Nearly two-thirds of countries that pursued nuclear weapons have abandoned their programs. Delaying Doomsday examines how the United States has successfully persuaded states to give up their nuclear weapons programs in the past, and how the international community can continue this success in the future. The book draws on interviews with current and former policymakers, as well as in-depth case studies of India, Iran, and North Korea to provide policy recommendations on how best to manage nuclear proliferation challenges from rogue states. It also outlines the proliferation horizon, or the set of state and non-state actors that are likely to have interest in acquiring nuclear technology for civilian, military, or unknown purposes. The book concludes with implications and recommendations for U.S. and global nuclear counterproliferation policy.
Connie Willis draws upon her understanding of the universalities of human nature to explore the ageless issues of evil, suffering, and the indomitable will of the human spirit. “A tour de force.”—The New York Times Book Review For Kivrin, preparing to travel back in time to study one of the deadliest eras in humanity’s history was as simple as receiving inoculations against the diseases of the fourteenth century and inventing an alibi for a woman traveling alone. For her instructors in the twenty-first century, it meant painstaking calculations and careful monitoring of the rendezvous location where Kivrin would be received. But a crisis strangely linking past and future strands Kivrin in a bygone age as her fellows try desperately to rescue her. In a time of superstition and fear, Kivrin—barely of age herself—finds she has become an unlikely angel of hope during one of history’s darkest hours.
Was there ever a window of opportunity for successful negotiations over North Korea's nuclear weapons program? Negotiation Dynamics to Denuclearize North Korea brings together country experts with negotiation specialists to apply negotiation theory to the North Korea denuclearization process. Country expert chapters provide a detailed assessment of the goals, motives, and strategies of the six parties—North Korea, South Korea, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia—along with contextual variables of each player such as political, economic, and social conditions while the negotiation scholars collate and scrutinize the results of these key variables. Based on thorough descriptive contexts provided by the country experts, the negotiation scholars identify the lack of two factors, party cohesion and ripeness, as detriments to successful North Korea nuclear negotiations.
Throughout the nuclear age, states have taken many different paths toward or away from nuclear weapons. These paths have been difficult to predict and cannot be explained simply by a stable or changing security environment. We can make sense of these paths by examining leaders' nuclear decisions. The political decisions state leaders make to accelerate or reverse progress toward nuclear weapons define each state's course. Whether or not a state ultimately acquires nuclear weapons depends to a large extent on those nuclear decisions. This book offers a novel theory of nuclear decision-making that identifies two mechanisms that shape leaders' understandings of the costs and benefits of their nuclear pursuits. The internal mechanism is the intervention of domestic experts in key scientific and military organizations. If the conditions are right, those experts may be able to influence a leader's nuclear decision-making. The external mechanism emerges from the structure and politics of the international system. Nuclear Decisions: Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs identifies three different proliferation eras, in which changes to international political and structural conditions have constrained or freed states pursuing nuclear weapons development. Scholars and practitioners alike will gain new insights from the fascinating case studies of nine states across the three eras. Through this global approach to studying nuclear proliferation, this book pushes back against the conventional wisdom that determined states pursue a straight path to the bomb. Instead, nuclear decisions define a state's nuclear pursuits.
In the wake of the Soviet launching of Sputnik I, John H. Rubel became one of six Assistant Directors of Research and Engineering for the Department of Defense in the recently re-organized Pentagon. It was here that Rubel would witness two of the most significant events of his career. In Doomsday Delayed, Rubel recounts the initial disclosure to selected civilian defense officials of launch arrangements designed into the Minuteman missile system and the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP-62), both deliberately designed to kill and maim innocent civilians in the USSR and China. These launch system designs invited the possibility of an unauthorized or accidental mass launch of tens or even hundreds of nuclear-tipped missiles with little or no warning, effectively removing operational control from the President, military commander, or civilian defense official in the event of nuclear confrontation. Rubel's account illustrates how potentially disastrous gaps came to exist between national military policies and the detailed design and development of major intercontinental ballistic missile systems-important lessons to be learned in this time of rogue nations and nuclear proliferation.
The Caravan is India’s most respected and admired magazine on politics, art and culture. With a strong literary flair, the magazine presents the best of reportage and commentary on politics, policy, economy, art and culture from within South Asia. It has become an essential read for anyone interested in understanding the political and social environment of the country.
This book examines the interplay between sanctions and nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. The volume aims to tackle three separate but closely intertwined issues: It aims to revisit the debate on, and deconstruct the concept of, sanctions; to provide a working theoretical framework; to differentiate between positive sanctions (or incentives or carrots) and negative sanctions; to identify the actors who may initiate sanctions (i.e. states, regional, and/or international organizations); to ascertain the legality and legitimacy of such sanctions taking place; to problematize and discuss the utility of sanctions; and so on. It aims to disentangle the concepts of nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, particularly in light of the most recent geopolitical global shifts on nuclear powers-interplay taking place in the background of the war in Ukraine and rising tensions in Southeast Asia, and so on. Finally, it aims to conjoin the cause-and-effect cases between the application of sanctions, on the one hand, and the decision by states to pursue nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation, on the other. By doing so, the volume helps to update and stimulate the academic and policy debate on the inter-relation between sanctions and nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear non-proliferation, economic sanctions, security studies, and International Relations.
Nuclear Logics examines why some states seek nuclear weapons while others renounce them. Looking closely at nine cases in East Asia and the Middle East, Etel Solingen finds two distinct regional patterns. In East Asia, the norm since the late 1960s has been to forswear nuclear weapons, and North Korea, which makes no secret of its nuclear ambitions, is the anomaly. In the Middle East the opposite is the case, with Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Libya suspected of pursuing nuclear-weapons capabilities, with Egypt as the anomaly in recent decades. Identifying the domestic conditions underlying these divergent paths, Solingen argues that there are clear differences between states whose leaders advocate integration in the global economy and those that reject it. Among the former are countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, whose leaders have had stronger incentives to avoid the political, economic, and other costs of acquiring nuclear weapons. The latter, as in most cases in the Middle East, have had stronger incentives to exploit nuclear weapons as tools in nationalist platforms geared to helping their leaders survive in power. Solingen complements her bold argument with other logics explaining nuclear behavior, including security dilemmas, international norms and institutions, and the role of democracy and authoritarianism. Her account charts the most important frontier in understanding nuclear proliferation: grasping the relationship between internal and external political survival. Nuclear Logics is a pioneering book that is certain to provide an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, and practitioners while reframing the policy debate surrounding nonproliferation.
From the author of Are You Smart Enough to Work at Google?, a fascinating look at how an equation that foretells the future is transforming everything we know about life, business, and the universe. In the 18th century, the British minister and mathematician Thomas Bayes devised a theorem that allowed him to assign probabilities to events that had never happened before. It languished in obscurity for centuries until computers came along and made it easy to crunch the numbers. Now, as the foundation of big data, Bayes' formula has become a linchpin of the digital economy. But here's where things get really interesting: Bayes' theorem can also be used to lay odds on the existence of extraterrestrial intelligence; on whether we live in a Matrix-like counterfeit of reality; on the "many worlds" interpretation of quantum theory being correct; and on the biggest question of all: how long will humanity survive? The Doomsday Calculation tells how Silicon Valley's profitable formula became a controversial pivot of contemporary thought. Drawing on interviews with thought leaders around the globe, it's the story of a group of intellectual mavericks who are challenging what we thought we knew about our place in the universe. The Doomsday Calculation is compelling reading for anyone interested in our culture and its future.
This book is about the importance of nuclear disarmament and the work pursued by Alva Myrdal, a pioneering social activist, diplomat, cabinet minister, and disarmament negotiator. She was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1982 together with Alfonso García Robles "for their work for disarmament and nuclear and weapon-free zones". Prominent academics, politicians and practitioners have contributed reflections on Myrdal’s achievements and their impact on the world today. Furthermore, a sample of Myrdal’s own writings on nuclear disarmament are included, as well as significant speeches and a bibliography of her publications on nuclear matters. Alva Myrdal was born in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1902, graduated from college in Stockholm in 1924, and continued higher education at Uppsala University in the 1930s. She was a prolific author and reformer, specializing in social affairs, women’s roles and nuclear disarmament. She was Sweden’s Ambassador to India in the 1950s, for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1960s and 1970s, and a member of the Cabinet 1967-1973. Her most well-known works are "The Game of Disarmament" (1976), "Nation and Family" (1941), and "Women's Two Roles" (1956, with Viola Klein). Her book "The Game of Disarmament" (1976) is a key work in disarmament. The Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmament was set up at Uppsala University in 2021 to contribute new ideas and concrete measures towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. Both editors are associated with the Centre, Professor Peter Wallensteen as a member of the board and leader of one of its working groups, and Dr. Armend Bekaj as a researcher. - This book is relevant for students of international relations and policy-makers on issues of peace and conflict. - It provides background documentation on the difficulties in achieving disarmament. - It illustrates the significant role women can play to infuse new ideas into a men’s world. - It displays the importance of persistence, rationality, ingenuity and knowledge in furthering nuclear disarmament. - It shows that Alva Myrdal’s efforts can be an inspiration for new generations.
