece meal solutions that address isolated aspects of the crisis. Offering a comprehensive approach that takes all factors into account, "The Seventh Decade" calls for a debate, national and global, on the paths away from what still remains the gravest, most urgent of all dangers to humanity.

A history of nuclear weapons, from the Manhattan Project which built the atomic bombs, to the "Mike" test which paved the way for the hydrogen bomb, to the "war on terror" which seeks an entire new generation of "earth-penetrating" nuclear bombs. From offocial histories and declassified reports.

What can be learned from countries that opted out of the arms race. Too often, our focus on the relative handful of countries with nuclear weapons keeps us from asking an important question: Why do so many more states not have such weapons? More important, what can we learn from these examples of nuclear restraint? Maria Rost Rublee argues that in addition to understanding a state's security environment, we must appreciate the social forces that influence how states conceptualize the value of nuclear weapons. Much of what Rublee says also applies to other weapons of mass destruction, as well as national security decision making in general.The nuclear nonproliferation movement has created an international social environment that exerts a variety of normative pressures on how state elites and policymakers think about nuclear weapons. Within a social psychology framework, Rublee examines decision making about nuclear weapons in five case studies: Japan, Egypt, Libya, Sweden, and Germany.In each case, Rublee considers the extent to which nuclear forbearance resulted from persuasion (genuine transformation of preferences), social conformity (the desire to maximize social benefits and/or minimize social costs, without a change in underlying preferences), or identification (the desire or habit of following the actions of an important other). The book offers bold policy prescriptions based on a sharpened knowledge of the many ways we transmit and process nonproliferation norms. The social mechanisms that encourage nonproliferation - and the regime that created them - must be preserved and strengthened, Rublee argues, for without them states that have exercised nuclear restraint may rethink their choices.

How it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or "radiance," which also means "radiation" in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else. In the aftermath of World War II, as France sought a distinctive role for itself in the modern, postcolonial world, the nation and its leaders enthusiastically embraced large technological projects in general and nuclear power in particular. The Radiance of France asks how it happened that technological prowess and national glory (or "radiance," which also means "radiation" in French) became synonymous in France as nowhere else. To answer this question, Gabrielle Hecht has forged an innovative combination of technology studies and cultural and political history in a book that, as Michel Callon writes in the new foreword to this edition, "not only sheds new light on the role of technology in the construction of national identities" but is also "a seminal contribution to the history of contemporary France." Proposing the concept of technopolitical regime as a way to analyze the social, political, cultural, and technological dynamics among engineering elites, unionized workers, and rural communities, Hecht shows how the history of France's first generation of nuclear reactors is also a history of the multiple meanings of nationalism, from the postwar period (and France's desire for post-Vichy redemption) to 1969 and the adoption of a "Frenchified" American design. This paperback edition of Hecht's groundbreaking book includes both Callon's foreword and an afterword by the author in which she brings the story up to date, and reflects on such recent developments as the 2007 French presidential election, the promotion of nuclear power as the solution to climate change, and France's aggressive exporting of nuclear technology.

Iran is aggressively seeking nuclear technology that could be used for making weapons -and its quest has set off alarms throughout the world. This widespread concern stems in part from Iran's uncertain intentions and recent history. Will it remain a revolutionary power determined to subvert its Sunni Arab neighbors, destroy Israel, and spread theocratic government to other lands? Or would an Iran with nuclear weapons merely defend its territory from foreign aggression and live in peace with its neighbors? Are the country's leaders and society willing to negotiate limits on nuclear capability and normalize relations with the West, or will they resist accommodation? Iran's Nuclear Ambitions provides a rare, balanced look into the motivations, perceptions, and domestic politics swirling around Iran. Shahram Chubin, an Iranian-born security expert, details the recent history of Iran's nuclear program and diplomacy. He argues that the central problem is not nuclear technology, but rather Iran's behavior as a revolutionary state, with ambitions that collide with the interests of its neighbors and the West. Topics include: The view from Tehran Iran's nuclear energy rationale Domestic politics, and decisionmaking Sources of concern, including the nature of Iran's regime Its nuclear infrastructure, Missile development, and terrorism Iran's negotiating strategy The international response Iran and regional security, including the U.S. as a threat and rival Iran's regional ambitions, and Israel Policy options

The story of the explosion and contamination was and still is suppressed in the Soviet Union and, the author contends, by the CIA and other Western intelligence organizations fearful of public resistance to nuclear power plants. Now, after an intensive study of Soviet scientific articles (written to disguise the fact that they were about the Ural explosion) and after many interviews and reports from friends in the scientific community as well as from witnesses, the author has pieced together the story of what actually happened. He analyzes the extent and consequences of the contamination and draws forbidding conclusions about the possibility of similar disasters in the rest of the world.

This volume tells how an experienced, principled man faltered when confronted by the tremendous challenge posed by the intersection of war, diplomacy, and technology. Malloy examines Stimson's struggle to reconcile his responsibility for 'the most terrible weapon ever known in human history'.

George Weller was a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter who covered World War II across Europe and boldly set out to explore the devastation inflicted on Nagasaki. His never-before-published reports provide a moving, unparalleled look at the bomb that killed more than 70,000 people and ended WWII.

A history of the Atomic Bomb from Marie Curie to Hiroshima. The atom bomb, which killed an estimated 140,000 civilians in Hiroshima and destroyed the countryside for miles around, was one of the defining moments in world history. That mushroom cloud cast a terrifying shadow over the contemporary world and continues to do so today. But how could this have happened? What led to the creation of such a weapon of mass destruction? From the moment scientists contemplated the destructive potential of splitting the atom, the role of science changed. Ethical and moral dilemmas faced all those who realized the implications of their research. Before the Fall-Out charts the chain of events from Marie Curies scientific breakthrough through the many colourful characters such as Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and Lord Rutherford, whose discoveries contributed to the bomb. The story of the atomic bomb spans 50 years of prolific scientific innovation, turbulent politics, foreign affairs and world-changing history. Through personal stories of exile, indecision and soul-searching, to charges of collaboration, spying and deceit, Diana Preston presents the human side of an unstoppable programme with a lethal outcome.

No espionage case in recent decades has been anything like the Wen Ho Lee affair. As Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman describe in "A Convenient Spy, " an astonishingly inept investigation of a crime that may never have occurred ended in a national disgrace. A weapons-code scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lee was hunted as a spy for China, indicted on fifty-nine counts, and held in detention for nine months as a threat to the entire nation. But after pleading guilty to just one count, he went home -- with an unusual and emotional apology from a federal judge. Prosecutors' claims that Lee had stolen America's "crown jewels" of nuclear security simply evaporated. Yet Lee's motives have never been satisfactorily explained, and his often-repeated excuse that he was just backing up his work files does not stand up to scrutiny.

As Stober and Hoffman report, Lee's lies and his unexplained connections to foreign scientists spanned eighteen years. He was a security nightmare. Tapping at his keyboard, he assembled a private collection of the computer programs used to design America's nuclear weapons, then left them vulnerable to hackers and foreign intelligence services for years. The FBI's belated discovery that he had also put the codes on portable cassette tapes launched a frenzied worldwide search that eventually carried agents to the Los Alamos landfill. And yet today, the tapes have never been found.

In 1995, Lee was just another American, a Taiwanese immigrant striving to support a family he cherished and to make a name for himself in scientific circles. Unknown to him, however, scientists working in the secret world of nuclear-weapons intelligence examined purloined Chinese documents, studied spy reports, and wondered: Had China stolen the secrets of the W88, America's most advanced nuclear weapon? Scientific hunches rapidly evolved into a criminal investigation aimed at Lee. He had been overheard by the FBI while telephoning a spy suspect, and he was warmly embraced by a high-ranking Chinese nuclear-weapons official whom he wasn't supposed to know. The FBI noted that he was "ethnic Chinese." And in this uncertain period after the Cold War, many politicians played up China as a threatening new enemy. Energy Secretary and vice presidential hopeful Bill Richardson was eager to fire Lee and appear decisive in protecting national security.

In this stormy confluence of intelligence and politics, Lee became a convenient spy. But was he guilty?

Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman tell the story of the Wen Ho Lee fiasco dramatically and authoritatively, providing an objective account that no partisan version of the story can match.

"No one knew what our job was on the ship. Navy Nuclear Weaponsmen were shrouded in secrecy, and entrusted with the most powerful deadly weapons on earth. Our families and countrymen's lives depended on how diligently we performed our duties." -Jim Little

In an era defined by the threat of nuclear annihilation, Western nations attempted to prepare civilian populations for atomic attack through staged drills, evacuations, and field exercises. In Stages of Emergency the distinguished performance historian Tracy C. Davis investigates the fundamentally theatrical nature of these Cold War civil defense exercises. Asking what it meant for civilians to be rehearsing nuclear war, she provides a comparative study of the civil defense maneuvers conducted by three NATO allies-the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom-during the 1950s and 1960s. Delving deep into the three countries' archives, she analyzes public exercises involving private citizens-Boy Scouts serving as mock casualties, housewives arranging home protection, clergy training to be shelter managers-as well as covert exercises undertaken by civil servants.Stages of Emergency covers public education campaigns and school programs-such as the ubiquitous "duck and cover" drills-meant to heighten awareness of the dangers of a possible attack, the occupancy tests in which people stayed sequestered for up to two weeks to simulate post-attack living conditions as well as the effects of confinement on interpersonal dynamics, and the British first-aid training in which participants acted out psychological and physical trauma requiring immediate treatment. Davis also brings to light unpublicized government exercises aimed at anticipating the global effects of nuclear war. Her comparative analysis shows how the differing priorities, contingencies, and social policies of the three countries influenced their rehearsals of nuclear catastrophe. When the Cold War ended, so did these exercises, but, as Davis points out in her perceptive afterword, they have been revived-with strikingly similar recommendations-in response to twenty-first-century fears of terrorists, dirty bombs, and rogue states.

"In order to curb nuclear-weapons proliferation, it is of fundamental importance to identify the underlying rationale for certain states to seek a nuclear-weapons option, as well as to understand why the vast majority of states, possessing the necessary technology, do not develop nuclear weapons. The international community still has much to learn in this regard and "Nuclear Logics" is a valuable and timely contribution to this discussion."--Dr. Hans Blix, chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission

"Professor Solingen has illuminated an important and often neglected aspect of nuclear motivations, namely the domestic conditions that underlie a country's decision to acquire nuclear weapons. Her well-researched and powerful argument asserts that nuclear-weapons programs are more likely to emerge from states that are hostile to economic openness and, conversely, that they are less likely where states are more willing to integrate with the global political economy."--Mitchell B. Reiss, College of William and Mary

"Solingen not only provides a cogent account of the divergent nuclear trajectories of East Asia and the Middle East, but develops a powerful general explanation resting on whether the state's ruling coalition is inward looking or is geared to integrating with the rest of the world. Both in its challenge to standard views and in its strong positive arguments, this is a study of great value."--Robert Jervis, Columbia University

"Etel Solingen's "Nuclear Logics" provides the depth and insight needed to understand today's urgent dilemmas of nuclear proliferation. She convincingly shows that opening up shuttered states to expanded international economic ties canundermine the political constituencies that favor nuclear weapons programs."--Jack Snyder, Columbia University

""Nuclear Logics" is a first-class piece of work. It deals with a prominent issue, and its central approach--doing a focused, detailed comparison of two regions that started out much the same but have differed in their subsequent histories on proliferation--generates a wealth of interesting and instructive insights."--John Mueller, Ohio State University

"What is most impressive and significant about Solingen's scholarship is its breadth. Her prose is clear and often elegant. I believe her book, which truly is pioneering in both the international-relations and nonproliferation fields, is accessible to both scholars and university students. I am sure it will become required reading in many graduate courses."--William C. Potter, Monterey Institute of International Studies