Drawing parallels between tribal behavior and international relations to demonstrate that societies are not inherently aggressive but are led into conflict when pride or in-group pressures push people to fight, this profound look at the chilling reality of cold war and its arsenal of nuclear destruction offers valuable new insights into how prejudices and stereotypes contribute to what may seem like an inexorable drift to war. Yet the authors conclude that war is not inevitable, as they offer suggestions for an end to the arms race in the nuclear age. Based on original research, this is a long overdue contribution to the study of war and peace in our time and a text for newly emerging courses on the subject.

The pilot-less drones, smart bombs and other high-tech weapons on display in recent conflicts are all the outcome of weapons research. However, the kind of scientific and technological endeavour has been around for a long time, producing not only the armaments of Nazi Germany and the atomic bombs dropped on Japan, but the catapults used in ancient Greece and Rome and the assault rifles used by child soldiers in Africa. In this book John Forge examines such weapons research and asks whether it is morally acceptable to undertake such an activity. He argues that it is in fact morally wrong to take part in weapons research as its primary purpose is to produce the means to harm others, and moreover he argues that all attempts to then justify participation in weapons research do not stand up to scrutiny.

This book has wide appeal in fields of philosophy and related areas, as well to a more general audience who are puzzled about the rate at which new weapons are accumulated.

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The introduction of chemical warfare during the First World War was a major event in the history of military technology. It not only posed an unusual challenge to military thinking of the day, which was largely conventional and wholly unfamiliar with science; it also created a heated moral controversy surrounding the new weapon that did not discriminate between soldiers and civilians. This study, based on a previously unavailable range of archival material and statistical data, explores the military role of chemical warfare as well as its effects on people, industries and administration on both sides. The book also fully examines the complex issues raised by this new technology, which were debated endlessly between the wars and have led to recent agreements among the powers to curb their use of chemical or biological warfare. This study was planned in close cooperation with Sir Harold Hartley, who became head of British chemical warfare in 1918.

This book provides an important picture of India's nuclear intentions and capabilities at the beginning of the 21st century. Academic and governmental experts from both the United States and India explore the strategic, technological, military and economic dimensions of India's nuclear world. The contributors bring their expertise together in an unusual mix of viewpoints from three continents on the several dimensions of a nuclear India at the turn of the century. It is an important resource in the United States to help policymakers respond to the regional and global proliferation problems that have resulted from India and Pakistan's nuclear tests of 1998. It is an important aid to India in exploring and evaluating its nuclear strategy and the political, economic and military consequences of its nuclear decisions.

Facing Down the Soviet Union reveals for the first time the historic deliberations regarding the Chevaline upgrade to Britain's Polaris force, the decisions to procure the Trident C-4 and then D-5 system from the Americans in 1980 and 1982. It also details the decision to base Ground Launched Cruise Missiles in the UK in 1983.

In this book, Michael Krepon analyzes nuclear issues such as missile defenses, space warfare, and treaties, and argues that the United States is on a dangerous course. During the Cold War, Mutual Assured Destruction, or MAD, facilitated strategic arms control. Now that the Cold War has been replaced by asymmetric warfare, treaties based on nuclear overkill and national vulnerability are outdated and must be adapted to a far different world. A new strategic concept of Cooperative Threat Reduction is needed to replace MAD. A balance is needed that combines military might with strengthened treaty regimes.

This book tells the story of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, the struggle that President Kennedy and his advisers (including the author, who was head of intelligence at the State Department) went through to try to understand why the Soviet Union had put nuclear missiles in Cuba, the alternative policies they debated to deal with the presence of the missiles, the aftermath of the crisis, and the lessons learned about defense and foreign policy in an age dominated by intercontinental missiles tipped with nuclear warheads capable of obliterating the northern hemisphere. The purpose of the book is to focus the world's attention on the fact that something must be done-and soon-if we are to avoid Armageddon. The world has never been as close to nuclear war as it was in November 1962. In this book, Roger Hilsman, head of intelligence at the U.S. State Department at that time, details the struggles that President Kennedy and his advisers went through to understand why the Soviet Union had deployed nuclear missiles in Cuba, describes the debate over alternative policy choices to force the removal of the missiles, and determines how and why each particular course of action was eventually chosen. He relates how the U.S. government dealt with the public and with its allies, and traces the step-by-step negotiations between the Soviets and the United States. In his discussion, Hilsman reveals how Khrushchev chose a back-channel, deniable way of communicating with President Kennedy by sending messages to the head of the KGB in Washington, who passed them to Hilsman, who then took them to the president. This book shows how President Kennedy and his brother Robert used this information to bring about the withdrawal of the missiles without war. This book analyzes the motives behind the massive Soviet deployment of nuclear missiles to Cuba, which were capable of destroying every major city in the United States except Seattle, backed up by anti-aircraft and ground forces to defend those missiles. One ship could carry 20-to-30 freight-train loads of war materiel and over 100 shiploads were sent-a total of between 2,000 and 3,000 train loads. Hilsman tells the story of how American intelligence found out-just in time-and, in a post-mortem, addresses the question of U.S. success and/or failure. He concludes with an assessment of the significance of the only nuclear crisis in the world's history, pointing out the lessons for humankind about war in a nuclear age. Hilsman's book is one of only two accounts of the Cuban missile crisis written by one of the principals, and has added significance in light of the turbid state and uncertain future of nuclear weapons throughout the world.

For more than 400 years, the big-gun warship stood as the supreme naval war machine. It was not only a major instrument of warfare, but a visible emblem of a nation's power, wealth and pride. Battleships features 52 of the greatest warships to have sailed in the last 500 years. Beginning with English king Henry VIII's flagship, Henry Grace a Dieu, the book covers all the main periods of battleship development, including the great sail ships, such as Sovereign of the Seas, Santissima Trinidad and Victory. The advent of steam-driven warships provides the core of the book, beginning with the introduction of Gloire in 1859, and continuing through all the major pre-Dreadnoughts, such as Inflexible, Maine and Tsessarevitch. There is detailed coverage of the great battleships of the two world wars, including Derfflinger, Yamato and Iowa, while the book closes with the last new battleship to be commissioned, Vanguard, in 1946. Each entry includes a brief description of the battleship's development and history, a colour profile artwork, key features and specifications. Packed with more than 200 artworks and photographs, Battleships is a colourful guide for the military historian and naval warfare enthusiast.

Leading international security scholars and policy advisors from universities, think-tanks, and nuclear weapons laboratories in the United States analyze the future of nuclear weapons proliferation. In April 1995, the earlier 1970 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was renewed indefinitely and without change to the original clauses of the treaty. The authors examine the continuing relevance or irrelevance of the old treaty, the role of coercive sanctions in enforcing restraint, and the impact of biological, chemical and missile proliferation on the nuclear motives and ambitions of various states. Attention is given to proliferation conditions in the former Soviet republics, East and South Asia and the Middle East.

A thorough handbook covering the facts, history, and controversies surrounding our most controversial and misunderstood unconventional weapons. Unlike most books on this topic, the expanded second edition of Mauroni's popular reference handbook is neither sensationalistic nor moralistic. Instead, it offers readers a reasoned, thorough, and fact-based introduction to this highly charged issue. Covering the period from World War I through the Iraq War, Chemical and Biological Warfare not only describes the development of key chemical and biological agents, such as anthrax, tularemia, brucellosis, VEE, Q fever, and botulinum toxin, it also assesses the threats we face, compares military CB warfare with terrorist incidents, explains effective defensive measures, and clarifies the responsibilities of the various federal agencies charged to address these issues. With extensive new material, this edition provides an authoritative and up-to-date introduction to this vitally important topic. Outstanding research aids include key Internet and published references and an index offering rapid access to entries on key figures, government agencies, and defensive equipment A chronology of chemical-biological warfare incidents from the mid-20th century onward offers a thorough historical overview

Examines the present weapons of the United States and the Soviet Union and discusses the development of new nuclear, biological, chemical, and beam weapons.

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6th, 1945, the Japanese port city of Hiroshima was struck by the world's first atomic bomb. Built in the US by the top-secret Manhattan Project and delivered by a B-29 Superfortress, a revolutionary long-range bomber, the weapon destroyed large swaths of the city, instantly killing tens of thousands. The world would never be the same again.

The Hiroshima Men's unique narrative recounts the decade-long journey towards this first atomic attack. It charts the race for nuclear technology before, and during the Second World War, as the allies fought the axis powers in Europe, North Africa, China, and across the vastness of the Pacific, and is seen through the experiences of several key characters: General Leslie Groves, leader of the Manhattan Project alongside Robert Oppenheimer; pioneering Army Air Force bomber pilot Colonel Paul Tibbets II; the mayor of Hiroshima, Senkichi Awaya, who would die alongside over eighty-thousand of his fellow citizens; and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Hersey, who travelled to post-war Japan to expose the devastation the bomb had inflicted upon the city, and in a historic New Yorker article, described in unflinching detail the dangers posed by its deadly after-effect, radiation poisoning.

This thrilling account takes the reader from the corridors of the White House to the laboratories and test sites of New Mexico; from the air war above Nazi Germany and the savage reconquest of the Pacific to the deadly firebombing air raids across the Japanese Home Islands. The Hiroshima Men also includes Japanese perspectives - a vital aspect often missing from Western narratives - to complete MacGregor's nuanced, deeply human account of the bombing's meaning and aftermath.

This work offers a broad interpretation of the extraordinary changes that have taken place in Soviet arms control policy since Mikhail Gorbachev became Soviet head of state in March of 1985. GorbacheV's policy is usually portrayed as an effort to ease the Soviet defense burden and to improve relations with the West, but Daniel Calingaert goes further, arguing that the Gorbachev leadership has embarked on a basically new policy of nuclear disarmament. Calingaert outlines how this policy allows the Soviets to divert resources to industrial modernization, restructure the armed forces, and join the global economy, thereby revitalizing their economic strength and exerting a renewed influence on international affairs.

Organized thematically rather than chronologically, the book concentrates on interpreting the major decisions affecting nuclear weapons in Europe, strategic arms, and ballistic missile defenses. The first five chapters explore the various components of Soviet arms control policy: the personnel and institutional changes that gave impetus to revisions in Soviet security policy; the strong economic inducements to pursue disarmament; changes in national security aims that provide the rationale for undertaking nuclear disarmament; the impact of revisions in nuclear strategy on force requirements and on Soviet disarmament initiatives; and the pursuit of foreign policy objectives through arms control. A final chapter interprets Soviet conduct of nuclear arms talks in light of this analysis of the nation's security, nuclear strategy, and foreign policy. With its broad overview of GorbacheV's arms control policy, as well as its original analyses, this study will be a useful resource for both students and experts of Soviet policy and security studies.

This fascinating reference covers the weapons and armor used by warriors from the 4th to the 15th century and discusses how and why they changed over time. In the Middle Ages, the lack of standardized weapons meant that one warrior's arms were often quite different from another's, even when they were fighting on the same side. And with few major technological advances in that period, the evolution of those weapons over the centuries was incremental. But evolve they ultimately did, bringing arms, armor, and siege weapons to the threshold of the modern era. From the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginnings of the Renaissance, Medieval Weapons: An Illustrated History of Their Impact covers the inexorable transformation from warrior in the mail shirt to fully armored knight, from the days of spears and swords to the large-scale adoption of the handgun. Medieval Weapons covers this fascinating expanse of centuries in chapters devoted to the early medieval, Carolingian, Crusade, and late medieval periods. Within each period, the book details how weapons and armor were developed, what weapons were used for different types of battles, and how weapons and armor both influenced, and were influenced by, changing tactics in battles and sieges.

"Curious about the specifications and particulars of a canvas-covered, seat-of-the-pants biplane of the fledgling U.S. Army Air Corps? Or a computer-laden, titanium-clad supersonic modern jet? Here are 327 instant portraits (complete with dimensions, weight, power plant, performance, armament) of the most famous as well as lesser-known American fighters, bombers, transports, flying boats, trainers, helicopters, and reconnaissance aircraft."--BOOK JACKET. "Each entry includes a photograph of the aircraft, service dates, manufacturer, records set, engineering and performance history, technical innovations, and even operational problems. Special attention is paid to the aircraft of America's "Golden Age, " 1919-1939, and the important technological developments that took place during that period."--BOOK JACKET.

The nuclear disarmament movement of the late '50s and early '60s was one of the largest and arguably one of the most significant, extra-parliamentary movements ever seen in modern Britain. A whole new style and conception of politics was born through this first anti-nuclear movement, and the subsequent radicalism of the '60s and '70s has its roots here. The movement was extraordinarily diverse and rich in its constituencies of support and complex in its ideological make-up. Thus anarchists, communists, and Trotskyists rubbed shoulders with Christians, liberals, members of the Labour party, and 'ordinary apolitical people', most of whom found in the movement a means by which they could articulate their growing fear and anxiety about the seemingly inexorable arms race, and the horror of nuclear war. Dr Taylor analyses the perceptions of these groups in detail and explains how and why they differed. This is the first comprehensive study of the movement to make use of a wide range of contemporary material, and the first to present in detail the previously unrecorded views and analyses of more than twenty of the leading figures of the movement some twenty-five years on. Although he provides a wealth of historical detail, Dr Taylor's approach is primarily political and analytical, and his examination of this first mass movement of its kind will be relevant to all those concerned about nuclear proliferation, as well as to courses in politics, sociology, modern history and peace studies.

In his book, Compendium of Chemical Warfare Agents, author Steven L. Hoenig provides all the necessary information that First Responders, Hospitals, HazMat Teams, Fire and Rescue Services, and other First Responders need to know when dealing with dangerous chemical agents. Coverage includes health effects, physical characteristics, hazards from reactivity, protection of personnel, and general first aid for each agent. The book provides quick and easy access to critical data on chemical warfare agents, both at the scene of release and in the laboratory. Today, highly lethal chemicals such as nerve agents, vesicants and other chemical warfare agents may be the new weapons of choice among terrorist groups throughout the world and the latest addition to the poor man's arsenal of opportunity - a grave concern for all First Responders and Emergency Management personnel. Compendium of Chemical Warfare Agents furnishes the critical information to deal with this threat.

This political analysis exposes the fanciful logic that the United States can use nuclear weapons to vanquish nuclear adversaries or influence them when employing various coercive tactics. During the Cold War, American policymakers sought nuclear advantages to offset an alleged Soviet edge. Policymakers hoped that US nuclear capabilities would safeguard deterrence, when backed perhaps by a set of coercive tactics. But policymakers also hedged their bets with plans to fight a nuclear war to their advantage should deterrence fail. In The False Promise of Superiority, James H. Lebovic argues that the US approach was fraught with peril and remains so today. He contends that the United States can neither simply impose its will on nuclear adversaries nor safeguard deterrence using these same coercive tactics without risking severe, counterproductive effects. As Lebovic shows, the current faith in US nuclear superiority could produce the disastrous consequences that US weapons and tactics are meant to avoid. This book concludes that US interests are best served when policymakers resist the temptation to use, or prepare to use, nuclear weapons first or to brandish nuclear weapons for coercive effect.

During the presidency of George Bush (1989-93), the proliferation of nuclear chemical and biological weapons, and the ballistic missiles capable of delivering them, rose greatly in significance as issues on the American security agenda. In the missile field, this became evident by the efforts of certain elements in the executive branch and several congressmen to improve domestic and international implementation of the Missile Technology Control Regime. The Politics of Ballistic Missile Nonproliferation examines the political, bureaucratic and systemic issues that interacted to determine the outcome of these efforts.