A timely interdisciplinary study that applies psychoanalysis and the rhetorical tradition of the sublime to examine the cultural aftermath of the Atomic Age. Every culture throughout history has obsessed over various “end of the world” scenarios. The dawn of the Atomic Age marked a new twist in this tale. For the first time, our species became aware of its capacity to deliberately destroy itself. Since that time the Bomb has served as an organizing metaphor, a symbol of human annihilation, a stand-in for the unspeakable void of extinction, and a discursive construct that challenges the limits of communication itself. The parallel fascination with and abhorrence of nuclear weapons has metastasized into a host of other end-of-the-world scenarios, from global pandemics and climate change to zombie uprisings and asteroid collisions. Desiring the Bomb: Communication, Psychoanalysis, and the Atomic Age explores these world-ending fantasies through the lens of psychoanalysis to reveal their implications for both contemporary apocalyptic culture and the operations of language itself. What accounts for the enduring power of the Bomb as a symbol? What does the prospect of annihilation suggest about language and its limits? Thoroughly researched and accessibly written, this study expands on the theories of Kenneth Burke, Jacques Lacan, Sigmund Freud, and many others from a variety of disciplines to arrive at some answers to these questions. Calum L. Matheson undertakes a series of case studies—including the Trinity test site, nuclear war games, urban shelter schemes, and contemporary survivalism—and argues that contending with the anxieties (individual, social, cultural, and political) born of the Atomic Age depends on rhetorical conceptions of the “real,” an order of experience that cannot be easily negotiated in language. Using aspects of media studies, rhetorical theory, and psychoanalysis, the author deftly engages the topics of Atomic Age survival, extinction, religion, and fantasy, along with their enduring cultural legacies, to develop an account of the Bomb as a signifier and to explore why some Americans have become fascinated with fantasies of nuclear warfare and narratives of postapocalyptic rebirth.

The late Dr. Michihiko Hachiya was director of the Hiroshima Communications Hospital when the world's first atomic bomb was dropped on the city. Though his responsibilities in the appalling chaos of a devastated city were awesome, he found time to record the story daily, with compassion and tenderness. His compelling diary was originally published by the UNC Press in 1955, with the help of Dr. Warner Wells of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who was a surgical consultant to the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission and who became a friend of Dr. Hachiya. In a new foreword, John Dower reflects on the enduring importance of the diary fifty years after the bombing.

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

Exploring how the United States manages its still-powerful nuclear arsenalArms control agreements and the end of the cold war have made the prospect of nuclear war a distant fear for the general public. But the United States and its principle rivals China and Russia still maintain sizable arsenals of nuclear weapons, along with the systems for managing them and using them if that terrible day ever comes. Understanding U.S. Nuclear Operations describes how the United States manages its nuclear forces, focusing on how theories and policies are put into practice. It addresses such questions as: What have been the guiding priorities of U.S. nuclear strategy since the end of the cold war? What nuclear attack options would the President have during a war? How are these war plans developed and reviewed by civilian and military leaders? How would presidential orders be conveyed to the uniformed men and women who are entrusted with U.S. nuclear weapons systems? And are these communications systems and supporting capabilities vulnerable to disruption or attack? The answers to such questions depend on the process by which national strategy for nuclear deterrence, developed by civilian leaders, is converted into nuclear war plans and the entire range of procedures for implementing those plans if necessary. The authors of the book's chapters have extensive experience in government, the armed forces, and the analytic community. Drawing on their firsthand knowledge, as well as the public record, they provide unique, authoritative accounts of how the United States manages it nuclear forces today. This book will be of interest to the national security community, particularly younger experts who did not grow up in the nuclear-centric milieu of the cold war. Any national security analyst, professional or government staffer aiming to learn more about nuclear modernization policy and the U.S. nuclear arsenal should be interested in this book. It should also be of interest to professors and students who want a deep understanding of U.S. nuclear policy.

When is preventive war chosen to counter nuclear proliferation? In All Options on the Table, Rachel Elizabeth Whitlark looks beyond systemic and slow-moving factors such as the distribution of power. Instead, she highlights individual leaders' beliefs to explain when preventive military force is the preferred strategy. Executive perspective-not institutional structure-is paramount. Whitlark makes her argument through archivally based comparative case studies. She focuses on executive decision making regarding nuclear programs in China, North Korea, Iraq, Pakistan, and Syria. This book considers the actions of US presidents John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush, as well as Israeli prime ministers Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Rabin, and Ehud Olmert. All Options on the Table demonstrates that leaders have different beliefs about the consequences of nuclear proliferation in the international system and their state's ability to deter other states' nuclear activity. These divergent beliefs lead to variation in leaders' preferences regarding the use of preventive military force as a counter-proliferation strategy. The historical evidence amassed in All Options on the Table bears on strategic assessments of aspiring nuclear powers such as Iran and North Korea. Whitlark argues that only those leaders who believe that nuclear proliferation is destabilizing for the international system will consider preventive force to counter such challenges. In a complex nuclear world, this insight helps explain why the use of force as a counter-proliferation strategy has been an extremely rare historical event.

Now facing a genuinely unprecedented configuration of existential threats, Israel's leaders must decide whether to continue their deliberate nuclear ambiguity policy (the "bomb in the basement") as they consider such urgent and overlapping survival issues as regional nuclear proliferation, Jihadist terror-group intersections with enemy states, rationality or irrationality of state and sub-state adversaries, assassination or "targeted killing," preemption, and the probable effects of a "Cold War II" between Russia and the United States. Israel must develop a strategic posture that will involve a suitably coherent and refined nuclear strategy. This book critically examines Israel's rapidly evolving nuclear strategy in light of these issues and explains how it underscores the overarching complexity of strategic interactions in the Middle East.

This book begins with the analysis of America's post-war intelligence operations, propaganda campaigns, and strategic psychological warfare in Japan. Banking on nuclear safety myths, Japan promoted an aggressive policy of locating and building nuclear power plants in depopulated areas suffering from a significant decline of local industries and economies. The Fukushima nuclear disaster substantiated that U.S. propaganda programs left a long lasting legacy in Japan and beyond and created the futile ground for the future nuclear disaster. The book reveals Japan's tripartite organization of the dominating state, media-monopoly, and nuclear-plant oligarchy advancing nuclear proliferation. It details America's unprecedented pro-nuclear propaganda campaigns; Japan's secret ambitions to develop its own nuclear bombs; U.S. dumping of reprocessed plutonium on Japan; and the joint U.S.-Nippon propaganda campaigns for "safe" nuclear-power and the current "safe-nuclear particles" myths. The study shows how the bankruptcy of the central state has led to increased burdens on the population in post-nuclear tsunami era, and the ensuing dangerous ionization of the population now reaching into the future.

This book fills a clear gap in the literature for a technically-focused book covering nuclear proliferation and related issues post-9/11. Using a concept-led approach which serves a broad readership, it provides detailed overview of nuclear weapons, nuclear proliferation and international nuclear policy. The author addresses topics including offensive and defensive missile systems, command and control, verification, weapon effects, and nuclear testing. A chronology of nuclear arms is presented including detailed discussion of the Cold War, proliferation, and arms control treaties. The book is tailored to courses on nuclear proliferation, and the general reader will also find it a fascinating introduction to the science and strategy behind international nuclear policy in the modern era.

While the world's attention is focused on the nuclearization of North Korea and Iran and the nuclear brinkmanship between India and Pakistan, China is believed to have doubled the size of its nuclear arsenal, making it "the forgotten nuclear power," as described in Foreign Affairs. Susan Turner Haynes analyzes China's buildup and its diversification of increasingly mobile, precise, and sophisticated nuclear weapons. Haynes provides context and clarity to this complex global issue through an analysis of extensive primary source research and lends insight into questions of why China, is the only nuclear-weapon state recognized under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that continues to pursue qualitative and quantitative advancements to its nuclear force. As the gap between China's nuclear force and the forces of the nuclear superpowers narrows against the expressed interest of many nuclear as well as non-nuclear states, Chinese Nuclear Proliferation offers policy prescriptions to curtail China's nuclear growth and to assuage fears that the "American World Order" presents a direct threat to China's national security. Presenting technical concepts with minimal jargon, in a straightforward style, this book will be of use to casual China watchers and military experts alike.

He called the first atomic bomb "technically sweet," yet as he watched its brilliant light explode over the New Mexico desert in 1945 in advance of the black horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he also thought of the line from the Hindu epic The Bhagavad Gita: "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Physicist J. RobertOppenheimer, the scientific director of the Manhattan Project, the single most recognizable face of the atomic bomb, and a man whose name has become almost synonymous with Cold War American nuclear science, was and still is a conflicted, controversial figure who has come to represent an equally ambivalent technology. The Meanings of J. Robert Oppenheimer examines how he has been represented over the past seven decades in biographies, histories,fiction, comics, photographs, film, television, documentaries, theater, and museums. Lindsey Michael Banco gathers an unprecedented group of cultural texts and seeks to understand the multiple meanings Oppenheimer has held in American popular culture since 1945. He traces the ways these representations of Oppenheimer have influenced public understanding of the atomic bomb, technology, physics, the figure of the scientist, the role of science in war, and even what it means to pursue knowledge of the world around us. Questioning and unpacking both how and why Oppenheimer is depicted as he is across time and genre, this book is broad in scope, profound in detail, and offers unique insights into the rise of nuclear culture and how we think about the relationship between history, imagination, science, and nuclear weapons today.

Addressing an increasingly complex array of nuclear weapons challenges in the future will require talented young people with the necessary technical and policy expertise to contribute to sound decisionmaking on nuclear issues over time. To that end, the CSIS Project on Nuclear Issues (PONI) runs a yearly Nuclear Scholars Initiative for graduate students and young professionals. Those accepted into the program are hosted once per month at CSIS in Washington, DC, where they participate in daylong workshops with senior government officials and policy experts. Over the course of the six-month program, scholars are required to prepare a research paper. This volume is a collection of the 2014 papers from the Nuclear Scholars Initiative.

Longing for the Bomb traces the unusual story of the first atomic city and the emergence of American nuclear culture. Tucked into the folds of Appalachia and kept off all commercial maps, Oak Ridge, Tennessee, was created for the Manhattan Project by the U.S. government in the 1940s. Its workers labored at a breakneck pace, most aware only that their jobs were helping ""the war effort."" The city has experienced the entire lifespan of the Atomic Age, from the fevered wartime enrichment of the uranium that fueled Little Boy, through a brief period of atomic utopianism after World War II when it began to brand itself as ""The Atomic City,"" to the anxieties of the Cold War, to the contradictory contemporary period of nuclear unease and atomic nostalgia. Oak Ridge's story deepens our understanding of the complex relationship between America and its bombs. Blending historiography and ethnography, Lindsey Freeman shows how a once-secret city is visibly caught in an uncertain present, no longer what it was historically yet still clinging to the hope of a nuclear future. It is a place where history, memory, and myth compete and conspire to tell the story of America's atomic past and to explain the nuclear present.

The Project on Nuclear Issues 2013 conference series included events at Northrop Grumman in May, Sandia National Laboratory in July, and CSIS in December, before concluding with a Capstone Conference at Offutt Air Force Base, home of the U.S. Strategic Command, in March 2014. The papers included in this volume are a collection of some of the presentations delivered at the Capstone Conference. Spanning a wide range of technical and policy issues, these selected papers hope to further discussion in their respective areas, as well as contribute to the success of the greater nuclear community.

Nuclear weapons are an essential part of the nation's defence strategy. The National Nuclear Security Administration's (NNSA) manages the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile and carries out research to help extend the life of existing weapons. The core of a nuclear weapon, called a "pit", requires plutonium (a man-made radioactive element) to create a nuclear explosion. Until 1989, the Rocky Flats Plant (CO) mass-produced pits. Since then, the United States has made at most 11 pits per year (ppy). U.S. policy is to maintain existing nuclear weapons. To do this, the Department of Defense states that it needs the Department of Energy (DOE), which maintains U.S. nuclear weapons, to produce 50-80 ppy by 2030. While some argue that few if any new pits are needed, at least for decades, this book focuses on options to reach 80 ppy. Since pit issues are complicated, this book contains technical and regulatory details that are needed to understand the advantages, drawbacks, and uncertainties of various options. The book includes a description of plutonium, pits, and pit factory problems before considering several pit production options.

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.

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.

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.

We are at a critical juncture in world politics. Nuclear strategy and policy have risen to the top of the global policy agenda, and issues ranging from a nuclear Iran to the global zero movement are generating sharp debate. The historical origins of our contemporary nuclear world are deeply consequential for contemporary policy, but it is crucial that decisions are made on the basis of fact rather than myth and misapprehension. In Nuclear Statecraft, Francis J. Gavin challenges key elements of the widely accepted narrative about the history of the atomic age and the consequences of the nuclear revolution.

On the basis of recently declassified documents, Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. In case after case, he finds that we know far less than we think we do about our nuclear history. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers.

Gavin's rigorous historical work not only tells us what happened in the past but also offers a powerful tool to explain how nuclear weapons influence international relations. Nuclear Statecraft provides a solid foundation for future policymaking.