National Missile Defence and the politics of US identity
National Missile Defence and the politics of US identity

Author: Natalie Bormann

Publisher: Manchester University Press

Published: 2013-07-19

Total Pages: 247

ISBN-13: 1847796702

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Why adopt a poststructural lens for the reading of the military strategy of national missile defence (NMD)? No doubt, when contemplating an attack on US territory by intercontinental ballistic missiles, consulting Michel Foucault and critical international relations theory scholars may not seem the obvious route to take. The answer to this lies in another question: why has there been so much interest and continuous investment in NMD deployment when there is such ambiguity surrounding the status of threat to which it responds, controversy over its technological feasibility and concern about its cost? Posed in this manner, the question cannot be answered on its own terms – the terms given in official accounts of NMD that justify the system’s significance on the basis of strategic feasibility studies and conventional threat predictions guided by worst-case scenarios. Instead, this book argues that the preferences leading to NMD deployment must be understood as satisfying requirements beyond strategic approaches and issues. In turning towards the interpretative modes of inquiry provided by critical social theory and poststructuralism, this book contests the conventional wisdom about NMD and suggests reading the strategy in terms of US identity. Presented as an analysis of discourses on threats to national security, around which the need for NMD deployment is predominantly framed, this book is an effort to let the two fields of critical international relations theory and US foreign policy speak directly to each other. It seeks to do so by showing how the concept of identity can be harnessed to an analysis of a contemporary military-strategic practice.

Security at a Price
Security at a Price

Author: Nicholas Khoo

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2017-10-26

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 1442254580

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This volume in the Weapons of Mass Destruction series makes the case that the United States’ expansive missile defence policy has eroded both its own security and that of its allies. These findings are based on an examination of the response of a number of key states to U.S. policy, including Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. Situating their argument in the theoretical debate on balancing in unipolarity, the authors contrast their view to influential perspectives that see little evidence of hard balancing against the U.S. in the post-Cold War era. Adopting a neorealist perspective, the authors demonstrate the clear presence of this inter-state practice, providing insight into the international politics of unipolarity, showing how hard balancing and security dilemma-related dynamics operate in the contemporary strategic environment.

Defending America
Defending America

Author: Michael E. O'Hanlon

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2004-05-13

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 9780815798675

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Arms control and missile defense are once again at the forefront of the American national security agenda. Not surprisingly, the debate has broken down along well-worn lines. Arms control advocates dismiss the idea of missile defense as a dangerous and costly folly. Missile defense advocates argue that the U.S. should move aggressively to defend itself against missile attack. With clear and lively prose free of partisan rhetoric, Defending America provides reliable, factual analysis of the missile defense debate. Written for a general audience, it assesses the current and likely future missile threat to the United States, examines relevant technologies, and suggests how America's friends and foes would react to a decision to build a national missile defense. Lindsay and O'Hanlon reject calls for large-scale systems as well as proposals to do nothing, instead arguing for a limited national missile defense.

Ballistic Missile Defense and the Future of American Security
Ballistic Missile Defense and the Future of American Security

Author: Roger Handberg

Publisher: Praeger

Published: 2002

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 0275970094

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American politicians have long been troubled by the question of whether or not to deploy a national missile defense system. The argument has focused upon the questions of cost, both political and fiscal, plus the reliability of the technologies. This study places that debate within the context of an ongoing controversy over the direction of American foreign and defense policy since the 1950s. Since that time several distinct worldviews (labeled Believers, Pragmatists, and Wilsonians) have been articulated, views which predetermine decision-makers' positions on national missile defense. Those worldviews structure how technology tests and costs are evaluated regardless of outcomes. Politics, not technological proficiency, drives policy decisions. In effect, the debate has been a dialogue of the deaf and blind wherein each perceives only that which fits their predetermined views. This controversy raises questions regarding the use of deterrence as the basis for national policy and the role of technology in making such decisions. Handberg places this debate within the historical flow of events, dating back to the first inkling that national missile defense might be possible. The arrival of the George W. Bush administration moves national missile defense to the forefront with the question of deployment now considered a near reality.

The Missile Defense Controversy
The Missile Defense Controversy

Author: Ernest J. Yanarella

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2002-11-04

Total Pages: 292

ISBN-13: 9780813190327

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This revised and updated edition identifies the cultural factors and specific administrative agendas that have shaped the way we view ballistic missile technology. Three new sections connect our recent, sudden shifts in foreign policy to ongoing historical patterns. Whether cautioning against the "almost neurotic pursuit of absolute security" or examining the powerful influence of religion on military buildup, Ernest J.Yanarella uncovers the deeply ingrained attitudes that will determine the future of American missile defense.

Strategic Thinking, Deterrence and the Us Ballistic Missile Defense Project
Strategic Thinking, Deterrence and the Us Ballistic Missile Defense Project

Author: Reuben Steff

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-11-23

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 9781138267237

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A systematic critical survey of American strategic thinking and the strategic culture in which it is formed. In particular, this book seeks to interrogate the theory and strategy of nuclear deterrence, and its relationship to the concept of missile defence. Drawing widely on the theoretical literature in international relations and strategic studies, it identifies the key groups that have competed over America's nuclear policy post-1945 and examines how the concept of missile defence went through a process of gestation and intellectual contestation, leading to its eventual legitimization in the late 1990s. Steff sheds light on the individuals, groups, institutions and processes that led to the decision by the Bush administration to deploy a national missile defence shield. Additionally, Steff systematically examines the impact deployment had on the calculations of Russia and China. In the process he explains that their reactions under the Bush administration have continued into the Obama era, revealing that a new great power security dilemma has broken out. This, Steff shows, has led to a decline in great power relations as a consequence.

Strategic Deception
Strategic Deception

Author: Gordon R. Mitchell

Publisher: MSU Press

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 434

ISBN-13:

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Politically seductive but scientifically elusive, the notion of missile defense has given rise to waves of runaway rhetoric featuring technical claims that have outstripped supporting scientific data.".

The Paradox of Power
The Paradox of Power

Author: David C. Gompert

Publisher: Government Printing Office

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 9780160915734

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The second half of the 20th century featured a strategic competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. That competition avoided World War III in part because during the 1950s, scholars like Henry Kissinger, Thomas Schelling, Herman Kahn, and Albert Wohlstetter analyzed the fundamental nature of nuclear deterrence. Decades of arms control negotiations reinforced these early notions of stability and created a mutual understanding that allowed U.S.-Soviet competition to proceed without armed conflict. The first half of the 21st century will be dominated by the relationship between the United States and China. That relationship is likely to contain elements of both cooperation and competition. Territorial disputes such as those over Taiwan and the South China Sea will be an important feature of this competition, but both are traditional disputes, and traditional solutions suggest themselves. A more difficult set of issues relates to U.S.-Chinese competition and cooperation in three domains in which real strategic harm can be inflicted in the current era: nuclear, space, and cyber. Just as a clearer understanding of the fundamental principles of nuclear deterrence maintained adequate stability during the Cold War, a clearer understanding of the characteristics of these three domains can provide the underpinnings of strategic stability between the United States and China in the decades ahead. That is what this book is about.

Normalizing Japan
Normalizing Japan

Author: Andrew Oros

Publisher: Stanford University Press

Published: 2009-07-23

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0804770662

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'Normalizing Japan' discusses the future direction Japan's military policies are likely to take by considering how policy has evolved since the Second World War, and what factors shaped this evolution.