With the end of the Cold War and break-up of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, control of surplus nuclear weapons material became an urgent U.S. foreign policy goal. Particular U.S. concern focused on plutonium from Soviet nuclear warheads, which it was feared posed a major nuclear weapons proliferation risk. The United States supported a successful effort to consolidate the storage of Soviet nuclear weapons and materials in Russia, and then began negotiating reductions in weapons material stockpiles. Congress has been closely involved in formulating U.S. policy on surplus plutonium disposition, as well as funding the necessary facilities, operations, and Russian assistance to implement the program. Congressional debate is now focusing on the U.S. program's escalating costs and the Obama Administration's FY2015 proposal to halt construction of plutonium disposition facilities in South Carolina and prepare a new strategy. This book discusses the mixed-oxide fuel fabrication plant and plutonium disposition. It also examines drivers the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) identified for the cost increases of construction projects for plutonium disposition; the extent to which NNSA analysed underlying causes of the cost increases; steps NNSA took to hold construction contractors accountable for their role, if any, in the cost increases; and the extent to which NNSA's most recent estimates met cost- and schedule-estimating best practices.

The United States is concurrently pursuing the goals of reducing the size of its nuclear weapons force -- strategic and non-strategic, deployed and non-deployed -- and of modernising the weapons it continues to possess. Many of the existing systems were deployed 30 to 50 years ago, and the modernisation process can be expected to extend over the next decade or more. This book examines the motivations for reductions and modernisation; reviews a number of historical systems; discusses the current path forward for the United States nuclear force; provides background, developments, and issues of the United States strategic nuclear forces; and discusses a nuclear posture review report.

The book is a comprehensive study of India's relationship with the non-proliferation regime, and its transformative evolution from a perennial outlier to one seeking greater integration with the regime and its normative structures. The highlight of this study is its incisive conceptual analysis of the regime as a functional system and its structural complexities, which brings forth new insights on the regime's core ideas like non-proliferation and counter-proliferation. The book also provides an extensive non-Western narrative on the concept of counter-proliferation and its conceivable role and influence in the regime. It breaks new ground in explaining India's quest for an anti-proliferation strategy, which could determine its status and future in the emerging global nuclear order. It will be a substantial contribution to the literature on India's approach towards non-proliferation, counter-proliferation and disarmament, and will enhance the understanding of the impact of the regime's normative structures on India's nuclear decisions.

March 7, 1968: Several hundred miles northwest of Hawaii, the nuclear-armed K-129 surfaces and then sinks; all of its crewmen and officers perish at sea. Who was commanding the rogue Russian sub? What was its target? How did it infiltrate American waters undetected? Navy veteran Kenneth Sewell, drawing from newly declassified documents and extensive confidential interviews, exposes the stunning truth behind an operation calculated to provoke war between the U.S. and China -- a nightmare scenario averted by only seconds. In full, authoritative detail, "Red Star Rogue" illuminates this history-shaping event -- and rings with chilling relevance in light of today's terrorist threat.

In this sobering book, Barry R. Posen demonstrates how the interplay between conventional military operations and nuclear forces could, in conflicts among states armed with both conventional and nuclear weaponry, inadvertently produce pressures for nuclear escalation. Knowledge of these hidden pressures, he believes, may help some future decision maker avoid catastrophe.

Building a formidable argument that moves with cumulative force, he details the way in which escalation could occur not by mindless accident, or by deliberate preference for nuclear escalation, but rather as a natural accompaniment of land, naval, or air warfare at the conventional level. Posen bases his analysis on an empirical study of the east-west military competition in Europe during the 1980s, using a conceptual framework drawn from international relations theory, organization theory, and strategic theory.

The lessons of his book, however, go well beyond the east-west competition. Since his observations are relevant to all military competitions between states armed with both conventional and nuclear weaponry, his book speaks to some of the problems that attend the proliferation of nuclear weapons in longstanding regional conflicts. Optimism that small and medium nuclear powers can easily achieve "stable" nuclear balances is, he believes, unwarranted.

Most analysts consider non-strategic weapons to be shorter-range delivery systems with lower yield warheads that might be used to attack troops or facilities on the battlefield. These weapons have a lower profile in policy debates and arms control negotiations, possibly because they do not pose a direct threat to the continental United States. This book provides basic information about U.S., Russian, North Korean and Pakistani nuclear weapons. It begins with a brief discussion of how these weapons have appeared in public debates in the past few decades, then summarises the differences between strategic and non-strategic nuclear weapons. Historical background is discussed, describing the numbers and types of non-strategic nuclear weapons deployed during the Cold War by the U.S. and Russia, and in the past decade; the policies that have guided the deployment and prospective use of these weapons; and the measures taken to reduce and contain them. Also discussed is what is known about North Korea's nuclear weapons program and Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

In 2007 two former U.S. secretaries of state, a defense secretary, and a former senator wrote persuasively in the Wall Street Journal that the time had come to move seriously toward a nuclear-free world. Almost two years later, the Global Zero movement was born with its chief aim to rid the world of such weapons once and for all by 2030. But is it realistic or even wise to envision a world without nuclear weapons? More and more people seem to think so. Barack Obama has declared "America's commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons". But that is easier said than done. Michael O'Hanlon places his own indelible stamp on this critical issue, putting forth a "friendly skeptic's case for nuclear disarmament". Calls to "ban the bomb" are as old as the bomb itself, but the pace and organization of nonproliferation campaigns have picked up greatly recently. The growing Global Zero movement, for example, wants treaty negotiations to begin in 2019. Would this be prudent or even feasible in a world that remains dangerous, divided, and unpredictable? After all, America's nuclear arsenal has been its military trump card for much of the period since World War II. Pursuing a nuclear weapons ban prematurely or carelessly could alarm allies, leading them to consider building their own weapons - the opposite of the intended effect. O'Hanlon clearly presents the dangers of nuclear weapons and the advantages of disarmament as a goal. But even once an accord is in place, he notes, temporary suspension of restrictions may be necessary in response to urgent threats such as nuclear "cheating" or discovery of an advanced biological weapons program. To take all nuclear options off the table forever strengthens the hand of those that either do not make that pledge or do not honor it. For the near term, traditional approaches to arms control, including dismantling existing bomb inventories, can pave the way to make a true nonproliferation regime possible in the decades ahead.

Why does Iranian acquisition of ballistic missiles or Iran's pursuit of a space launch capability matter, especially to the Congress? For decades, most in Congress have viewed Iran with concern because of its nuclear program and its support of anti-U.S. and anti-Israel militant movements in the region. Although it is not certain that Iran has made the decision to develop a nuclear weapon, it is taking steps to drastically reduce the time needed to obtain nuclear weapons should a decision be made to do so. It is the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon mated to an effective missile delivery capability that is especially worrisome to most. This book examines the current and prospective Iranian capabilities that challenge U.S. national security interests, with a focus on its ballistic missile and space launch programs.

With the signing in 1996 of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, interest has grown in forensic seismology: the application of seismology to nuclear test ban verification. This book, based on over 50 years of experience in forensic seismology research, charts the development of methods of seismic data analysis. Topics covered include: the estimation of seismic magnitudes, travel-time tables and epicentres; seismic signal processing; and the use of seismometer arrays. Fully illustrated with seismograms from explosions and earthquakes, the book demonstrates methods and problems of visual analysis. Each chapter provides exercises to help the reader familiarise themselves with practical issues in the field of forensic seismology, and figures and solutions to exercises are also available online. The book is a key reference work for academic researchers and specialists in the area of forensic seismology and Earth structure, and will also be valuable to postgraduates in seismology and solid earth geophysics.

Weapons of mass destruction (WMD), especially in the hands of radical states and terrorists, represent a major threat to U.S. national security interests. Multilateral regimes were established to restrict trade in nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and missile technologies, and to monitor their civil applications. Congress may consider the efficacy of these regimes in considering the potential renewal of the Export Administration Act, as well as other proliferation-specific legislation in the 111th Congress. This book provides background and current status information on nuclear non-proliferation regimes which encompass several treaties, extensive multilateral and bilateral diplomatic agreements, multilateral organisations and domestic agencies, and the domestic laws of participating countries.

Detection of nuclear weapons and special nuclear material (SNM) is crucial to thwarting nuclear proliferation and terrorism and to securing weapons and materials world-wide. Congress has funded a portfolio of detection R&D and acquisition programs, and has mandated inspection at foreign ports of all U.S.-bound cargo containers using two types of detection equipment. Nuclear weapons contain SNM, which produces unique or suspect signatures that can be detected. It emits radiation, notably gamma rays (high-energy photons) and neutrons. SNM is very dense, so it produces a bright image on a radiograph when X-rays or gamma rays are beamed through a container in which it is hidden. Some detection technology is advancing faster than many have expected. It is easier and less costly to accelerate a program in R&D than in production. This book emphasises the ongoing improvement in detection capabilities which produce uncertainties for terrorists that will increase over time, adding deterrence beyond that of the capabilities themselves. This book consists of public documents which have been located, gathered, combined, reformatted, and enhanced with a subject index, selectively edited and bound to provide easy access.

In the closing days of World War II, scientists working for the U.S. government invented nuclear explosives by splitting the atoms of heavy metals. Germany had already surrendered, but the United States and its allies remained at war with Japan. In the summer of 1945, the Japanese city of Hiroshima was flattened by a single nuclear bomb. A second bombing occurred just a few days later, decimating the city of Nagasaki. These were the first nuclear weapons ever used in war. And - so far - they are the last. Since then, tens of thousands of nuclear weapons have been manufactured and deployed by governments around the world. Many of these weapons are much more powerful than the atomic bombs that destroyed the two Japanese cities. None have been used so far, and the absence of nuclear war among nations armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons is a great mystery. While the threat of a nuclear attack on the United States has receded, the possibility of a nuclear attack on an American city by terrorists has taken its place in our official nightmares. So far, no terrorist group has made a serious effort to buy, steal, or build a nuclear weapon. The absence of nuclear terrorism in a world swarming with fanatical terrorists is another great mystery. The slippery slope to a nuclear Armageddon has been present for more than sixty years. In secure locations in Washington, Moscow, Beijing, London, and Paris, there are buttons to push than could put an end to human civilization, but these buttons have never been pushed. Why not? What has so far kept us safe from these mortal dangers? Those are the questions that Caplow asks and answers in Armageddon Postponed.

In a vitally important book for anyone interested in nuclear proliferation, defense strategy, or international security, Matthew Kroenig points out that nearly every country with a nuclear weapons arsenal received substantial help at some point from a more advanced nuclear state. Why do some countries help others to develop nuclear weapons? Many analysts assume that nuclear transfers are driven by economic considerations. States in dire economic need, they suggest, export sensitive nuclear materials and technology and ignore the security risk in a desperate search for hard currency.

Kroenig challenges this conventional wisdom. He finds that state decisions to provide sensitive nuclear assistance are the result of a coherent, strategic logic. The spread of nuclear weapons threatens powerful states more than it threatens weak states, and these differential effects of nuclear proliferation encourage countries to provide sensitive nuclear assistance under certain strategic conditions. Countries are more likely to export sensitive nuclear materials and technology when it would have the effect of constraining an enemy and less likely to do so when it would threaten themselves.

In Exporting the Bomb, Kroenig examines the most important historical cases, including France's nuclear assistance to Israel in the 1950s and 1960s; the Soviet Union's sensitive transfers to China from 1958 to 1960; China's nuclear aid to Pakistan in the 1980s; and Pakistan's recent technology transfers, with the help of "rogue" scientist A. Q. Khan, from 1987 to 2002. Understanding why states provide sensitive nuclear assistance not only adds to our knowledge of international politics but also aids in international efforts to control the spread of nuclear weapons."

A.Q. Khan was the world's leading black market dealer in nuclear technology, described by a former CIA Director as "at least as dangerous as Osama bin Laden." A hero in Pakistan and revered as the Father of the Bomb, Khan built a global clandestine network that sold the most closely guarded nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya.
Here for the first time is the riveting inside story of the rise and fall of A.Q. Khan and his role in the devastating spread of nuclear technology over the last thirty years. Drawing on exclusive interviews with key players in Islamabad, London, and Washington, as well as with members of Khan's own network, BBC journalist Gordon Corera paints a truly unsettling picture of the ultimate arms bazaar. Corera reveals how Khan operated within a world of shadowy deals among rogue states and how his privileged position in Pakistan provided him with the protection to build his unique and deadly business empire. It explains why and how he was able to operate so freely for so many years. Brimming with revelations, the book provides new insight into Iran's nuclear ambitions and how close Tehran may be to the bomb.
In addition, the book contains startling new information on how the CIA and MI6 penetrated Khan's network, how the U.S. and UK ultimately broke Khan's ring, and how they persuaded Pakistan's President Musharraf to arrest a national hero. The book also provides the first detailed account of the high-wire dealings with Muammar Gadaffi, which led to Libya's renunciation of nuclear weapons and which played a key role in Khan's downfall.
The spread of nuclear weapons technology around the globe presents the greatest security challenge of our time. Shopping for Bombs presents a unique window into the challenges of stopping a new nuclear arms race, a race that A.Q. Khan himself did more than any other individual to promote.

Trident was the world's first tri-jet and the first civilian aircraft certified to be able to land automatically in Cat B conditions, in a fog. Notoriously, in 1972, 118 people were killed when a BEA Trident airliner ploughed into waste ground only a few yards from the Staines bypass on the outskirts of Heathrow Airport-London. There were no survivors when the plane crashed, less than four minutes after taking off for Brussels. The impact broke the plane's spine, ripping off the tail section and sending it spinning through the air. The book is written with the assistance of Neil Lomax of the Trident Preservation Society in Manchester; and includes pictures of their recent Trident restoration project.

Although the Cold War is commonly considered 'over,' the legacies of that conflict continue to unfold throughout the globe. One site of post-Cold War controversy involves the consequences of U.S. nuclear weapons production for worker safety, public health, and the environment. Over the past two decades, citizens, organizations, and governments have passionately debated the nature of these consequences, and how they should be managed. This volume clarifies the role of communication in creating, maintaining, and transforming the relationships between these parties, and in shaping the outcomes of related organizational and political deliberations. Providing various perspectives on nuclear culture and discourse, this anthology serves as a model of interdisciplinary communication scholarship that cuts across the subfields of political, environmental, and organizational communication studies, and rhetoric.

In Global Challenges for Leviathan, Furio Cerutti illumines for the reader the precarious situation in which the world currently exists. Far beyond international terrorism and the troubles with globalization in our age, there are two threats that really are global, as they can hurt everyone on earth and can be addressed only by the combined effort of all relevant human groups. Nuclear weapons may now play a lesser role than they did during the Cold War, but they will always endanger the survival of humankind, while global warming can bring disaster to future generations. Not only our obligations to current and future generations but also the very feeling that our life has little meaning if we or our posterity are confronted with man-made annihilation requires us to deal with these two global challenges. Neither the political realism that relies on deterrence and market fundamentalism nor the utopian salvation entrusted to world government provide an adequate response to global challenges. The question that confonts us is whether politics and democracy will be able to put these challenges on their agendas. Cerutti shows how political philosophy can highlight problems and prevent illusions, and how it can teach us to live in an uncertain world.

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.

The United States is the only country to have dropped the atomic bomb. Since the A-bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, every US president has threatened nuclear war. This concise history shows how the U.S. has used nuclear weapons to bolster its imperial ambitions. Leading nuclear specialist and peace campaigner Joseph Gerson explains why atomic weapons were first built and used - and how the U.S. uses them today to preserve its global empire. Gerson reveals how and why the U.S. made more than twenty threats of nuclear attack during the Cold War - against Russia, China, Vietnam, and the Middle East. He shows how such theats continued under Presidents Bush and Clinton, and George W. Bush. The book concludes with an appeal for nuclear weapons abolition and an overview of the history of the anti-nuclear movement. Drawing from a wide range of sources, this fascinating and timely account shows how the U.S. has used nuclear weapons to dominate the world.

As Iran continues to develop its nuclear program and explicitly denounces Israel, Michael Karpin's The Bomb in the Basement provides important context for the ongoing tensions in the Middle East. After Israel won its war of independence in 1948, founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion realized that his country faced the possibility of having to fight Arab nations again in the future. He embraced the idea of developing a nuclear capability and put a young lieutenant, Shimon Peres, in charge of the project. This was the beginning of Israel's quest for nuclear capability, a project that could not have happened without the cooperation of the French. In The Bomb in the Basement, journalist Michael Karpin gives us the most complete account of how Israel became the Middle East's only nuclear power and how its status as an officially unacknowledged nuclear nation affects the politics of that volatile region. Karpin's research includes exclusive interviews that provide new insights into the key figures behind the program (notably a harsh rivalry between Peres and Isser Harel, the first head of Mossad). He explains how different U.S. administrations have dealt with Israel's nuclear status, from Eisenhower's disapproval to Johnson's open support. And he shows how the key to Israel's nuclear capability has been its policy of "nuclear ambiguity." A compelling account of a complicated history, The Bomb in the Basement raises provocative questions about how Israel's nuclear arsenal may affect not only its own future, but the future of the entire Middle East.

Whole World on Fire focuses on a technical riddle wrapped in an organizational mystery: How and why, for more than half a century, did the U.S. government fail to predict nuclear fire damage as it drew up plans to fight strategic nuclear war?U.S. bombing in World War II caused massive fire damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but later war plans took account only of damage from blast; they completely ignored damage from atomic firestorms. Recently a small group of researchers has shown that for modern nuclear weapons the destructiveness and lethality of nuclear mass fire often—and predictably—greatly exceeds that of nuclear blast. This has major implications for defense policy: the U.S. government has underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons, Lynn Eden finds, and built far more warheads, and far more destructive warheads, than it needed for the Pentagon's war-planning purposes. How could this have happened? The answer lies in how organizations frame the problems they try to solve. In a narrative grounded in organization theory, science and technology studies, and primary historical sources (including declassified documents and interviews), Eden explains how the U.S. Air Force's doctrine of precision bombing led to the development of very good predictions of nuclear blast—a significant achievement—but for many years to no development of organizational knowledge about nuclear fire. Expert communities outside the military reinforced this disparity in organizational capability to predict blast damage but not fire damage. Yet some innovation occurred, and predictions of fire damage were nearly incorporated into nuclear war planning in the early 1990s. The author explains how such a dramatic change almost happened, and why it did not. Whole World on Fire shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't do well, may build a poor representation of the world—a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences. In a sweeping conclusion, Eden shows the implications of the analysis for understanding such things as the sinking of the Titanic, the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the poor fireproofing in the World Trade Center.

"No previous generation of statesmen has had to conduct policy in so unknown an environment at the border line of Armageddon"-Henry Kissinger Nuclear weapons pose a unique challenge to American foreign policy and the American president in particular. The choices the president makes with regard to atomic weapons can change the course of human history and affect the lives of billions of people. In this important new work, scholar, teacher, and diplomat James Goodby analyzes how American presidents have confronted the dilemma of nuclear weapons. Drawing on his own involvement in over fifty years of nuclear policy, he explores specific case studies to illustrate the decision making process and the delicate balance between international cooperation and freedom of action, between the rules of behavior and governmental autonomy.

On May 11, 1998 , three nuclear devices exploded under the Thar, or Great Indian Desert, shaking the surrounding villages-and the rest of the world. The immediate effect was to plunge U.S.-India relations, already vexed by decades of tension and estrangement, into a new acrimonious standoff. The situation deteriorated further when Pakistan responded with a test of its own two weeks later. Engaging India is the revealing, authoritative account of the intensive talks that the United States conducted on parallel tracks with the South Asian nuclear powers over the next two and a half years. Bill Clinton's point man for that high-stakes diplomacy takes us behind the scenes of one of the most intriguing and consequential political dramas of our time, reconstructing what happened-and why-with narrative verve, rich human detail, and penetrating analysis. From June 1998 through September 2000, in the most extensive engagement ever between the United States and India, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Minister of External Affairs Jaswant Singh met fourteen times in seven countries on three continents. They grappled with the urgent issue of arms control and nonproliferation, but they also discussed their visions for the U.S.-Indian relationship, the potential for economic and strategic cooperation between the two countries, and the implications of Hindu nationalism for the evolution of Indian society, politics, and security. Their personal rapport helped raise the level of trust between the two governments. As a result, the United States was able to play a crucial role in defusing the crisis between India and Pakistan over the contested territory of Kashmir in the summer of 1999-thus, perhaps, averting a war that could have escalated to nuclear conflagration. The Talbott-Singh dialogue laid the ground for Clinton's transformational visit to South Asia in March 2000. That presidential journey opened a new chapter in relations between the United States and India. It also set the scene for U.S. cooperation with both India and Pakistan in the war against terror after September 11, 2001. In addition to providing an insider's perspective on a fascinating and instructive episode in diplomatic history, the story told here is vital background for understanding what happens next in a region that is home to nearly a quarter of humanity and that was, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, "the most dangerous place on earth".

More than half a century after the advent of the nuclear age, is the world approaching a tipping point that will unleash an epidemic of nuclear proliferation? Today many of the building blocks of a nuclear arsenal -scientific and engineering expertise, precision machine tools, software, design information -are more readily available than ever before. The nuclear pretensions of so-called rogue states and terrorist organizations are much discussed. But how firm is the resolve of those countries that historically have chosen to forswear nuclear weapons? A combination of changes in the international environment could set off a domino effect, with countries scrambling to develop nuclear weapons so as not to be left behind -or to develop nuclear "hedge" capacities that would allow them to build nuclear arsenals relatively quickly, if necessary. The Nuclear Tipping Point examines the factors, both domestic and transnational, that shape nuclear policy. The authors, distinguished scholars and foreign policy practitioners with extensive government experience, develop a framework for understanding why certain countries may originally have decided to renounce nuclear weapons -and pinpoint some more recent country-specific factors that could give them cause to reconsider. Case studies of eight long-term stalwarts of the nonproliferation regime -Egypt, Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Syria, Turkey, and Taiwan -flesh out this framework and show how even these countries might be pushed over the edge of a nuclear tipping point. The authors offer prescriptions that would both prevent such countries from reconsidering their nuclear option and avert proliferation by others. The stakes are enormous and success is far from assured. To keep the tipping point beyond reach, the authors argue, the international community will have to act with unity, imagination, and strength, and Washington's leadership will be essential. Contributors include Leon Feurth, George Washington University; Ellen Laipson, Stimson Center; Thomas W. Lippman, Middle East Institute; Jenifer Mackby, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Derek J. Mitchell, Center for Strategic and International Studies; Jonathan D. Pollack, U.S. Naval War College; Walter B. Slocombe, Caplin and Drysdale; and Tsuyoshi Sunohara, Center for Strategic and International Studies.