Arms for Uncertainty

Arms for Uncertainty PDF Author: Stephen J. Cimbala
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317178513
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
Nuclear weapons are here to stay. They have survived into the twenty-first century as instruments of influence for the US, Russia, and other major military powers. But, unlike the Cold War era, future nuclear forces will be developed and deployed within a digital-driven world of enhanced conventional weapons. As such, established nuclear powers will have smaller numbers of nuclear weapons for the purpose of deterrence working in parallel with smarter conventional weapons and elite military personnel. The challenge is to agree proportional reductions in nuclear inventories or abstinence requiring an effective nonproliferation regime to contain aspiring or threshold nuclear weapons states. This is the most comprehensive view of nuclear weapons policy and strategy currently available. The author’s division of the nuclear issue into the three ages is a never seen before analytical construct. With President Obama reelected, the reduction and even elimination of nuclear weapons will now rise to the top of the agenda once more. Moreover, given the likelihood of reductions in US defense spending, the subject of the triad, which is covered in Chapter One, will no doubt be an important subject of debate, as will the issue of missile defense, covered in Chapter 10. This book provides an excellent analysis of the spread of nuclear weapons in Asia and the Middle East and the potential dangers of a North Korean or Iranian breakout, subjects that dominate current policy debates.

Arms for Uncertainty

Arms for Uncertainty PDF Author: Stephen J. Cimbala
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317178513
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

Get Book

Book Description
Nuclear weapons are here to stay. They have survived into the twenty-first century as instruments of influence for the US, Russia, and other major military powers. But, unlike the Cold War era, future nuclear forces will be developed and deployed within a digital-driven world of enhanced conventional weapons. As such, established nuclear powers will have smaller numbers of nuclear weapons for the purpose of deterrence working in parallel with smarter conventional weapons and elite military personnel. The challenge is to agree proportional reductions in nuclear inventories or abstinence requiring an effective nonproliferation regime to contain aspiring or threshold nuclear weapons states. This is the most comprehensive view of nuclear weapons policy and strategy currently available. The author’s division of the nuclear issue into the three ages is a never seen before analytical construct. With President Obama reelected, the reduction and even elimination of nuclear weapons will now rise to the top of the agenda once more. Moreover, given the likelihood of reductions in US defense spending, the subject of the triad, which is covered in Chapter One, will no doubt be an important subject of debate, as will the issue of missile defense, covered in Chapter 10. This book provides an excellent analysis of the spread of nuclear weapons in Asia and the Middle East and the potential dangers of a North Korean or Iranian breakout, subjects that dominate current policy debates.

Mobilizing in Uncertainty

Mobilizing in Uncertainty PDF Author: Anastasia Shesterinina
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501753770
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
How do ordinary people navigate the intense uncertainty of the onset of war? Different individuals mobilize in different ways—some flee, some pick up arms, and some support armed actors as civil war begins. Drawing on nearly two hundred in-depth interviews with participants and nonparticipants in the Georgian-Abkhaz war of 1992–1993, Anastasia Shesterinina explores Abkhaz mobilization decisions during that conflict. Her fresh approach underscores the uncertain nature of the first days of the war when Georgian forces had a preponderance of manpower and arms. Mobilizing in Uncertainty demonstrates, in contrast to explanations that assume individuals know the risk involved in mobilization and make decisions based on that knowledge, that the Abkhaz anticipated risk in ways that were affected by their earlier experiences and by social networks at the time of mobilization. What Shesterinina uncovers is that to make sense of the violence, Abkhaz leaders, local authority figures, and others relied on shared understandings of the conflict and their roles in it—collective conflict identities—that they had developed before the war. As appeals traveled across society, people consolidated mobilization decisions within small groups of family and friends and based their actions on whom they understood to be threatened. Their decisions shaped how the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict unfolded and how people continued to mobilize during and after the war. Through this detailed analysis of Abkhaz mobilization from prewar to postwar, Mobilizing in Uncertainty sheds light on broader processes of violence, which have lasting effects on societies marked by intergroup conflict.

The Principles of Uncertainty

The Principles of Uncertainty PDF Author: Maira Kalman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143116460
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
“Sublime . . . Kalman’s elegantly witty and at times melancholy narrative runs arm in arm with her unmistakable paintings on a serendipitous romp through the history of the world.” —Vanity Fair “Wildly original . . . there’s nothing else even remotely like it . . . This hilarious, wise, and deeply moving volume [is] the ultimate picture book for grown-ups.” —O Magazine Maira Kalman paints her highly personal worldview in this inimitable combination of image and text An irresistible invitation to experience life through a beloved artist's psyche, The Principles of Uncertainty is a compilation of Maira Kalman's New York Times columns. Part personal narrative, part documentary, part travelogue, part chapbook, and all Kalman, these brilliant, whimsical paintings, ideas, and images - which initially appear random - ultimately form an intricately interconnected worldview, an idiosyncratic inner monologue.

U.S. Security in an Uncertain Era

U.S. Security in an Uncertain Era PDF Author: Brad Roberts
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262680806
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 438

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Book Description
essays collected from issues of the Washington Quarterly focus on important questions posed by the end of the Cold War, a changed Soviet Union, changing alliances, regional instabilities, and new security challenges These essays collected from recent issues of the Washington Quarterly focus on important questions posed by the end of the Cold War, a changed Soviet Union, changing alliances, regional instabilities, and new security challenges. The twenty-eight chapters are divided into sections that cover U.S. security in the 1990s, peacetime defense policy, security in Europe, international security, and proliferation and arms control. Brad Roberts is a Research Fellow in International Security Studies at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

The Politics of Uncertainty

The Politics of Uncertainty PDF Author: Peter Marris
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134789076
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
In The Politics of Uncertainty Peter Marris examines one of the most crucial and least studied aspects of social relationships: how we manage uncertainty, from the child's struggle for secure attachment to the competitive strategies of multinational corporations. Using a powerful synthesis of social and psychological theory, he shows how strategies of competition interact with the individual's sense of personal agency to place the heaviest burden of uncertainty on those with the fewest social and economic resources. He argues that these strategies maximize uncertainty for everyone by undermining the reciprocity essential to successful economic and social relationships. At a time when global economic reorganisation is undermining security of employment, The Politics of Uncertainty makes a convincing case for strategies of co-operation at both personal and political levels to ensure our economic and social survival in the twenty-first century.

Risk and Uncertainty

Risk and Uncertainty PDF Author: Olivier Urbain
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351492888
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 204

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Book Description
Conflict transformation requires, at minimum, a capacity to listen and respond constructively to those who are being hurt intentionally or unintentionally by others. This compendium attempts to understand the ways in which borders and boundaries are manifestations of less visible dynamics in individual or collective human consciousness.Nur Yalman asks how certain theories, such as the Huntington thesis, become deadly in their consequences. Omar Moufakkir and Ian Kelly analyze Dutch Moroccan relations. Sverre Lodgaard outlines the interrelationship between geo-politics, emerging concepts of world order, and nuclear weapon policies. Anthony Marsella critically analyses the Fukushima nuclear disaster.The lessons drawn in this volume underline the importance of communication, honesty, and a concerned government responsive to the needs of citizens in crisis. Each of these contributions is grappling with different ways in which words, theories, ideologies, and perspectives can hurt or heal, divide or unite, reconcile or destroy.

Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence

Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence PDF Author: David Heckerman
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
ISBN: 1483214516
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 554

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Book Description
Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence contains the proceedings of the Ninth Conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence held at the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, on July 9-11, 1993. The papers focus on methods of reasoning and decision making under uncertainty as applied to problems in artificial intelligence (AI) and cover topics ranging from knowledge acquisition and automated model construction to learning, planning, temporal reasoning, and machine vision. Comprised of 66 chapters, this book begins with a discussion on causality in Bayesian belief networks before turning to a decision theoretic account of conditional ought statements that rectifies glaring deficiencies in classical deontic logic and forms a sound basis for qualitative decision theory. Subsequent chapters explore trade-offs in constructing and evaluating temporal influence diagrams; normative engineering risk management systems; additive belief-network models; and sensitivity analysis for probability assessments in Bayesian networks. Automated model construction and learning as well as algorithms for inference and decision making are also considered. This monograph will be of interest to both students and practitioners in the fields of AI and computer science.

Uncertainty in Global Politics

Uncertainty in Global Politics PDF Author: Anastasia Shesterinina
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1003823831
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
This book engages in a constructive, practical debate on the nature and effects of uncertainty in global politics. International contributors explore the processes associated with different forms of uncertainty in the context of environmental issues, diplomacy and international negotiations, and conflict and security. From the collapse of the Soviet Union to the 1997 and 2008 financial crises to the Arab Uprisings and the European migrant crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, assessments of many events with lasting consequences on the global order have begun with: “why didn’t we see this coming?” There is much to learn from how phenomena that affect the global order generate uncertainty and what effects such uncertainty has on actors and issues. Presenting perspectives from all corners of the discipline and emerging and established scholars the book provides an up-to-date overview of the state of the literature; a concise yet conceptually rich theoretical framework; a mix of regional and global contemporary issues; process-oriented empirical evidence and methodological tools to assess different forms of uncertainty and propose practical solutions to addressing uncertainty in diverse contexts. The book will be of interest to scholars of global politics, international security, global environmental politics, international organizations and institutions, social movements, and conflict studies.

In Uncertain Times

In Uncertain Times PDF Author: Melvyn P. Leffler
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801460816
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
In Uncertain Times considers how policymakers react to dramatic developments on the world stage. Few expected the Berlin Wall to come down in November 1989; no one anticipated the devastating attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in September 2001. American foreign policy had to adjust quickly to an international arena that was completely transformed. Melvyn P. Leffler and Jeffrey W. Legro have assembled an illustrious roster of officials from the George H. W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush administrations—Robert B. Zoellick, Paul Wolfowitz, Eric S. Edelman, Walter B. Slocombe, and Philip Zelikow. These policymakers describe how they went about making strategy for a world fraught with possibility and peril. They offer provocative reinterpretations of the economic strategy advanced by the George H. W. Bush administration, the bureaucratic clashes over policy toward the breakup of the USSR, the creation of the Defense Policy Guidance of 1992, the expansion of NATO, the writing of the National Security Strategy Statement of 2002, and the invasion of Iraq in 2003. A group of eminent scholars address these same topics. Bruce Cumings, John Mueller, Mary Elise Sarotte, Odd Arne Westad, and William C. Wohlforth probe the unstated assumptions, the cultural values, and the psychological makeup of the policymakers. They examine whether opportunities were seized and whether threats were magnified and distorted. They assess whether academicians and independent experts would have done a better job than the policymakers did. Together, policymakers and scholars impel us to rethink how our world has changed and how policy can be improved in the future.

National Bureau of Standards Handbook

National Bureau of Standards Handbook PDF Author: Sherman F. Booth
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Industrial safety
Languages : en
Pages : 974

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Book Description