Arms Races in International Politics
Arms Races in International Politics

Author: Thomas Mahnken

Publisher: Oxford University Press

Published: 2016-01-14

Total Pages: 306

ISBN-13: 0191054208

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This volume provides the first comprehensive history of the arms racing phenomenon in modern international politics, drawing both on theoretical approaches and on the latest historical research. Written by an international team of specialists, it is divided into four sections: before 1914; the inter-war years; the Cold War; and extra-European and post-Cold War arms races. Twelve case studies examine land and naval armaments before the First World War; air, land, and naval competition during the 1920s and 1930s; and nuclear as well as conventional weapons since 1945. Armaments policies are placed within the context of technological development, international politics and diplomacy, and social politics and economics. An extended general introduction and conclusion and introductions to each section provide coherence between the specialized chapters and draw out wider implications for policymakers and for political scientists. Arms Races in International Politics addresses two key questions: what causes arms races, and what is the connection between arms races and the outbreak of wars?

Arsenals of Folly
Arsenals of Folly

Author: Richard Rhodes

Publisher: Vintage

Published: 2008-11-04

Total Pages: 432

ISBN-13: 0375713948

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Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes delivers a riveting account of the nuclear arms race and the Cold War. In the Reagan-Gorbachev era, the United States and the Soviet Union came within minutes of nuclear war, until Gorbachev boldly launched a campaign to eliminate nuclear weapons, setting the stage for the 1986 Reykjavik summit and the incredible events that followed. In this thrilling, authoritative narrative, Richard Rhodes draws on personal interviews with both Soviet and U.S. participants and a wealth of new documentation to unravel the compelling, shocking story behind this monumental time in human history—its beginnings, its nearly chilling consequences, and its effects on global politics today.

War in Heaven
War in Heaven

Author: Helen Caldicott

Publisher:

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 200

ISBN-13:

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When most of us think about the potential of outer space for future generations, we think of world communications, satellite navigation, and scientific exploration. U.S. Space Command, however, thinks about weapons. Believing that conflict in space and wars fought from space are inevitable, the president has called on the agency to weaponize outer space and thus provoke an arms race that could cost the United States trillions of dollars and could lead to the demise of the human race. In War in Heaven, a Nobel Prize-nominated peace activist and a former U.S. foreign service officer (who helped write the Outer Space Treaty of 1967) look at the history of military uses of space and the current plans for "militarizing the heavens," including kinetic, laser, nuclear bombardment, and anti-satellite weapons. Contrary to the claims of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld that the United States faces a "space Pearl Harbor," Caldicott and Eisendrath show that the United States itself is today the principal obstruction to passage of an international treaty banning weapons from outer space. At a time when plans to build and deploy space weapons are on the administration's agenda but only just becoming known to the general public, this book will help launch a national discussion of a critical issue.

Secrecy and the Arms Race
Secrecy and the Arms Race

Author: Martin C. McGuire

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 1965

Total Pages: 274

ISBN-13: 9780674796652

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Martin McGuire has written for the specialist and the concerned layman a highly original and valuable contribution to our understanding of the arms race, based upon economic theory in general and the theory of economic duopoly in particular. He calls attention to the fact that when two world powers face each other with massive allocations of resources for arms, and when each regards the other as the major, if not the sole, threat to its own security, the question of accurate information about the strength and intentions of the adversary arises for each side in many and various ways. As a result, this study is a pioneering, analytic effort to approach the value of keeping secrets from or of obtaining information about an enemy. The author is concerned with such questions as: what is the loss in being only 50 percent confident rather than certain that the adversary doesn't have more X missiles or missiles of yield W megatons or of accuracy C thousand feet? Should one insist on being 95 percent sure when bargaining for arms control? How can a side compensate for its uncertainty most efficiently? An understanding of these problems can not only increase our security; it may help as well to contain or control the entire two-sided race.

Perspectives on the Arms Race
Perspectives on the Arms Race

Author: David Carlton

Publisher:

Published: 1989

Total Pages: 366

ISBN-13:

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The volume contains papers presented to the Eleventh Course of the International School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts (ISODARCO) held in August 1986 at San Miniato, Italy. Attention was focused on the international aspects of arms control and disarmament.

Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race
Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race

Author: Raymond Ojserkis

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA

Published: 2003-12-30

Total Pages: 248

ISBN-13: 0313057583

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The Truman administration's decision to embark on an arms build-up in 1950 was a critical event. For the first time other than a World War, the United States became a global military presence. Unlike the World Wars, in this instance the deployment lasted decades, altering the nature of the Cold War and the United States' global role. Such a decision deserves a book dedicated to understanding the strategy and politics behind it. The Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race serves that purpose. The Beginnings of the Cold War Arms Race reviews the state of American military affairs in the late 1940s and describes the role of atomic power in American strategy. It also outlines the factional fighting within the Truman administration over military spending and deployments and considers the Truman administration's perceptions of Soviet military power and intentions. The author presents a fascinating account of the strategy and politics behind the Truman administration's decision to engage in a massive arms build-up that initiated the Cold War arms race.

The Nuclear Crisis
The Nuclear Crisis

Author: Christoph Becker-Schaum

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2016-10-01

Total Pages: 392

ISBN-13: 1785332686

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In 1983, more than one million Germans joined together to protest NATO’s deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe. International media overflowed with images of marches, rallies, and human chains as protesters blockaded depots and agitated for disarmament. Though they failed to halt the deployment, the episode was a decisive one for German society, revealing deep divisions in the nation’s political culture while continuing to mobilize activists. This volume provides a comprehensive reference work on the “Euromissiles” crisis as experienced by its various protagonists, analyzing NATO’s diplomatic and military maneuvering and tracing the political, cultural, and moral discourses that surrounded the missiles’ deployment in East and West Germany.

Preventing a Biological Arms Race
Preventing a Biological Arms Race

Author: Susan Wright

Publisher: MIT Press (MA)

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 9780262231480

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This timely sourcebook presents the essential technical, political, legal, and historical background needed for informed judgments about the recent expansion of military interest in the life sciences particularly in the weapons potential of the new biotechnology. Beyond providing a history and analysis of trends in these areas, "Preventing a Biological Arms Race also develops the case for strengthening national and international commitments to biological disarmament and proposes courses of action to achieve this goal. "In theory, " Susan Wright observes, "the menace of biological warfare should no longer be with us." Developing, producing, and stockpiling biological weapons are unconditionally banned by international treaty. EastWest military rivalry and confrontations in the Middle East have eroded confidence in the treaty regime, however. The advent of genetic engineering and other new biotechnologies has revived military interest in biological weaponry, generating concern about the potential weapons applications of biological research. The 15 contributions by experts from a wide range of disciplines include a history of U.S. biological warfare policy, analysis of the ethical issues posed by defensive biological warfare research, case studies of alleged violations of the international legal regime prohibiting biological weapons, reviews of that regime, and proposals for strengthening the barriers to biological warfare. A series of 14 appendices collect important data and documents related to biological weapons. Susan Wright is a historian of science at the Residential College of the University of Michigan where she directs the Science and Society Program. This book was prepared underthe sponsorship of the Council for Responsible Genetics.

The Nuclear Arms Race
The Nuclear Arms Race

Author: Paul P. Craig

Publisher: McGraw-Hill Companies

Published: 1990

Total Pages: 582

ISBN-13:

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This new edition of a very current interdisciplinary book covers both technical material and social issues, to give readers of all backgrounds a sense of the overall implications of the arms race. Weapons are the primary focus of the book, with the history of their development and nuclear politics included in the introductory chapters. There is a thorough discussion of global nuclear exchange, which considers the consequences of an all-out nuclear war, the psychological impact of the threat and actual nuclear war; the atomic bombings of Japan; and the biological effects of radiation from nuclear weapons.

Innovation and the Arms Race
Innovation and the Arms Race

Author: Matthew Evangelista

Publisher:

Published: 1988

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13:

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Evangelista provides a new framework for analyzing U.S. and Soviet innovations in weapons technology. In America, development is generated from the bottom up with scientists providing the initial impetus. Soviet weapons innovation occurs from the top down, as soviet leaders react to external forces, particularly American initiatives. With current weapons programs such as the Strategic Defense Initiative, the author sees opportunities for arms control. The United States must recognize that technological innovation is no guarantee of security. The Soviet Union must decide not to match American innovation. ISBN 0-8014-2165-9: $32.95.