The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to develop a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system has both short-range and long-range risks as well as potential benefits. For the most part, however, strategic, technological, and political issues relevant to SDI have been analyzed in isolation from one another. This book provides a more inclusive framework for assessing the possible development and deployment of a BMD system by the United States or the Soviet Union. Contributors discuss the risks for arms race stability, probable reactions of the Soviet Union to any U.S. space-based defense system, and implications for the stability of extended deterrence commitments to NATO European allies. They also evaluate Soviet research and development programs in missile defense that must be considered in any extrapolation of the requirements for U.S. deterrence in the next several decades.

One important area of interest within military and policy circles focuses on an effort to revitalize the nuclear triad amidst a number of competing strategic interests. The difficulties arising from US engagement in Iraq and Afghanistan are leading many scholars and policy makers to question whether a reinvigorated nuclear triad has any role in deterring modern adversaries. This volume takes an unashamed pro-nuclear modernization position and argues for designing and fielding new nuclear warheads and delivery systems (submarine, ICBM, and bomber) while also arguing against signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty or agreeing to further reductions in the nuclear arsenal. It also argues that nuclear deterrence remains as relevant today, perhaps more, than it was during the Cold War. With so many authors advocating for "Global Zero" and highlighting perceived dangers from a nuclear arsenal, this work stands in stark contrast to the chorus of anti-arsenal works. Because of the work's structure and effort to answer questions of current relevance, it should appeal to a broad audience including: service staffs, PME students, COCOM staffs, Pentagon personnel, Capitol Hill staffers, policy makers, academics, graduate students, and interested readers.

In the twenty-first century, the United States confronts an international system of great complexity and shifting security challenges. Among these challenges are those posed by nuclear weapons. Instead of becoming obsolete or being marginalized by the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons have become more important to present and future international stability and peace but the relationship is paradoxical. On one hand, the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states with unsettled grievances or hegemonic ambitions threatens to destabilize local balances of power and set off regional arms races. In addition, the possible acquisition by terrorists of nuclear weapons or fissile materials creates a threat that may be 'beyond deterrence' according to hitherto accepted concepts. On the other hand, nuclear weapons in the hands of other states can contribute to stable deterrence and help to prevent nuclear proliferation to international miscreants. Certain cases loom large in the short run that highlight this book's relevance, including the possible acquisition and deployment of nuclear weapons by Iran and the continuing tensions created by North Korea's nuclear arsenal. The Obama 'pivot' of national security and defense emphasis to Asia reflects not only the growing economic importance of that region, but also the growing number of security dilemmas in a region that is already awash in nuclear forces. The management of nuclear crises and even the possible need to terminate nuclear wars before they expand beyond a single region are among the possible challenges facing future U.S. and allied policy makers and military leaders.

The topic of civil-military relations has high significance for academics, for policy makers, for military commanders, and for serious students of public policy in democratic and other societies. The post-Cold War and post-9-11 worlds have thrown up traditional as well as new challenges to the effective management of armed forces and defense establishments. Further, the present century has seen a rising arc in the use of armed violence on the part of non-state actors, including terrorists, to considerable political effect. Civil-military relations in the United States, and their implications for US and allied security policies, is the focus of most discussions in this volume, but other contributions emphasize the comparative and cross-national dimensions of the relationship between the use or threat of force and public policy. Authors contributing to this study examine a wide range of issues, including: the contrast between theory and practice in civil-military relations; the role perceptions of military professionals across generations; the character of civil-military relations in authoritarian or other democratically-challenged political systems; the usefulness of business models in military management; the attributes of civil-military relations during unconventional conflicts; the experience of the all-volunteer force and its meaning for US civil-military relations; and other topics. Contributors include civilian academic and policy analysts as well as military officers with considerable academic expertise and experience with the subject matter at hand.

This study establishes that the political, economic and military-technological changes that transform the international system also alter the way in which a state views its and others' responsibilities and burdens for responding to international crises. It assesses the distribution of the costs of raising and supporting arms of service, the risks of deploying them overseas and using them in combat or peace operations, and the extent to which members have a responsibility for maintaining international order in the context of three instances of multinational military intervention: the Multinational Force deployment in Lebanon in 1982-83; the first Persian Gulf War in 1990-91; and the UN and NATO intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

This work attempts to clarify the major problems facing Russia's armed forces in the present and immediate future. It covers threats from terrorists, break away republics and threats from outside Russia's borders. The book also includes political and economic problems facing the military.

This book examines a wide variety of topics, ranging from Soviet and U.S. views on conflict termination to past, present, and future U.S. military service contributions. It demonstrates the importance of careful evaluation of conflict termination goals during peacetime.

First published in 1999, this edited volume draws together contributors to discuss the end, management, technology and strategy of the Cold War with a focus on the USA and the Soviet Union. Mysteries of the Cold War enhances our view of decision-making by the two nations during the years 1945-1990 by revisiting some of the more important 'policy puzzles' or decision-making anomalies of that period. Among the case studies considered by academics and other expert analysts are: the 1961 Berlin crisis at 'Checkpoint Charlie'; Soviet research and development into post-nuclear advanced technology weapons; US and Soviet maritime strategy; Soviet 'internationalism' and its role in Cold War policy; the 'endgame' of the Cold War and why it turned out that way. Included among the contributing authors are persons who spent major portions of their careers in the US intelligence community or elsewhere in the government.

War, as Clausewitz reminds, is the most uncertain of human political and social activities. It also imposes burdens. In an alliance among states for the promotion of collective defense or security, such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), burdens have to be shared. This study looks at the experience of the United States and other member states of NATO in four situations of multinational military intervention - Lebanon, the Persian Gulf, the Balkans, and South Asia - and considers the implications of nuclear arms reductions and nonproliferation for the US and NATO. Each case study represents an important period in the distribution of power, interest, and values, amounting to more than a sequential consideration of incidents of military intervention and/or conflict prevention. These politico-military challenges include a major coalition war, a traditional peacekeeping operation, an exercise in peace enforcement, and a conflict that combines counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism with stability and security operations.

This book looks at the prospects for international cooperation over nuclear weapons proliferation in the 21st century.

Nuclear weapons served as stabilizing forces during the Cold War, or the First Nuclear Age, on account of their capability for destruction, the fear that this created among politicians and publics, and the domination of the nuclear world order by two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the potential for nuclear weapons acquisition among revisionist states, or even non-state actors including terrorists, creates the possibility of a 'wolves eat dogs' phenomenon in the present century.

In the 21st century, three forces threaten to undo or weaken the long nuclear peace and fast-forward states into a new and more dangerous situation: the existence of large US and Russian nuclear weapons arsenals; the potential for new technologies, including missile defenses and long-range, precision conventional weapons, and a collapse or atrophy of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, and the opening of the door for nuclear weapons to spread among more than the currently acknowledged nuclear states.

This book explains how these three 'weakening' forces interact with one another and with US and Russian policy-making in order to create an environment of large possibilities for cooperative security - but also of considerable danger. Instead, the choices made by military planners and policy-makers will create an early twenty-first century story privileging nuclear stability or chaos. The US and Russia can, and should, make incremental progress in arms control and nonproliferation.

This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation and arms control, strategic studies, international security and IR in general.

Stephen J. Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of numerous works in the fields of international security, defense studies, nuclear arms control and other topics. He has consulted for various US government agencies and defense contractors.

First published in 1999, this edited volume draws together contributors to discuss the end, management, technology and strategy of the Cold War with a focus on the USA and the Soviet Union. Mysteries of the Cold War enhances our view of decision-making by the two nations during the years 1945-1990 by revisiting some of the more important 'policy puzzles' or decision-making anomalies of that period. Among the case studies considered by academics and other expert analysts are: the 1961 Berlin crisis at 'Checkpoint Charlie'; Soviet research and development into post-nuclear advanced technology weapons; US and Soviet maritime strategy; Soviet 'internationalism' and its role in Cold War policy; the 'endgame' of the Cold War and why it turned out that way. Included among the contributing authors are persons who spent major portions of their careers in the US intelligence community or elsewhere in the government.

Although considerable attention has been paid to deterrence theory and crisis management, the equally important topic of ending wars has been virtually ignored. Conflict termination is the stepchild of U.S. strategy for a number of reasons. Thinking about how wars should end presupposes acceptance of the fact that war-especially nuclear war- is possible. Further, analyzing options for ending conflicts implies less-than-total victory, a concept that not only runs counter to the U.S. approach to warfare but also raises the specter of aEUROoelimited war,aEURO an approach that fell into disfavor following Korea and Vietnam. Finally, defining conflict termination objectives assumes that we think more about ends than means, that we know what is important to us and why, and thus understand the risks we will accept to defend specific interests and objectives. The contributors examine a wide variety of topics, ranging from Soviet and U.S. views on conflict termination to past, present, and future U.S. military service contributions. Their aim is to demonstrate the importance of careful evaluation of conflict termination goals during peacetime because when war begins passions and emotions will cloud decisionmaking.

Thought to have been marginalized by the end of the Cold War, nuclear weapons have returned to the center of U.S. security concerns. As North Korea have removed the veil of uncertainty by public acknowledgment of its nuclear weapons and Iran is thought to seeks a nuclear weapons capability, fears that rogue states and non-state actors might acquire and use nuclear weapons are a new reality.
This volumes places the latest developments related to nuclear weapons, deterrence, and proliferation within the context of evolving U.S. security policy. After summarizing the most important milestones in the development of U.S. nuclear strategy, it considers present and future security dilemmas related to nuclear weapons such as the complications posed for stable deterrence by the information age, nuclear proliferation and technological innovations. Subsequent chapters offer a complete analysis of contemporary issues such as missile defenses, nuclear proliferation and Israel's nuclear deterrent.
As nonproliferation, missile defenses, or preemptive war strategies cannot guarantee nuclear containment and the potential for a nuclear arms race in Asia among the already nuclear anointed and the nuclear aspiring states, creates the possibility of destabilizing an entire region, the author warns that U.S. and Soviet experience in the Cold War is not necessarily a normative one and should not encourage complacency on the part of policy makers.
This book will constitute an essential reading for students of international relations, proliferation and security studies as well as for policy-makers and military strategists.

This study establishes that the political, economic and military-technological changes that transform the international system also alter the way in which a state views its and others' responsibilities and burdens for responding to international crises. It assesses the distribution of the costs of raising and supporting arms of service, the risks of deploying them overseas and using them in combat or peace operations, and the extent to which members have a responsibility for maintaining international order in the context of three instances of multinational military intervention: the Multinational Force deployment in Lebanon in 1982-83; the first Persian Gulf War in 1990-91; and the UN and NATO intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

This work attempts to clarify the major problems facing Russia's armed forces in the present and immediate future. Russia's military has been in decline since the end of the Cold War. Its fledgling democracy and struggling economy have also served as an inertial drag on military reform. Nevertheless, Russia has a strong military tradition dating back to Tsarist times, and that tradition includes World War II and Cold War achievements of the Soviet military still highly regarded by many Russians. Contributors explain the major challenges facing Russian defence and security policy with respect to possible adversaries beyond Russia's borders and within Russia herself. Russia has and will continue to have serious security problems outside of, and within, its state borders. These problems include political risings within the country, and the fragile roots of its contemporary experiment with democracy and free market economics. Unless Russia finds a way to deal with its system of addiction and corruption, it will neither reform its military nor its policy.

The transition from the end of the Cold War to a new world order is both promising and perilous. Security concerns are based more on the prevention or containment of regional and civil conflicts than on fears of nuclear or Eurasian global wars. The antagonists of the Cold War will be the collaborators of the next century in seeking to stabilize the conflict inside and outside Europe and to prevent further proliferation of nuclear weapons. Deterrence characteristics of the pre-Cold War period will in the 21st century again become normative.

Nuclear weapons are here to stay. They have survived into the twenty-first century as instruments of influence for the US, Russia, and other major military powers. But, unlike the Cold War era, future nuclear forces will be developed and deployed within a digital-driven world of enhanced conventional weapons. As such, established nuclear powers will have smaller numbers of nuclear weapons for the purpose of deterrence working in parallel with smarter conventional weapons and elite military personnel. The challenge is to agree proportional reductions in nuclear inventories or abstinence requiring an effective nonproliferation regime to contain aspiring or threshold nuclear weapons states. This is the most comprehensive view of nuclear weapons policy and strategy currently available. The author's division of the nuclear issue into the three ages is a never seen before analytical construct. With President Obama reelected, the reduction and even elimination of nuclear weapons will now rise to the top of the agenda once more. Moreover, given the likelihood of reductions in US defense spending, the subject of the triad, which is covered in Chapter One, will no doubt be an important subject of debate, as will the issue of missile defense, covered in Chapter 10. This book provides an excellent analysis of the spread of nuclear weapons in Asia and the Middle East and the potential dangers of a North Korean or Iranian breakout, subjects that dominate current policy debates.

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

First Published in 1991. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

In the twenty-first century, the United States confronts an international system of great complexity and shifting security challenges. Among these challenges are those posed by nuclear weapons. Instead of becoming obsolete or being marginalized by the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, nuclear weapons have become more important to present and future international stability and peace but the relationship is paradoxical. On one hand, the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states with unsettled grievances or hegemonic ambitions threatens to destabilize local balances of power and set off regional arms races. In addition, the possible acquisition by terrorists of nuclear weapons or fissile materials creates a threat that may be 'beyond deterrence' according to hitherto accepted concepts. On the other hand, nuclear weapons in the hands of other states can contribute to stable deterrence and help to prevent nuclear proliferation to international miscreants. Certain cases loom large in the short run that highlight this book's relevance, including the possible acquisition and deployment of nuclear weapons by Iran and the continuing tensions created by North Korea's nuclear arsenal. The Obama 'pivot' of national security and defense emphasis to Asia reflects not only the growing economic importance of that region, but also the growing number of security dilemmas in a region that is already awash in nuclear forces. The management of nuclear crises and even the possible need to terminate nuclear wars before they expand beyond a single region are among the possible challenges facing future U.S. and allied policy makers and military leaders.

This book analyzes the United States and Russia's nuclear arms control and deterrence relationships and how these countries must lead current and prospective efforts to support future nuclear arms control and nonproliferation. The second nuclear age, following the end of the Cold War and the demise of the Soviet Union, poses new challenges with respect to nuclear-strategic stability, deterrence and nonproliferation. The spread of nuclear weapons in Asia, and the potential for new nuclear weapons states in the Middle East, create new possible axes of conflict potentially stressful to the existing world order. Other uncertainties include the interest of major powers in developing a wider spectrum of nuclear weapons and delivery systems, possibly for use in limited nuclear wars, and the competitive technologies for antimissile defenses being developed and deployed by the United States and Russia. Other technology challenges, including the implications of cyberwar for nuclear deterrence and crisis management, are also considered. Political changes also matter. The early post-Cold War hopes for the emergence of a global pacific security community, excluding the possibility of major war, have been dashed by political conflict between Russia and NATO, by the roiled nature of American domestic politics with respect to international security, and by a more assertive and militarily competent China. Additionally, the study includes suggestions for both analysis and policy in order to prevent the renewed U.S.-Russian nuclear arms race and competition in new technologies. This volume would be ideal for graduate students, researchers, scholars and anyone who is interested in nuclear policy, international studies, and Russian politics.

Nuclear weapons are here to stay. They have survived into the twenty-first century as instruments of influence for the US, Russia, and other major military powers. But, unlike the Cold War era, future nuclear forces will be developed and deployed within a digital-driven world of enhanced conventional weapons. As such, established nuclear powers will have smaller numbers of nuclear weapons for the purpose of deterrence working in parallel with smarter conventional weapons and elite military personnel. The challenge is to agree proportional reductions in nuclear inventories or abstinence requiring an effective nonproliferation regime to contain aspiring or threshold nuclear weapons states. This is the most comprehensive view of nuclear weapons policy and strategy currently available. The author's division of the nuclear issue into the three ages is a never seen before analytical construct. With President Obama reelected, the reduction and even elimination of nuclear weapons will now rise to the top of the agenda once more. Moreover, given the likelihood of reductions in US defense spending, the subject of the triad, which is covered in Chapter One, will no doubt be an important subject of debate, as will the issue of missile defense, covered in Chapter 10. This book provides an excellent analysis of the spread of nuclear weapons in Asia and the Middle East and the potential dangers of a North Korean or Iranian breakout, subjects that dominate current policy debates.

This book looks at the prospects for international cooperation over nuclear weapons proliferation in the 21st century. Nuclear weapons served as stabilizing forces during the Cold War, or the First Nuclear Age, on account of their capability for destruction, the fear that this created among politicians and publics, and the domination of the nuclear world order by two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the potential for nuclear weapons acquisition among revisionist states, or even non-state actors including terrorists, creates the possibility of a 'wolves eat dogs' phenomenon in the present century. In the 21st century, three forces threaten to undo or weaken the long nuclear peace and fast-forward states into a new and more dangerous situation: the existence of large US and Russian nuclear weapons arsenals; the potential for new technologies, including missile defenses and long-range, precision conventional weapons, and a collapse or atrophy of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, and the opening of the door for nuclear weapons to spread among more than the currently acknowledged nuclear states. This book explains how these three 'weakening' forces interact with one another and with US and Russian policy-making in order to create an environment of large possibilities for cooperative security - but also of considerable danger. Instead, the choices made by military planners and policy-makers will create an early twenty-first century story privileging nuclear stability or chaos. The US and Russia can, and should, make incremental progress in arms control and nonproliferation. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation and arms control, strategic studies, international security and IR in general. Stephen J. Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of numerous works in the fields of international security, defense studies, nuclear arms control and other topics. He has consulted for various US government agencies and defense contractors.

The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) to develop a ballistic missile defense (BMD) system has both short-range and long-range risks as well as potential benefits. For the most part, however, strategic, technological, and political issues relevant to SDI have been analyzed in isolation from one another. This book provides a more inclusive framework for assessing the possible development and deployment of a BMD system by the United States or the Soviet Union. Contributors discuss the risks for arms race stability, probable reactions of the Soviet Union to any U.S. space-based defense system, and implications for the stability of extended deterrence commitments to NATO European allies. They also evaluate Soviet research and development programs in missile defense that must be considered in any extrapolation of the requirements for U.S. deterrence in the next several decades.

The topic of civil-military relations has high significance for academics, for policy makers, for military commanders, and for serious students of public policy in democratic and other societies. The post-Cold War and post-9-11 worlds have thrown up traditional as well as new challenges to the effective management of armed forces and defense establishments. Further, the present century has seen a rising arc in the use of armed violence on the part of non-state actors, including terrorists, to considerable political effect. Civil-military relations in the United States, and their implications for US and allied security policies, is the focus of most discussions in this volume, but other contributions emphasize the comparative and cross-national dimensions of the relationship between the use or threat of force and public policy. Authors contributing to this study examine a wide range of issues, including: the contrast between theory and practice in civil-military relations; the role perceptions of military professionals across generations; the character of civil-military relations in authoritarian or other democratically-challenged political systems; the usefulness of business models in military management; the attributes of civil-military relations during unconventional conflicts; the experience of the all-volunteer force and its meaning for US civil-military relations; and, other topics. Contributors include civilian academic and policy analysts as well as military officers with considerable academic expertise and experience with the subject matter at hand.