For forty years the Soviet-American nuclear arms race dominated world politics, yet the Soviet nuclear establishment was shrouded in secrecy. Now that the Cold War is over and the Soviet Union has collapsed, it is possible to answer questions that have intrigued policymakers and the public for years. How did the Soviet Union build its atomic and hydrogen bombs? What role did espionage play? How did the American atomic monopoly affect Stalin's foreign policy? What was the relationship between Soviet nuclear scientists and the country's political leaders? This spellbinding book answers these questions by tracing the history of Soviet nuclear policy from developments in physics in the 1920s to the testing of the hydrogen bomb and the emergence of nuclear deterrence in the mid-1950s. In engrossing detail, David Holloway tells how Stalin launched a crash atomic program only after the Americans bombed Hiroshima and showed that the bomb could be built; how the information handed over to the Soviets by Klaus Fuchs helped in the creation of their first bomb; how the scientific intelligentsia, which included such men as Andrei Sakharov, interacted with the police apparatus headed by the suspicious and menacing Lavrentii Beria; what steps Stalin took to counter U.S. atomic diplomacy; how the nuclear project saved Soviet physics and enabled it to survive as an island of intellectual autonomy in a totalitarian society; and what happened when, after Stalin's death, Soviet scientists argued that a nuclear war might extinguish all life on earth. This magisterial history throws light on Soviet policy at the height of the Cold War, illuminates a central but hitherto secret element of the Stalinist system, and puts into perspective the tragic legacy of this program today-environmental damage, a vast network of institutes and factories, and a huge stockpile of unwanted weapons.

Bruce Blair examines operational safety hazards for nuclear forces deployed on combat alert in Russia, the United States, and elsewhere. He provides new information on command and control procedures and deficiencies that affect the risks of accidental, unauthorized, or inadvertent use of nuclear weapons, particularly those in the former Soviet Union. Blair proposes changes in nuclear operations that would reduce these risks. Remedies range from eliminating targets from missiles to taking all nuclear forces off alert (" zero alert" ) so that no weapons are poised for immediate launch. In the " zero alert" scenario, missiles and bombers lack nuclear warheads or other vital components and require extensive preparations for redeployment. Blair assesses the effects of such measures on strategic deterrence and crisis stability in the event of a revival of nuclear confrontation between the United States and Russia. He also describes the burdens of verification that his remedies impose. This book is the first in a series devoted to aspects of operational safety and nuclear weapons. Other topics in the series include joint U.S.- Russian missile attack early warning, ensuring the security of dismantled warheads and bomb materials, and command-control problems in the emerging nuclear states. Bruce G. Blair is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies program at Brookings and the author of numerous books, including The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Brookings, 1993).

The end of the cold war and the disintegration of the Soviet Union has not eliminated the threat posed to international security by nuclear weapons. The Soviet breakup actually created a new set of dangers: the accidental or unauthorized use of nuclear weapons and the illicit transfer of nuclear warheads, technology, or expertise to the Third World. The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War analyzes the danger of nuclear inadvertence lurking in the command and control systems of the nuclear superpowers. Foreign policy expert Bruce G. Blair identifies the cold war roots of the contemporary risks and outlines a comprehensive policy agenda to strengthen control over nuclear forces. Based on discussions with numerous U.S. and Russian experts, including Russian launch officers who served in the strategic rocket forces and ballistic missile submarines, this book reveals a wealth of new facts about the hidden history of U.S. and Soviet nuclear crisis alerts and exercises. It is a richly detailed, rigorous, and authoritative account of nuclear operations and overturns much conventional wisdom on the subject.

The proliferation of advanced weapons to volatile regions of the world has become a major issue in the post Cold War era. It was thought that no Third World nation could ever pose a technologically-based threat to the great powers by acquiring advanced weaponry. But this has proved to be wrong. The Persian Gulf War changed the worldwide perception of the spread of ballistic missiles to countries like Iraq. Access to a new type of weapon--cruise missiles--poses an even greater threat. With technology that is accessible, affordable, and relatively simple to produce, Third World countries could acquire highly accurate, long-range cruise missile forces to escalate local conflicts and threaten the forces and even the territories of the industrial powers. This book is a warning to policymakers. It is not too late to confront the realities of cruise missile proliferation and to devise international responses that could contain the worst possible consequences. Carus proposes a new regime of technology controls, security-building measures, and conflict resolution that need to be considered, and acted on, by policymakers and international relations experts everywhere.

Drawing upon anthropology, biology, psychology, sociology, and literature, this brilliant insight into why men go to war traces the changes that have occurred in weapons and tactics since prehistoric times. Robert O'Connell demonstrates how the technology unleashed during World War I made human qualities almost irrelevant to the conduct of war, until now, in the nuclear age, humanity has become subservient to the weapons it has made.

The nuclear freeze movement grew more quickly than even the most optimistic activists thought possible, as large numbers of Americans became convinced that there was something wrong with United States defense policy and that they could do something about it. This analysis provides the first comprehensive history of the nuclear freeze movement, approaching it from three distinct perspectives. Changes in the politics and policy of nuclear weapons created an opportunity for a dissident movement. Intermediating forces in American politics influenced the situation. The efforts of activists and organizations to build a protest movement and their interaction with American political institutions provide the third perspective. "A Winter of Discontent" addresses both the broad spectrum of movement activity and the political context surrounding it.

The text explores the challenge of the nuclear freeze movement to the content of United States national security policy and the policy making process. By analyzing the freeze, a theoretical framework for understanding the origins, development and potential political influence of other protest movements in the United States can be developed. The book also strives to integrate analysis of peace movements into an understanding of the policy context in which they emerge. This volume is essential for courses in social movements, strategic policy, American politics and political sociology. Antinuclear freeze activists and students of peace studies will also find this work invaluable.

Helps us to better understand the dangers of U.S. nuclear strategy, and reminds us that it is a strategy we can resist.

@lt;DIV@gt;Compelling firsthand accounts from the inventors of the first atomic bomb describe the Manhattan Project. Additional accounts from scientists, reporters, and soldiers, among other primary sources, describe the development of the bomb and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Selections include those from Einstein, Oppenheimer, Groves, Tibbets, William Laurence, John Hersey, and Enrico and Laura Fermi.@lt;/div@gt;

On 30 October 1961, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR/Soviet Union) conducted a live test of the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created. Codenamed 'Ivan', and known in the West as the 'Tsar Bomba', the RDS-202 hydrogen bomb was detonated at the Sukhoy Nos cape of Severny Island, Novaya Zemla archipelago, in the Barents Sea. The Tsar Bomba unleashed about 58 megatons of TNT, creating a 8-kilometre/5-mile-wide fireball and then a mushroom that peaked at an altitude of 95 kilometres (59 miles). The shockwave created by the RDS-202 eradicated a village 55 kilometres (34 miles) from ground zero, caused widespread damage to nature to a radius of dozens of kilometres further away, and created a heat wave felt as far as 270 kilometres (170 miles) distant. And still, this was just one of 45 tests of nuclear weapons conducted in the USSR in October 1961 alone. Between 1949 and 1962, the Soviets set off 214 nuclear bombs in the open air. Dozens of these were released from aircraft operated by specialised test units. Equipped with the full range of bombers - from the Tupolev Tu-4, Tupolev Tu-16, to the gigantic Tu-95 - the units in question were staffed by men colloquially known as the 'deaf-and-dumb': people sworn to utmost secrecy, living and serving in isolation from the rest of the world. Frequently operating at the edge of the envelope of their specially modified machines while test-releasing weapons with unimaginable destructive potential, several of them only narrowly avoided catastrophe. Richly illustrated with authentic photographs and custom-drawn colour profiles, Dropping the Big Ones is the story of the aircrews involved and their aircraft, all of which were carefully hidden not only by the Iron Curtain, but by a thick veil of secrecy for more than half a century.

DOD spends billions of dollars annually to sustain its weapon systems to support current and future operations. The Air Force and Navy are operating many of their fixed-wing aircraft well beyond their original designed service lives and therefore are confronted with sustainment challenges. Chapter 1 examines the trends in availability and O&S costs for selected Air Force and Navy fixed-wing aircraft since fiscal year 2011, including whether they met availability goals, and assesses the extent that the departments documented sustainment strategies, reviewed sustainment metrics, and implemented plans to improve aircraft availability. Software is integral to the operation and functionality of DOD equipment, platforms, and weapon systems, including tactical and combat vehicles, aircraft, ships, submarines, and strategic missiles. Chapter 2 examines the extent to which (1) DOD has policies and organizations in place to manage the sustainment of operational system software for weapon systems; and (2) DOD and the military departments track costs to sustain weapon system software. The Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy (DOE) are undertaking an extensive, multifaceted effort to sustain and modernize U.S. nuclear weapons capabilities, including the nuclear weapons stockpile; the research and production infrastructure; delivery systems; and the nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) system. Chapter 3 presents observations on the extent to which the FY 2018 joint report provides accurate and complete information about nuclear sustainment and modernization budget estimates and related budget estimating methodologies. The Department of Defense and NNSA have sought for nearly a decade to replace the capabilities of the aging W78 nuclear warhead used by the U.S. Air Force. Chapter 4 describes NNSA's steps in key early planning areas ... including program management, technology assessment, and coordination with facilities and capabilities ... to prepare to restart a program to replace the W78. Responsibility for U.S. nuclear weapons resides in both the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of Energy (DOE). DOD develops, deploys, and operates the missiles and aircraft that deliver nuclear warheads. It also generates the military requirements for the warheads carried on those platforms. Chapter 5 focuses on the facilities managed by the DOE and its semiautonomous National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA). The Trump Administration's Nuclear Posture Review includes plans for the United States to deploy two new types of nuclear weapons "to enhance the flexibility and responsiveness of U.S. nuclear forces." Chapter 6 highlights that these weapons represent a response to Russia's deployment of a much larger stockpile of lower-yield nonstrategic nuclear weapons.

Environmental tragedies such as Chernobyl and the "Exxon Valdez" remind us that catastrophic accidents are always possible in a world full of hazardous technologies. Yet, the "apparently" excellent safety record with nuclear weapons has led scholars, policy-makers, and the public alike to believe that nuclear arsenals can serve as a secure deterrent for the foreseeable future. In this provocative book, Scott Sagan challenges such optimism. Sagan's research into formerly classified archives penetrates the veil of safety that has surrounded U.S. nuclear weapons and reveals a hidden history of frightening "close calls" to disaster.

The atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945 unleashed a force as mysterious as it was deadly--radioactivity. In 1946, the United States government created the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission (ABCC) to serve as a permanent agency in Japan with the official mission of studying the medical effects of radiation on the survivors. The next ten years saw the ABCC's most intensive research on the genetic effects of radiation, and up until 1974 the ABCC scientists published papers on the effects of radiation on aging, life span, fertility, and disease.
"Suffering Made Real" is the first comprehensive history of the ABCC's research on how radiation affected the survivors of the atomic bomb. Arguing that Cold War politics and cultural values fundamentally shaped the work of the ABCC, M. Susan Lindee tells the compelling story of a project that raised disturbing questions about the ethical implications of using human subjects in scientific research.
How did the politics of the emerging Cold War affect the scientists' biomedical research and findings? How did the ABCC document and publicly present the effects of radiation? Why did the ABCC refuse to provide medical treatment to the survivors? Through a detailed examination of ABCC policies, archival materials, the minutes of committee meetings, newspaper accounts, and interviews with ABCC scientists, Lindee explores how political and cultural interests were reflected in the day-to-day operations of this controversial research program.
Set against a period of conflicting views of nuclear weapons and nuclear power, "Suffering Made Real" follows the course of a politically charged research program and reveals indetail how politics and cultural values can shape the conduct, results, and uses of science.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)plays a crucial role in supporting U.S. nuclear non-proliferation goals through its safeguards and nuclear security programs. The Department of State (State) co-ordinates the United States' financial and policy relationship with IAEA. IAEA's safeguards program is designed to detect and deter the diversion of nuclear material for non-peaceful purposes, while the agency's nuclear security program assists countries in improving the physical protection of their nuclear material and facilities. IAEA plans to create an international fuel bank to guarantee the supply of fuel for civilian nuclear power programs. This book examines any challenges that IAEA faces in carrying out its safeguards program; any limitations regarding the nuclear security program; and the status of IAEA's planned nuclear fuel bank.

"The most likely site for a nuclear war is the Indian subcontinent, but we have little understanding of India's nuclear program. This will change with George Perkovich's fascinating and important study. It is informed, free from bias, and a great read as well."--Robert Jervis, Adlai E. Stevenson Professor of International Politics, Columbia University

"George Perkovich has written a comprehensive and thoughtful book on one of the most troubling security problems of the day--the introduction of nuclear weapons to the already dangerous confrontation between India and Pakistan." --William J. Perry, Professor, Stanford University, Former US Secretary of Defense

"George Perkovich's India's Nuclear Bomb is an authoritative account in Indian decision-making. I have found no other statement as comprehensive and persuasive. It provides unique insights into Indian politics and is an invaluable contribution to American thinking about nonproliferation." --Frank G. Wisner, U.S. Ambassador to India, 1994-1997

"With a great deal of empathy and understanding of the Indian psyche, George Perkovich leads us through contradictory perceptions of events to give us a sense of the evolution of nuclear decision making in India. What emerges is a highly nuanced and sensitive narration of the complex interaction between domestic and external factors that led to the nuclear tests of May, 1998 and the shattering of a number of Indian and international myths about nuclear weapons and their role in global politics." --K. Subrahmanyam, Consulting Editor The Times of India and The Economic Times, Chairman, Indian National Security Advisory Board

"George Perkovich's book is one I wish I had written. India'sNuclear Bomb appears at a critical moment in global nuclear history, and it will have an important impact on the current policy debate in the United States, India, and Pakistan, as well as on the future histories of Indian politics and international security policy." --Stephen Cohen, Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution, Washington, DC

Until now, there has been no detailed account of Israel's nuclear history. Previous treatments of the subject relied heavily on rumors, leaks, and journalistic speculations. But with "Israel and the Bomb, " Avner Cohen has forged an interpretive political history that draws on thousands of American and Israeli government documents -- most of them recently declassified and never before cited -- and more than one hundred interviews with key individuals who played important roles in this story. Cohen reveals that Israel crossed the nuclear weapons threshold on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War, yet it remains ambiguous about its nuclear capability to this day. What made this posture of "opacity" possible, and how did it evolve?

Cohen focuses on a two-decade period from about 1950 until 1970, during which David Ben-Gurion's vision of making Israel a nuclear-weapon state was realized. He weaves together the story of the formative years of Israel's nuclear program, from the founding of the Israeli Atomic Energy Commission in 1952, to the alliance with France that gave Israel the sophisticated technology it needed, to the failure of American intelligence to identify the Dimona Project for what it was, to the negotiations between President Nixon and Prime Minister Meir that led to the current policy of secrecy. Cohen also analyzes the complex reasons Israel concealed its nuclear program -- from concerns over Arab reaction and the negative effect of the debate at home to consideration of America's commitment to nonproliferation.

"Israel and the Bomb" highlights the key questions and the many potent issues surrounding Israel's nuclear history. This book will be a critical resource for students of nuclear proliferation, Middle East politics, Israeli history, and American-Israeli relations, as well as a revelation for general readers.

This Commentary offers detailed background and analysis of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which was adopted at the UN Headquarters in New York in July 2017. The Treaty comprehensively prohibits the use, development, export, and possession of nuclear weapons. Stuart Casey-Maslen, a leading expert in the field who served as legal adviser to the Austrian Delegation during the negotiations of this Treaty, works through article by article, describing how each provision was negotiated and what it implies for states that join the Treaty. As the Treaty provisions cut across various branches of international law, the Commentary goes beyond a discussion of disarmament to consider the law of armed conflict, human rights, and the law on inter-state use of force. The Commentary examines the relationship with other treaties addressing nuclear weapons, in particular the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT). Background on the development and possession of nuclear weapons and theories of nuclear deterrence is provided. Particular attention is paid to controversial issues such as assistance for prohibited activities, the meaning of 'threaten to use', and the definition of nuclear explosive devices. Casey-Maslen also considers whether a member of NATO or other nuclear alliance can lawfully become a state party to the Treaty.

In the spring of 1945 the Allies arrested the physicists they believed had worked on the German nuclear programme during the war. Interned in an English country house, their conversations were secretly recorded. MI6's Operation Epsilon sought to determine how close Nazi Germany had come to building an atomic bomb. It was in this remote setting - Farm Hall, near Cambridge - that the German physicists first heard of the bombing ofHiroshima. August 6 1945 was a night that changed the course of history. The terrible weapon unleashed on Japan caused unprecedented destruction and loss of life. That the Allies had such a weapon at their disposal came as a great shock to the German scientists who had worked under the assumption that the Allies knew nothing of nuclear fission. This is the story of the wartime race to develop an atomic bomb, and the genius, guilt, complicity and hubris of Nobel Prize-winning scientists working to create a weapon that would undoubtedly have won the war for the Germans.

This book relates a complex ethical (re)assessment of the continued reliance by some states on nuclear weapons as instruments of state power. This (re)assessment is more urgent considering the relatively recent intensification of great power conflict dynamics and the nuclear-weapon states' recommitments to modernizing, augmenting, or tailoring their nuclear forces to address vital state and alliance interests. And, especially since the beginning of the administration of U.S. President Donald J. Trump, these recommitments have accelerated the degree to which the political and moral dilemmas of (the threat of) nuclear use define and intensify existential risks for specific states and the international community at large. To execute this (re)assessment, this book details how strategic, political, legal, and moral reasoning are deeply intertwined on the questions of vital state and global values. Its ontological assumptions are taken from a broadly construed IR Constructivist stance, and its epistemological approach applies non-ideal moral principles informed by Kantian thought to selected problems of nuclear-armed security competition as they evolved since President Barack Obama's 2009 Prague Declaration. This non-ideal moral approach employed is committed to the view that the dual imperatives of humanity's survival and the common security of states requires an international order which privileges considerations of justice over power-political considerations. This non-ideal moral approach is a necessary element of theorizing a set of practices to effectively address the challenges and dilemmas of reordering international politics in terms of justice.

In Resurrecting Nagasaki, Chad R. Diehl explores the genesis of narratives surrounding the atomic bombing of August 9, 1945, by following the individuals and groups who contributed to the shaping of Nagasaki City's postwar identity. Municipal officials, survivor-activist groups, the Catholic community, and American occupation officials all interpreted the destruction and reconstruction of the city from different, sometimes disparate perspectives. Diehl's analysis reveals how these atomic narratives shaped both the way Nagasaki rebuilt and the ways in which popular discourse on the atomic bombings framed the city's experience for decades.

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.

In this concise account of why America used atomic bombs against Japan in 1945, J. Samuel Walker analyzes the reasons behind President Truman's most controversial decision. Delineating what was known and not known by American leaders at the time, Walker evaluates the options available for ending the war with Japan. In this new edition, Walker incorporates a decade of new research--mostly from Japanese archives only recently made available--that provides fresh insight on the strategic considerations that led to dropping the bomb. From the debate about whether to invade or continue the conventional bombing of Japan to Tokyo's agonizing deliberations over surrender and the effects of both low- and high-level radiation exposure, Walker continues to shed light on one of the most earthshaking moments in history. Rising above an often polemical debate, the third edition presents an accessible synthesis of previous work and new research to help make sense of the events that ushered in the atomic age.

Nuclear terrorism is such a disturbing prospect that we shy away from its details. Yet as a consequence, we fail to understand how best to defeat it. Michael Levi takes us inside nuclear terrorism and behind the decisions a terrorist leader would be faced with in pursuing a nuclear plot. Along the way, Levi identifies the many obstacles, large and small, that such a terrorist scheme might encounter, allowing him to discover a host of ways that any plan might be foiled.

Surveying the broad universe of plots and defenses, this accessible account shows how a wide-ranging defense that integrates the tools of weapon and materials security, law enforcement, intelligence, border controls, diplomacy, and the military can multiply, intensify, and compound the possibility that nuclear terrorists will fail. Levi draws from our long experience with terrorism and cautions us not to focus solely on the most harrowing yet most improbable threats. Nuclear terrorism shares much in common with other terrorist threats--and as a result, he argues, defeating it is impossible unless we put our entire counterterrorism and homeland security house in order.

As long as we live in a nuclear age, no defense can completely eliminate nuclear terrorism. But this book reminds us that the right strategy can minimize the risks and shows us how to do it.

NATO was hugely successful in facing off the Soviet Union during the Cold War. But has it been equally successful in addressing the "new threats" of the post-Cold War era? This new study assesses the organization's political and military initiatives, and how its outreach to Russia, Ukraine, and other countries in the Euro-Atlantic and Mediterranean regions, devoted considerable attention to WMD proliferation risks. It also probes the political factors, both inside and outside NATO, as well as resource constraints, which have limited the alliance's "added value" in the international community's effort to combat proliferation. The events of 11 September 2001 and bitter intra-alliance controversy over the 2003 Iraq intervention have highlighted questions regarding NATO's future role, and even its continued viability. This is a serious reflection on how the alliance should figure in the fight against WMD and terrorist threats and an examination of today's key issues, including the use of force in international relations and the possibility of constructing new, post-Cold War collective security rules. This is the first study to evaluate, critically and in-depth, how a long-standing security organization has adapted - and must continue to adapt - to the global security challenges of our time. This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of international politics, military history and all readers interested in the future of NATO and international security.