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.

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.

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.

The Titan II ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) program was developed by the United States military to bolster the size, strength, and speed of the nation's strategic weapons arsenal in the 1950s and 1960s. Each missile carried a single warhead -- the largest in U.S. inventory -- used liquid fuel propellants, and was stored and launched from hardened underground silos. The missiles were deployed at basing facilities in Arkansas, Arizona, and Kansas and remained in active service for over twenty years. Since military deactivation in the early 1980s, the Titan II has served as a reliable satellite launch vehicle.

This is the richly detailed story of the Titan II missile and the men and women who developed and operated the system. David K. Stumpf uses a wide range of sources, drawing upon interviews with and memoirs by engineers and airmen as well as recently declassified government documents and other public materials. Over 170 drawings and photographs, most of which have never been published, enhance the narrative. The three major accidents of the program are described in detail for the first time using authoritative sources.

Titan Il will be welcomed by librarians for its prodigious reference detail, by technology history professionals and laymen, and by the many civilian and Air Force personnel who were involved in the program -- a deterrent weapons system that proved to be successful in defending America from nuclear attack.

A subarctic mine on the far eastern shores of Great Bear Lake provided Canadian uranium for the bombs detonated over Japan in August 1945. However, a complete history of Canada's involvement in the Manhattan Project and the development of the atomic bomb has been thwarted by restrictions on classified documents.

This book highlights the role of nuclear weapons in 21st century U.S. policy. The world has changed a great deal in the last decade and a half. The Cold War stand-off with the Soviet Union is over, and Russia is no longer an ideological adversary. The United States has made historic reductions in its operationally deployed strategic nuclear forces and plans to reduce them to a level of 1,700 to 2,200 by 2012, as called for by the Moscow Treaty. The U.S. has also greatly reduced its non-strategic nuclear forces and the total nuclear warhead stockpile. These significant nuclear reductions are fully warranted in the new security environment. The United States continues to maintain nuclear forces for two fundamental reasons. First, the international security environment remains dangerous and unpredictable, and has grown more complicated since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Political intentions can change overnight and technical surprises can be expected. Second, nuclear weapons continue to play unique roles in supporting U.S. national security. Although not suited for every 21st century challenge, nuclear weapons remain an essential element in modern strategy. 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.

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."

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.

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 "Learning to Love the Bomb," Sean M. Maloney explores the controversial subject of Canada's acquisition of nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Based on newly declassified Canadian and U.S. documents, it examines policy, strategy, operational, and technical matters and weaves these seemingly disparate elements into a compelling story that finally unlocks several Cold War mysteries. For example, while U.S. military forces during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis were focused on the Caribbean Sea and the southeastern United States, Canadian forces assumed responsibility for defending the northern United States, with aircraft armed with nuclear depth charges flying patrols and guarding against missile attack by Soviet submarines. This defensive strategy was a closely guarded secret because it conflicted with Canada's image as a peacekeeper and therefore a more passive member of NATO than its ally to the south. It is revealed here for the first time. The place of nuclear weapons in Canadian history has, until now, been a highly secret and misunderstood field subject to rumor, rhetoric, half-truths, and propaganda. "Learning to Love the Bomb" reveals the truth about Canada's role as a nuclear power.

"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".

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.

Underground facilities are used extensively by many nations to conceal and protect strategic military functions and weapons' stockpiles. Because of their depth and hardened status, however, many of these strategic hard and deeply buried targets could only be put at risk by conventional or nuclear earth penetrating weapons (EPW). Recently, an engineering feasibility study, the robust nuclear earth penetrator program, was started by DOE and DOD to determine if a more effective EPW could be designed using major components of existing nuclear weapons. This activity has created some controversy about, among other things, the level of collateral damage that would ensue if such a weapon were used. To help clarify this issue, the Congress, in P.L. 107-314, directed the Secretary of Defense to request from the NRC a study of the anticipated health and environmental effects of nuclear earth-penetrators and other weapons and the effect of both conventional and nuclear weapons against the storage of biological and chemical weapons. This report provides the results of those analyses. Based on detailed numerical calculations, the report presents a series of findings comparing the effectiveness and expected collateral damage of nuclear EPW and surface nuclear weapons under a variety of conditions. Table of Contents Front Matter Summary 1 Introduction 2 Hard and Deeply Buried Targets 3 Earth-Penetrator Weapons 4 Effectiveness of Nuclear Weapons Against Hard and Deeply Buried Targets 5 Fallout and Tools for Calculating Effects of Release of Hazardous Materials 6 Human and Environmental Effects 7 Conventional Weapons 8 Uncertainty in Estimates of Effects 9 Conclusions Appendix A: Committee and Staff Appendix B: Agendas Appendix C: Equivalent Yield Factors for Energy Coupling Appendix D: Acronyms and Abbreviations

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.

Is Iran at a crossroads? The recent US - led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have brought new opportunities and dangers that could conceivably either herald a new rapprochement between Tehran and Washington or else bring a sharp detorioration that might perhaps spill over into confrontation. At home, profound demographic changes would seem to make far-reaching political changes appear inevitable in a country whose young population is alienated from the clerical elite that pulls the strings of power. This book looks at some of the causes of these domestic international tensions and considers some of the possible outcomes. In particular, it asks: Is Iran really on the way to developing nuclear weapons? What is the Iranian 'Qods Force' doing in Iraq and Afghanistan? And why? What are Iran's connections with Middle East terror groups? Could Iran disintegrate if the current regime crumbles? How much of a threat to the regime do dissident organisations pose? The book explains the likely course of events in Iran and the region for both general readers and specialists.

Since the nuclear genie was let out of the bottle, nuclear weapons have been the exclusive domain of a select few countries. At the dawn of the next millennium, however, the notion that small countries and even a few individuals many acquire and use them, or threaten to, is a major concern. This annotated bibliography presents citations of the current book and journal literature which deal with this dangerous issue. Access is provided through subject, author and titles indexes.

In March 1998, India broke a quarter-century's silence when it detonated a series of nuclear devices in the Rajasthan desert. Having announced it possessed the requisite credentials for membership in the nuclear club in 1974, India quickly disavowed any desire to join, pledging not to develop its capability further.. As the Pokhran explosions revealed, that promise would not be kept for ever, and the principal beneficiary of its breaking was now to be a right-wing government seeking to shore up its shaky political base by demonstrating its commitment to the 'Hindu bomb'. While most in the West were taken unawares by this sudden bellicosity in the land of Ghandi, more scrupulous observers on the South-Asian scene insisted it had a clear history. In this, his first book since the hotly debated In Theory, Aijaz Ahmad untangles many of the intertwined threads of historical and political traditions in a still-too-poorly-understood region of the world.

More than most of us, Mary Palevsky needed to come to terms with the moral complexities of the atomic bomb: Her parents worked on its development during World War II and were profoundly changed by that experience. After they died, unanswered questions sent their daughter on a search for understanding. This compelling, sometimes heart-wrenching chronicle is the story of that quest. It takes her, and us, on a journey into the minds, memories, and emotions of the bomb builders.
Scientists Hans Bethe, Edward Teller, Joseph Rotblat, Herbert York, Philip Morrison, and Robert Wilson, and philosopher David Hawkins responded to Palevsky's personal approach in a way that dramatically expands their previously published statements. Her skill and passion as an interlocutor prompt these men to recall their lives vividly and to reexamine their own decisions, debating within themselves the complex issues raised by the bomb.
The author herself, seeking to comprehend the widely differing ways in which individual scientists made choices about the bomb and made sense of their work, deeply reconsiders those questions of commitment and conscience her parents faced. In personal vignettes that complement the interviews, she captures other remembrances of the bomb through commemorative events and chance encounters with people who were "there." Her concluding chapter reframes the crucial moral questions in terms that show the questions themselves to be the abiding legacy we all share. This beautifully written book bridges generations to make its readers participants in the ongoing dialogue about science and philosophy, war and peace.

How will continued proliferation of nuclear weapons change the global political order? This collection of essays comes to conclusions at odds with the conventional wisdom. Stephen Rosen and Barry Posen explore how nuclear proliferation may affect US incentives to confront regional aggression. Stephen Walt argues that regional allies will likely prove willing to stand with a strong and ready United States against nuclear-backed aggression. George Quester and Brad Roberts examine long-term strategic objectives in responding to nuclear attack by a regional aggressor. Richard Betts highlights the potential for disastrous mistakes in moving toward and living in a world heavily populated with nuclear-armed states. Scott Sagan explains how the nuclear nonproliferation policies best suited to some states can spur proliferation by others. Caroline Ziemke shows how the analysis of a state's strategic personality can provide insights into why it might want nuclear weapons and how its policies may develop once it gets them. And, Victor Utgoff concludes that the United States seems more likely to intervene against regional aggression when the aggressor has nuclear weapons than when it does not.

One of the last secrets of World War II is why the Germans failed to build an atomic bomb. Germany was the birthplace of modern physics it possessed the raw materials and the industrial base and it commanded key intellectual resources. What happened?In Heisenberg's War , Thomas Powers tells of the interplay between science and espionage, morality and military necessity, and paranoia and cool logic that marked the German bomb program and the Allied response to it. On the basis of dozens of interviews and years of intensive research, Powers concludes that Werner Heisenberg, who was the leading figure in the German atomic effort, consciously obstructed the development of the bomb and in a famous 1941 meeting in Copenhagen with his former mentor Neils Bohr in effect sought to dissuade the Allies from their pursuit of the bomb. Heisenberg's War is a "superbly researched and well-written book" ( Time ) whose extraordinary story engrosses- and haunts.

Nuclear tests in India and Pakistan brought the threat of nuclear war back to the world's centre stage. The tests and nuclear moves have raised regional tension, increased poverty in already impoverished nations, and could possibly have fuelled an arms race which goes beyond the borders of the two countries. This text examines the causes and consequences of India and Pakistani nuclear tests. The book provides a framework for understanding the global context of these tests, and looks at approaches for nuclear abolition in Asia and the West.

This invaluable study provides a unique insider's view of the history of Soviet and Russian policy on nuclear weapons modernization and charts the future evolution of the Russian strategic arsenal. Using information that has only recently become available and introducing new, previously unknown data, Sokov concludes that the most important force behind the evolution of the Soviet and Russian strategic arsenal was the military itself, which sought to increase strategic stability by enhancing the survivability of weapons systems. The highly destabilizing posture of the 1970s and 1980s was, he argues, in a sense 'accidental, ' resulting from the failure of several R&D programs and specific features of the Soviet decisionmaking mechanism. The author demonstrates that the role of such factors as the economic crisis, U.S. modernization programs, and general Russian foreign policy goals has been exaggerated by Western analysts. No matter how hard-pressed, Russia will hold to its current plans, Sokov argues. At the same time, the military will be unlikely to engage in a new arms buildup even if the economic situation improves or a nationalist government comes to power. Instead, stability will be sought through better quality of weapons at progressively lower levels. Introducing a wealth of new information on Soviet and Russian national security policymaking, the author explores in meticulous detail such key issues as decisions on weapons development, arms-control negotiations, and the handling of the Soviet nuclear arsenal after the breakup of the Soviet Union. The reader will be able to follow the debates and intrigues between military planners, diplomats, and weapons designers as they clashed over the choice of acquisition programs and negotiating positions. With its combination of informed analysis and use of new documentation, this work will be invaluable for all concerned with U.S.-Russian strategic relations.