NATO and the Bomb
NATO and the Bomb

Author: Erika Simpson

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 2001-03-29

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 0773568654

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Using a new conceptual framework, this study documents and analyses the underlying convictions of influential Canadians, explains why there were such varied degrees of support for NATO, and shows why different leaders either supported or rejected nuclear weapons and the stationing of the Canadian Forces in Europe. Examples taken from previously classified documents illustrate how the underlying convictions of leaders such as Prime Minister John Diefenbaker and Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau significantly shaped defence policy. Behind-the-scenes maneuvering and competing beliefs about nuclear weapons, deterrence strategy, and possible entrapment in a nuclear war led some to defend and others to criticize Canada's approach to both NATO and the bomb. Despite the technological ability and resources to develop its own nuclear weapons - or to acquire them from the United States - Canada ultimately chose not to become a nuclear power. Why did some Canadian leaders defend the nuclear option and urge the deployment of the Canadian Forces in Europe? Why did others condemn the country's nuclear commitments and call for an end to the arms race? Simpson shows that some leaders rejected prevailing American defence strategy and weapons systems to pursue alternative approaches to managing Canada's complex bilateral and multilateral defence relationships.

Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO (Enlarged Edition)
Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO (Enlarged Edition)

Author: Thomas M. Nichols

Publisher:

Published: 2013-05-26

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781304074850

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"NATO has been a "nuclear" alliance since its inception. Nuclear weapons have served the dual purpose of being part of NATO military planning as well as being central to the Alliance's deterrence strategy. For over 4 decades, NATO allies sought to find conventional and nuclear forces, doctrines, and agreed strategies that linked the defense of Europe to that of the United States. Still, in light of the evolving security situation, the Alliance must now consider the role and future of tactical or non-strategic nuclear weapons (NSNWs). Two clear conclusions emerge from this analysis. First, in the more than 2 decades since the end of the Cold War, the problem itself -- that is, the question of what to do with weapons designed in a previous century for the possibility of a World War III against a military alliance that no longer exists -- is understudied, both inside and outside of government. Tactical weapons, although less awesome than their strategic siblings, carry significant security and political risks, and they have not received the attention that is commensurate to their importance. Second, it is clear that whatever the future of these arms, the status quo is unacceptable. It is past the time for NATO to make more resolute decisions, find a coherent strategy, and formulate more definite plans about its nuclear status. Consequently, decisions about the role of nuclear weapons within the Alliance and the associated supporting analysis are fundamental to the future identity of NATO. At the Lisbon Summit in Portugal in November 2010, the Alliance agreed to conduct the Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR). This effort is designed to answer these difficult questions prior to the upcoming NATO Summit in May 2012. The United States and its closest allies must define future threats and, in doing so, clarify NATO's identity, purpose, and corresponding force requirements. So far, NATO remains a "nuclear alliance," but it is increasingly hard to define what that means."--Publisher's website

Euromissiles
Euromissiles

Author: Susan Colbourn

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2022-11-15

Total Pages: 346

ISBN-13: 150176604X

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In Euromissiles, Susan Colbourn tells the story of the height of nuclear crisis and the remarkable waning of the fear that gripped the globe. In the Cold War conflict that pitted nuclear superpowers against one another, Europe was the principal battleground. Washington and Moscow had troops on the ground and missiles in the fields of their respective allies, the NATO nations and the states of the Warsaw Pact. Euromissiles—intermediate-range nuclear weapons to be used exclusively in the regional theater of war—highlighted how the peoples of Europe were dangerously placed between hammer and anvil. That made European leaders uncomfortable and pushed fearful masses into the streets demanding peace in their time. At the center of the story is NATO. Colbourn highlights the weakness of the alliance seen by many as the most effective bulwark against Soviet aggression. Divided among themselves and uncertain about the depth of US support, the member states were riven by the missile issue. This strategic crisis was, as much as any summit meeting between US president Ronald Reagan and Soviet general secretary Mikhail Gorbachev, the hinge on which the Cold War turned. Euromissiles is a history of diplomacy and alliances, social movements and strategy, nuclear weapons and nagging fears, and politics. To tell that history, Colbourn takes a long view of the strategic crisis—from the emerging dilemmas of allied defense in the early 1950s through the aftermath of the INF Treaty thirty-five years later. The result is a dramatic and sweeping tale that changes the way we think about the Cold War and its culmination.

Winning Ugly
Winning Ugly

Author: Ivo H. Daalder

Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield

Published: 2004-05-13

Total Pages: 370

ISBN-13: 9780815798422

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After eleven weeks of bombing in the spring of 1999, the United States and NATO ultimately won the war in Kosovo. Serbian troops were forced to withdraw, enabling an international military and political presence to take charge in the region. But was this war inevitable or was it the product of failed western diplomacy prior to the conflict? And once it became necessary to use force, did NATO adopt a sound strategy to achieve its aims of stabilizing Kosovo? In this first in-depth study of the Kosovo crisis, Ivo Daalder and Michael O'Hanlon answer these and other questions about the causes, conduct, and consequences of the war. Based on interviews with many of the key participants, they conclude that notwithstanding important diplomatic mistakes before the conflict, it would have been difficult to avoid the Kosovo war. That being the case, U.S. and NATO conduct of the war left much to be desired. For more than four weeks, the Serbs succeeded where NATO failed, forcefully changing Kosovo's ethnic balance by forcing 1.5 million Albanians from their home and more than 800,000 from the country. Had they chosen to massacre more of their victims, NATO would have been powerless to stop them. In the end, NATO won the war by increasing the scope and intensity of bombing, making serious plans for a ground invasion, and moving diplomacy into full gear in order to convince Belgrade that this was a war Serbia would never win. The Kosovo crisis is a cautionary tale for those who believe force can be used easily and in limited increments to stop genocide, mass killing, and the forceful expulsion of entire populations. Daalder and O'Hanlon conclude that the crisis holds important diplomatic and military lessons that must be learned so that others in the future might avoid the mistakes that were made in this case.

The Bomb
The Bomb

Author: Fred Kaplan

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Published: 2021-02-02

Total Pages: 384

ISBN-13: 1982107308

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From the author of the classic The Wizards of Armageddon and Pulitzer Prize finalist comes the definitive history of American policy on nuclear war—and Presidents’ actions in nuclear crises—from Truman to Trump. Fred Kaplan, hailed by The New York Times as “a rare combination of defense intellectual and pugnacious reporter,” takes us into the White House Situation Room, the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s “Tank” in the Pentagon, and the vast chambers of Strategic Command to bring us the untold stories—based on exclusive interviews and previously classified documents—of how America’s presidents and generals have thought about, threatened, broached, and just barely avoided nuclear war from the dawn of the atomic age until today. Kaplan’s historical research and deep reporting will stand as the permanent record of politics. Discussing theories that have dominated nightmare scenarios from Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Kaplan presents the unthinkable in terms of mass destruction and demonstrates how the nuclear war reality will not go away, regardless of the dire consequences.

The Nuclear Taboo
The Nuclear Taboo

Author: Nina Tannenwald

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2007-12-20

Total Pages: 472

ISBN-13: 9780521524285

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Why have nuclear weapons not been used since Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945? Nina Tannenwald disputes the conventional answer of 'deterrence' in favour of what she calls a nuclear taboo - a widespread inhibition on using nuclear weapons - which has arisen in global politics. Drawing on newly released archival sources, Tannenwald traces the rise of the nuclear taboo, the forces that produced it, and its influence, particularly on US leaders. She analyzes four critical instances where US leaders considered using nuclear weapons (Japan 1945, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf War 1991) and examines how the nuclear taboo has repeatedly dissuaded US and other world leaders from resorting to these 'ultimate weapons'. Through a systematic analysis, Tannenwald challenges conventional conceptions of deterrence and offers a compelling argument on the moral bases of nuclear restraint as well as an important insight into how nuclear war can be avoided in the future.

Greening the Alliance
Greening the Alliance

Author: Simone Turchetti

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2018-12-17

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 022659579X

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Following the launch of Sputnik, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization became a prominent sponsor of scientific research in its member countries, a role it retained until the end of the Cold War. As NATO marks sixty years since the establishment of its Science Committee, the main organizational force promoting its science programs, Greening the Alliance is the first book to chart NATO’s scientific patronage—and the motivations behind it—from the organization’s early days to the dawn of the twenty-first century. Drawing on previously unseen documents from NATO’s own archives, Simone Turchetti reveals how its investments were rooted in the alliance’s defense and surveillance needs, needs that led it to establish a program prioritizing environmental studies. A long-overlooked and effective diplomacy exercise, NATO’s “greening” at one point constituted the organization’s chief conduit for negotiating problematic relations between allies. But while Greening the Alliance explores this surprising coevolution of environmental monitoring and surveillance, tales of science advisers issuing instructions to bomb oil spills with napalm or Dr. Strangelove–like experts eager to divert the path of hurricanes with atomic weapons make it clear: the coexistence of these forces has not always been harmonious. Reflecting on this rich, complicated legacy in light of contemporary global challenges like climate change, Turchetti offers both an eye-opening history of international politics and environmental studies and a thoughtful assessment of NATO’s future.

1983
1983

Author: Taylor Downing

Publisher: Da Capo Press

Published: 2018-04-24

Total Pages: 383

ISBN-13: 0306921731

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A riveting, real-life thriller about 1983--the year tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union nearly brought the world to the point of nuclear Armageddon The year 1983 was an extremely dangerous one--more dangerous than 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the United States, President Reagan vastly increased defense spending, described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," and launched the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative to shield the country from incoming missiles. Seeing all this, Yuri Andropov, the paranoid Soviet leader, became convinced that the US really meant to attack the Soviet Union and he put the KGB on high alert, looking for signs of an imminent nuclear attack. When a Soviet plane shot down a Korean civilian jet, Reagan described it as "a crime against humanity." And Moscow grew increasingly concerned about America's language and behavior. Would they attack? The temperature rose fast. In November the West launched a wargame exercise, codenamed "Abel Archer," that looked to the Soviets like the real thing. With Andropov's finger inching ever closer to the nuclear button, the world was truly on the brink. This is an extraordinary and largely unknown Cold War story of spies and double agents, of missiles being readied, intelligence failures, misunderstandings, and the panic of world leaders. With access to hundreds of astonishing new documents, Taylor Downing tells for the first time the gripping but true story of how near the world came to nuclear war in 1983.

Red Cloud at Dawn
Red Cloud at Dawn

Author: Michael D. Gordin

Publisher: Macmillan + ORM

Published: 2009-09-29

Total Pages: 417

ISBN-13: 142994241X

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A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE Following the trail of espionage and technological innovation, and making use of newly opened archives, Michael D. Gordin provides a new understanding of the origins of the nuclear arms race and fresh insight into the problem of proliferation. On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet test bomb, dubbed "First Lightning," exploded in the deserts of Kazakhstan. This surprising international event marked the beginning of an arms race that would ultimately lead to nuclear proliferation beyond the two superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States. With the use of newly opened archives, Michael D. Gordin follows a trail of espionage, secrecy, deception, political brinksmanship, and technical innovation to provide a fresh understanding of the nuclear arms race.