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Nuclear Weapons In U S National Security Policy
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Download or read book No Use written by Thomas M. Nichols and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than forty years, the United States has maintained a public commitment to nuclear disarmament, and every president from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama has gradually reduced the size of America's nuclear forces. Yet even now, over two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States maintains a huge nuclear arsenal on high alert and ready for war. The Americans, like the Russians, the Chinese, and other major nuclear powers, continue to retain a deep faith in the political and military value of nuclear force, and this belief remains enshrined at the center of U.S. defense policy regardless of the radical changes that have taken place in international politics. In No Use, national security scholar Thomas M. Nichols offers a lucid, accessible reexamination of the role of nuclear weapons and their prominence in U.S. security strategy. Nichols explains why strategies built for the Cold War have survived into the twenty-first century, and he illustrates how America's nearly unshakable belief in the utility of nuclear arms has hindered U.S. and international attempts to slow the nuclear programs of volatile regimes in North Korea and Iran. From a solid historical foundation, Nichols makes the compelling argument that to end the danger of worldwide nuclear holocaust, the United States must take the lead in abandoning unrealistic threats of nuclear force and then create a new and more stable approach to deterrence for the twenty-first century.
Author :Committee on International Security and Arms Control Publisher :National Academies Press ISBN 13 :0309518377 Total Pages :119 pages Book Rating :4.3/5 (95 download)
Book Synopsis The Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy by : Committee on International Security and Arms Control
Download or read book The Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy written by Committee on International Security and Arms Control and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1997-07-01 with total page 119 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The debate about appropriate purposes and policies for U.S. nuclear weapons has been under way since the beginning of the nuclear age. With the end of the Cold War, the debate has entered a new phase, propelled by the post-Cold War transformations of the international political landscape. This volume--based on an exhaustive reexamination of issues addressed in The Future of the U.S.-Soviet Nuclear Relationship (NRC, 1991)--describes the state to which U.S. and Russian nuclear forces and policies have evolved since the Cold War ended. The book evaluates a regime of progressive constraints for future U.S. nuclear weapons policy that includes further reductions in nuclear forces, changes in nuclear operations to preserve deterrence but enhance operational safety, and measures to help prevent proliferation of nuclear weapons. In addition, it examines the conditions and means by which comprehensive nuclear disarmament could become feasible and desirable.
Book Synopsis U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy by : George Bunn
Download or read book U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy written by George Bunn and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2007-08-29 with total page 357 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Brookings Institution Press and the Center for International Security and Cooperation publication What role should nuclear weapons play in today's world? How can the United States promote international security while safeguarding its own interests? U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy informs this debate with an analysis of current nuclear weapons policies and strategies, including those for deterring, preventing, or preempting nuclear attack; preventing further proliferation, to nations and terrorists; modifying weapons designs; and revising the U.S. nuclear posture. Presidents Bush and Clinton made major changes in U.S. policy after the Cold War, and George W. Bush's administration made further, more radical changes after 9/11. Leaked portions of 2001's Nuclear Posture Review, for example, described more aggressive possible uses for nuclear weapons. This important volume examines the significance of such changes and suggests a way forward for U.S. policy, emphasizing stronger security of nuclear weapons and materials, international compliance with nonproliferation obligations, attention to the demand side of proliferation, and reduced reliance on nuclear weapons in U.S. foreign policy.
Book Synopsis The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century by : Brad Roberts
Download or read book The Case for U.S. Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century written by Brad Roberts and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-09 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “An excellent contribution to the debate on the future role of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence in American foreign policy.” ―Contemporary Security Policy This book is a counter to the conventional wisdom that the United States can and should do more to reduce both the role of nuclear weapons in its security strategies and the number of weapons in its arsenal. The case against nuclear weapons has been made on many grounds—including historical, political, and moral. But, Brad Roberts argues, it has not so far been informed by the experience of the United States since the Cold War in trying to adapt deterrence to a changed world, and to create the conditions that would allow further significant changes to U.S. nuclear policy and posture. Drawing on the author’s experience in the making and implementation of U.S. policy in the Obama administration, this book examines that real-world experience and finds important lessons for the disarmament enterprise. Central conclusions of the work are that other nuclear-armed states are not prepared to join the United States in making reductions, and that unilateral steps by the United States to disarm further would be harmful to its interests and those of its allies. The book ultimately argues in favor of patience and persistence in the implementation of a balanced approach to nuclear strategy that encompasses political efforts to reduce nuclear dangers along with military efforts to deter them. “Well-researched and carefully argued.” ―Foreign Affairs
Book Synopsis Nuclear Weapons in U. S. National Security Policy by : Amy F. Woolf
Download or read book Nuclear Weapons in U. S. National Security Policy written by Amy F. Woolf and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-02 with total page 25 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contents: (1) Introduction; (2) Nuclear Weapons in U.S. National Security Policy: The Evolving Role of Nuclear Weapons; Need for a National Debate?; (3) Defining Deterrence: Deterrence, in Theory; Deterrence, During the Cold War; Deterrence, After the Cold War; Deterrence in the 21st Century; (4) Issues for Congress: How Much Has Nuclear Strategy Changed?; Does Tailored Deterrence Enhance the Credibility of Nuclear Deterrence or Increase the Risk of Nuclear Use?; Can Tailored Deterrence Provide Guidance in Determining the Size and Structure of the U.S. Nuclear Arsenal?; What Role for U.S. Nuclear Weapons?
Download or read book Whole World on Fire written by Lynn Eden and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2004 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whole World on Fire focuses on a technical riddle wrapped in an organizational mystery: How and why, for more than half a century, did the U.S. government fail to predict nuclear fire damage as it drew up plans to fight strategic nuclear war?U.S. bombing in World War II caused massive fire damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but later war plans took account only of damage from blast; they completely ignored damage from atomic firestorms. Recently a small group of researchers has shown that for modern nuclear weapons the destructiveness and lethality of nuclear mass fire often--and predictably--greatly exceeds that of nuclear blast. This has major implications for defense policy: the U.S. government has underestimated the damage caused by nuclear weapons, Lynn Eden finds, and built far more warheads, and far more destructive warheads, than it needed for the Pentagon's war-planning purposes. How could this have happened? The answer lies in how organizations frame the problems they try to solve. In a narrative grounded in organization theory, science and technology studies, and primary historical sources (including declassified documents and interviews), Eden explains how the U.S. Air Force's doctrine of precision bombing led to the development of very good predictions of nuclear blast--a significant achievement--but for many years to no development of organizational knowledge about nuclear fire. Expert communities outside the military reinforced this disparity in organizational capability to predict blast damage but not fire damage. Yet some innovation occurred, and predictions of fire damage were nearly incorporated into nuclear war planning in the early 1990s. The author explains how such a dramatic change almost happened, and why it did not. Whole World on Fire shows how well-funded and highly professional organizations, by focusing on what they do well and systematically excluding what they don't do well, may build a poor representation of the world--a self-reinforcing fallacy that can have serious consequences. In a sweeping conclusion, Eden shows the implications of the analysis for understanding such things as the sinking of the Titanic, the collapse of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge, and the poor fireproofing in the World Trade Center.
Book Synopsis Buying National Security by : Gordon Adams
Download or read book Buying National Security written by Gordon Adams and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-02-11 with total page 365 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Examines the planning and budgeting processes of the United States. This title describes the planning and resource integration activities of the White House, reviews the adequacy of the structures and process and makes proposals for ways both might be reformed to fit the demands of the 21st century security environment.
Book Synopsis James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age by : James Hershberg
Download or read book James B. Conant: Harvard to Hiroshima and the Making of the Nuclear Age written by James Hershberg and published by Plunkett Lake Press. This book was released on 2019-07-31 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James B. Conant (1893-1978) was one of the titans of mid-20th-century American history, attaining prominence and power in multiple fields. Usually remembered as an educational leader, he was president of Harvard University for two tumultuous decades, from the Depression to World War II to the Cold War and McCarthyism. To take that job he gave up a scientific career as one of the country’s top chemists, and he left it twenty years later to become Eisenhower’s top diplomat in postwar Germany. Hershberg’s prize-winning study, however, examines a critical aspect of Conant’s life that was long obscured by government secrecy: his pivotal role in the birth of the nuclear age. During World War II, as an advisor to Roosevelt and then Truman (on the elite “Interim Committee” that considered how to employ the bomb against Japan), Conant was intimately involved in the decisions to build and use the atomic bomb. During and after the Manhattan Project, he also led efforts to prevent a postwar nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union that, he feared, threatened the survival of civilization — an apocalyptic prospect he glimpsed in the first instant of the new age, when he witnessed the first test of the new weapon at Alamogordo on July 16, 1945. “... a vivid inquiry... a model of historiography; evocative reading...[Conant was] central to atomic policy and progress; the bomb would be as much Conant’s as it was anyone’s in Government. His inner response to that burden responsibility has long been obscured, but it is illumined here.” — Philip Morrison, The New York Times Book Review “In his splendid portrait of Conant, James Hershberg has illuminated the life of a pivotal figure in the making of U.S. nuclear, scientific, educational and foreign policy for almost a half-century. But the book is much more: It is not only an insightful narration of Conant’s life; it is also a brilliant and important account of the making of the nuclear age, a chronicle that contains much that is new... Hershberg’s superb study... is a chronicle of Conant’s moral journey and we are the wiser for his having charted Conant’s path.” — S.S. Schweber, Washington Post Book World “James G. Hershberg ably comes to grips with Conant and his hazardous times... His book is vibrantly written and compelling, and it breaches Conant’s shield of public discretion in masterly fashion, making extensive use of unpublished interviews, diaries, reports, and correspondence pried from private and governmental repositories. It is a huge, ambitious work — a history of the Cold War as Conant encountered it as well as a study of the man.” — Daniel J. Kevles, The New Yorker “... a well-written, comprehensive, nonjudgmental but sensitive biography... Conant was involved in so many and such critical events that students of almost any aspect of our public life over the past half-century will find useful the new material and helpful insights in this book... This fine biography of one of the most important and complicated of America’s twentieth-century leaders immediately establishes James Hershberg as one of America’s outstanding young historians.” — Stephen E. Ambrose,Foreign Affairs “... magnificent... Any reader interested in nuclear weapons, Cold War history or American politics from FDR to JFK will find this biography riveting.” — Priscilla McMillan, Chicago Tribune “... masterful... The prose is clear, the narrative forceful and the author’s judgments are balanced and judicious. This is simply splendid biography... The highest praise one can give for a book of this sort is that the historian has not shrunk from speaking truth to power. This book quietly but insistently does so. It should be read by the public at large as one of the definitive texts on the cold war and the nuclear age... Hershberg’s triumph is that he has prevailed over all the official lies to give us one more layer of the historical truth.” — Kai Bird, The Nation “... riveting... an impressive achievement... honest and comprehensive in its scholarship, the author has shown himself to be a historian of notable achievement and promise.” — McGeorge Bundy, Nature “Hershberg’s outstanding, balanced biography lifts the self-imposed secrecy surrounding a key architect of U.S. Cold War policy and of the nuclear age.” —Publisher’s Weekly “... [an] impressive and substantial achievement. [Hershberg] has used the life of one strategically placed individual to illuminate the most important issues surrounding America’s role and conduct in the nuclear age. His book will be invaluable to scholars assessing the impact and legacy of the group who acquired the epithet ‘wise men’ now that the Cold War has receded.” — Carol S. Gruber, Science “... definitive... a far more textured picture than one finds in Conant’s own guarded and unrevealing autobiography... an important and rewarding book... illuminating... Conant led a remarkable and eventful life in remarkable and eventful times. James Hershberg has explored that life, and those times, in exhaustive and revealing detail.” — Paul Boyer, The New Republic “James G. Hershberg has achieved the impossible. He has written a huge biography of a Harvard president that is fascinating, informative and as valuable a piece of American history as anything I have read in years... Mr. Hershberg has brought us back vividly to an age that seems remote, so long ago, but the questions about nuclear proliferation are the same, even while the answers are still ambiguous. As we watch men struggling with unanticipated post-Cold War problems and civil wars sprouting like Jason’s men at arms, it is good to read this story about a complex man who deserves an important place in our history because he helped make that history possible.” — Arnold Beichman, The Washington Times “... engrossing... A magisterial study of an awesome and intriguing public career.” —Kirkus Reviews “... entertaining... thought-provocative.” — Dick Teresi, The Wall Street Journal “Hershberg’s book helps us more clearly understand the postwar Establishment and offers a challenging appraisal of the role of elites, of universities and of the state.” — Gar Alperovitz, In These Times “Hershberg deserves great credit for cracking a tough New England walnut, analyzing this very important public figure, demonstrating how he fit into his own time and showing us what we can learn from the man.” — Daniel R. Mortensen, The Friday Review of Defense Literature “... a compelling account... an engaging examination of one of the central figures of the nuclear age. It succeeds in showing ‘one man’s intersection with great events and issues’ and in the process illuminates those issues for us all.” — American Historical Review “... well-written... Conant’s participation in one of our country’s most dynamic periods is, thanks to Hershberg, now much better understood.” — Library Journal “A reader of the book will enter the realm of the greats, the shapers of worlds created by the atomic blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki... Conant was no bit player in Cold War history... [the book is] very successful in weaving Conant’s subsurface persona in with his ups and downs as a prominent and committed public figure. And it leaves out little detail in describing top-level decisions involving the Cold War geopolitics of nuclear weaponry. Conant was a participant in most of these decisions—with Presidents Roosevelt and Truman themselves, their Secretaries of War and State, and, of course, all the major scientific figures of the time.” — Chemical & Engineering News “A wonderfully rich portrait that emerges from a carefully documented account of Conant’s role in the development of the atomic bomb and post-war nuclear policy... An extraordinarily well written text... Hershberg lays bare the person behind the persona — warts, dimples and all.” — Stanley Goldberg, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Book Synopsis Preventive Defense by : Ashton B. Carter
Download or read book Preventive Defense written by Ashton B. Carter and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2000-09-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: William J. Perry and Ashton B. Carter, two of the world's foremost defense authorities, draw on their experience as leaders of the U.S. Defense Department to propose a new American security strategy for the twenty-first century. After a century in which aggression had to be defeated in two world wars and then deterred through a prolonged cold war, the authors argue for a strategy centered on prevention. Now that the cold war is over, it is necessary to rethink the risks to U.S. security. The A list--threats to U.S. survival--is empty today. The B list--the two major regional contingencies in the Persian Gulf and on the Korean peninsula that dominate Pentagon planning and budgeting--pose imminent threats to U.S. interests but not to survival. And the C list--such headline-grabbing places as Kosovo, Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda, and Haiti--includes important contingencies that indirectly affect U.S. security but do not directly threaten U.S. interests. Thus the United States is enjoying a period of unprecedented peace and influence; but foreign policy and defense leaders cannot afford to be complacent. The authors' preventive defense strategy concentrates on the dangers that, if mismanaged, have the potential to grow into true A-list threats to U.S. survival in the next century. These include Weimar Russia: failure to establish a self-respecting place for the new Russia in the post-cold war world, allowing it to descend into chaos, isolation, and aggression as Germany did after World War I; Loose Nukes: failure to reduce and secure the deadly legacy of the cold war--nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in Russia and the rest of the former Soviet Union; A Rising China Turned Hostile: failure to shape China's rise to Asian superpower status so that it emerges as a partner rather than an adversary; Proliferation: spread of weapons of mass destruction; and Catastrophic Terrorism: increase in the scope and intensity of transnational terrorism.They also argue for
Book Synopsis Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy by : Francis J. Gavin
Download or read book Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy written by Francis J. Gavin and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring what we know--and don't know--about how nuclear weapons shape American grand strategy and international relations A 2020 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title The world first confronted the power of nuclear weapons when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. The global threat of these weapons deepened in the following decades as more advanced weapons, aggressive strategies, and new nuclear powers emerged. Ever since, countless books, reports, and articles--and even a new field of academic inquiry called "security studies"--have tried to explain the so-called nuclear revolution. Francis J. Gavin argues that scholarly and popular understanding of many key issues about nuclear weapons is incomplete at best and wrong at worst. Among these important, misunderstood issues are: how nuclear deterrence works; whether nuclear coercion is effective; how and why the United States chose its nuclear strategies; why countries develop their own nuclear weapons or choose not to do so; and, most fundamentally, whether nuclear weapons make the world safer or more dangerous. These and similar questions still matter because nuclear danger is returning as a genuine threat. Emerging technologies and shifting great-power rivalries seem to herald a new type of cold war just three decades after the end of the U.S.-Soviet conflict that was characterized by periodic prospects of global Armageddon. Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy helps policymakers wrestle with the latest challenges. Written in a clear, accessible, and jargon-free manner, the book also offers insights for students, scholars, and others interested in both the history and future of nuclear danger.
Book Synopsis Doctrine for Joint Operations by : United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff
Download or read book Doctrine for Joint Operations written by United States. Joint Chiefs of Staff and published by . This book was released on 1993 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Book Synopsis Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence by : Naval Studies Board
Download or read book Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence written by Naval Studies Board and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1997-04-16 with total page 244 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Deterrence as a strategic concept evolved during the Cold War. During that period, deterrence strategy was aimed mainly at preventing aggression against the United States and its close allies by the hostile Communist power centers--the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) and its allies, Communist China and North Korea. In particular, the strategy was devised to prevent aggression involving nuclear attack by the USSR or China. Since the end of the Cold War, the risk of war among the major powers has subsided to the lowest point in modern history. Still, the changing nature of the threats to American and allied security interests has stimulated a considerable broadening of the deterrence concept. Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence examines the meaning of deterrence in this new environment and identifies key elements of a post-Cold War deterrence strategy and the critical issues in devising such a strategy. It further examines the significance of these findings for the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps. Quantitative and qualitative measures to support judgments about the potential success or failure of deterrence are identified. Such measures will bear on the suitability of the naval forces to meet the deterrence objectives. The capabilities of U.S. naval forces that especially bear on the deterrence objectives also are examined. Finally, the book examines the utility of models, games, and simulations as decision aids in improving the naval forces' understanding of situations in which deterrence must be used and in improving the potential success of deterrence actions.
Book Synopsis The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy by : Matthew Kroenig
Download or read book The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy written by Matthew Kroenig and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2018 with total page 281 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For decades, the reigning scholarly wisdom about nuclear weapons policy has been that the United States only needs the ability to absorb an enemy nuclear attack and still be able to respond with a devastating counterattack. So long as the US, or any other nation, retains such an assured retaliation capability, no sane leader would intentionally launch a nuclear attack against it, and nuclear deterrence will hold. According to this theory, possessing more weapons than necessary for a second-strike capability is illogical. This argument is reasonable, but, when compared to the empirical record, it raises an important puzzle. Empirically, we see that the United States has always maintained a nuclear posture that is much more robust than a mere second-strike capability. In The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy, Matthew Kroenig challenges the conventional wisdom and explains why a robust nuclear posture, above and beyond a mere second-strike capability, contributes to a state's national security goals. In fact, when a state has a robust nuclear weapons force, such a capability reduces its expected costs in a war, provides it with bargaining leverage, and ultimately enhances nuclear deterrence. This book provides a novel theoretical explanation for why military nuclear advantages translate into geopolitical advantages. In so doing, it helps resolve one of the most-intractable puzzles in international security studies. Buoyed by an innovative thesis and a vast array of historical and quantitative evidence, The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy will force scholars to reconsider their basic assumptions about the logic of nuclear deterrence.
Book Synopsis A National Security Strategy for a New Century by :
Download or read book A National Security Strategy for a New Century written by and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 60 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Nuclear Security written by and published by Hoover Institution Press. This book was released on 2014-09-01 with total page 73 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concern about the threat posed by nuclear weapons has preoccupied the United States and presidents of the United States since the beginning of the nuclear era. Nuclear Security draws from papers presented at the 2013 meeting of the American Nuclear Society examining worldwide efforts to control nuclear weapons and ensure the safety of the nuclear enterprise of weapons and reactors against catastrophic accidents. The distinguished contributors, all known for their long-standing interest in getting better control of the threats posed by nuclear weapons and reactors, discuss what we can learn from past successes and failures and attempt to identify the key ingredients for a road ahead that can lead us toward a world free of nuclear weapons. The authors review historical efforts to deal with the challenge of nuclear weapons, with a focus on the momentous arms control negotiations between U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. They offer specific recommendations for reducing risks that should be adopted by the nuclear enterprise, both military and civilian, in the United States and abroad. Since the risks posed by the nuclear enterprise are so high, they conclude, no reasonable effort should be spared to ensure safety and security.
Book Synopsis Atomic Audit by : Stephen I. Schwartz
Download or read book Atomic Audit written by Stephen I. Schwartz and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1945, the United States has manufactured and deployed more than 70,000 nuclear weapons to deter and if necessary fight a nuclear war. Some observers believe the absence of a third world war confirms that these weapons were a prudent and cost-effective response to the uncertainty and fear surrounding the Soviet Union's military and political ambitions during the cold war. As early as 1950, nuclear weapons were considered relatively inexpensive— providing "a bigger bang for a buck"—and were thoroughly integrated into U.S. forces on that basis. Yet this assumption was never validated. Indeed, for more than fifty years scant attention has been paid to the enormous costs of this effort—more than $5 trillion thus far—and its short and long-term consequences for the nation. Based on four years of extensive research, Atomic Audit is the first book to document the comprehensive costs of U.S. nuclear weapons, assembling for the first time anywhere the actual and estimated expenditures for the program since its creation in 1940. The authors provide a unique perspective on U.S. nuclear policy and nuclear weapons, tracking their development from the Manhattan Project of World War II to the present day and assessing each aspect of the program, including research, development, testing, and production; deployment; command, control, communications, and intelligence; and defensive measures. They also examine the costs of dismantling nuclear weapons, the management and disposal of large quantities of toxic and radioactive wastes left over from their production, compensation for persons harmed by nuclear weapons activities, nuclear secrecy, and the economic implications of nuclear deterrence. Utilizing archival and newly declassified government documents and data, this richly documented book demonstrates how a variety of factors—the open-ended nature of nuclear deterrence, faulty assumptions about the cost-effectiveness of nuclear weapons, regular misrepresentati
Book Synopsis The Seventh Decade by : Jonathan Schell
Download or read book The Seventh Decade written by Jonathan Schell and published by Metropolitan Books. This book was released on 2007-11-13 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The Fate of the Earth, a provocative look at the urgent threat posed by America's new nuclear policies When the cold war ended, many Americans believed the nuclear dilemma had ended with it. Instead, the bomb has moved to the dead center of foreign policy and even domestic scandal. From missing WMDs to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, nuclear matters are back on the front page. In this provocative book, Jonathan Schell argues that a revolution in nuclear affairs has occurred under the watch of the Bush administration, including a historic embrace of a first-strike policy to combat proliferation. The administration has also encouraged a nuclear renaissance at home, with the development of new generations of such weaponry. Far from curbing nuclear buildup, Schell contends, our radical policy has provoked proliferation in Iran, North Korea, and elsewhere; exacerbated global trafficking in nuclear weapons; and taken the world into an era of unchecked nuclear terror. Incisive and passionately argued, The Seventh Decade offers essential insight into what may prove the most volatile decade of the nuclear age.
