Taiwan's Former Nuclear Weapons Program

Taiwan's Former Nuclear Weapons Program PDF Author: Andrea Stricker
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781727337334
Category : Nuclear nonproliferation
Languages : en
Pages : 254

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Book Description
Thirty years ago, in 1988, the United States secretly moved to end once and for all Taiwan's nuclear weapons program, just as it was nearing the point of being able to rapidly break out to build nuclear weapons. Because intense secrecy has followed Taiwan's nuclear weapons program and its demise, this book is the first account of that program's history and dismantlement. Taiwan's nuclear weapons program made more progress and was working on much more sophisticated nuclear weapons than publicly recognized. It came dangerously close to fruition. Taipei excelled at the misuse of civilian nuclear programs to seek nuclear weapons and implemented capabilities to significantly reduce the time needed to build them, following a decision to do so. Despite Taiwan's efforts to hide these activities, the United States was able to gather incriminating evidence that allowed it to act, effectively denuclearizing a dangerous, destabilizing program, that if left unchecked, could have set up a potentially disastrous confrontation with the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Taiwan case is rich in findings for addressing today's nuclear proliferation challenges.

Taiwan's Former Nuclear Weapons Program

Taiwan's Former Nuclear Weapons Program PDF Author: Andrea Stricker
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781727337334
Category : Nuclear nonproliferation
Languages : en
Pages : 254

Get Book Here

Book Description
Thirty years ago, in 1988, the United States secretly moved to end once and for all Taiwan's nuclear weapons program, just as it was nearing the point of being able to rapidly break out to build nuclear weapons. Because intense secrecy has followed Taiwan's nuclear weapons program and its demise, this book is the first account of that program's history and dismantlement. Taiwan's nuclear weapons program made more progress and was working on much more sophisticated nuclear weapons than publicly recognized. It came dangerously close to fruition. Taipei excelled at the misuse of civilian nuclear programs to seek nuclear weapons and implemented capabilities to significantly reduce the time needed to build them, following a decision to do so. Despite Taiwan's efforts to hide these activities, the United States was able to gather incriminating evidence that allowed it to act, effectively denuclearizing a dangerous, destabilizing program, that if left unchecked, could have set up a potentially disastrous confrontation with the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Taiwan case is rich in findings for addressing today's nuclear proliferation challenges.

Revisiting South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program

Revisiting South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program PDF Author: David Albright
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
ISBN: 9781536845655
Category : National security
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
In 1989, South Africa made the momentous decision to abandon its nuclear weapons, making it the first and still the only country that has produced nuclear weapons and given them up. Over thirty years, the apartheid regime had created a remarkably sophisticated capability to build nuclear weapons-both the nuclear warhead and advanced military systems to deliver them. The program was born in secret and remained so until its end. The government initially sought to dismantle it in secret. It hoped to avoid any negative international consequences of possessing nuclear weapons. The apartheid government's strategy did not work, because too many intelligence agencies knew about South Africa's nuclear weapons. Faced with intense pressure, South Africa's President F.W. de Klerk reversed course and adopted a policy of transparency in 1993. However, he decided to hide many of its aspects. Nonetheless, most of the remaining secrets emerged over the ensuing 25 years. Revisiting South Africa's Nuclear Weapons Program draws on previously secret information to provide the first comprehensive, technically-oriented look at South Africa's nuclear weapons program; how it grew, evolved, and ended. It also finds lessons for today's nuclear proliferation cases.

Solving the North Korean Nuclear Puzzle

Solving the North Korean Nuclear Puzzle PDF Author: David Albright
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description


The Nuclear Tipping Point

The Nuclear Tipping Point PDF Author: Kurt M. Campbell
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780815796596
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 396

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Book Description
More than half a century after the advent of the nuclear age, is the world approaching a tipping point that will unleash an epidemic of nuclear proliferation? Today many of the building blocks of a nuclear arsenal—scientific and engineering expertise, precision machine tools, software, design information—are more readily available than ever before. The nuclear pretensions of so-called rogue states and terrorist organizations are much discussed. But how firm is the resolve of those countries that historically have chosen to forswear nuclear weapons? A combination of changes in the international environment could set off a domino effect, with countries scrambling to develop nuclear weapons so as not to be left behind—or to develop nuclear "hedge" capacities that would allow them to build nuclear arsenals relatively quickly, if necessary. Th e Nuclear Tipping Point examines the factors, both domestic and transnational, that shape nuclear policy. The authors, distinguished scholars and foreign policy practitioners with extensive government experience, develop a framework for understanding why certain countries may originally have decided to renounce nuclear weapons—and pinpoint some more recent country-specific factors that could give them cause to reconsider. Case studies of eight long-term stalwarts of the nonproliferation regime—Egypt, Germany, Japan, Saudi Arabia, South Korea, Syria, Turkey, and Taiwan—flesh out this framework and show how even these countries might be pushed over the edge of a nuclear tipping point. The authors offer prescriptions that would both prevent such countries from reconsidering their nuclear option and avert proliferation by others. The stakes are enormous and success is far from assured. To keep the tipping point beyond reach, the authors argue, the international community will have to act with unity, imagination, and strength, and Washington's leadership will be essential. Contributors include Leon Feurth, George Wash

Iran's Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons

Iran's Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons PDF Author: David Albright
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Iran
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
"The Institute of Science and International Security’s new book Iran’s Perilous Pursuit of Nuclear Weapons chronicles the Islamic Republic of Iran’s efforts to build nuclear weapons. The book draws from original Iranian documents seized by Israel’s Mossad in 2018 in a dramatic overnight raid in Tehran. The “Nuclear Archive” allows deep insight into the country’s effort to secretly build nuclear weapons. The book relies on unprecedented access to archive documents, many translated by the Institute into English for the first time. The first part of the book concentrates on Iran’s crash nuclear weapons program in the early 2000s to build five nuclear weapons and an industrial complex to produce many more. By 2003, responding to growing pressure from European powers to freeze its publicly known nuclear programs and fearing a possible U.S. military attack, Iran’s leaders decided to downsize, but not stop, their secret nuclear weapons effort. The second part of the book discusses Iran’s nuclear path post-2003, revealing a careful plan to continue nuclear weapons work, overcome bottlenecks and better camouflage nuclear weapons development activities. Since 2003, the Islamic Republic’s nuclear scientists and weaponeers have concentrated on establishing capabilities to make weapon-grade uranium and developing more reliable, longer-range ballistic missiles."--Publisher description.

Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation

Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation PDF Author: Allan S. Krass
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100020068X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Originally published in 1983, this book presents both the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by recent advances in uranium enrichment technology. Uranium enrichment has played a relatively quiet but important role in the history of efforts by a number of nations to acquire nuclear weapons and by a number of others to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For many years the uranium enrichment industry was dominated by a single method, gaseous diffusion, which was technically complex, extremely capital-intensive, and highly inefficient in its use of energy. As long as this remained true, only the richest and most technically advanced nations could afford to pursue the enrichment route to weapon acquisition. But during the 1970s this situation changed dramatically. Several new and far more accessible enrichment techniques were developed, stimulated largely by the anticipation of a rapidly growing demand for enrichment services by the world-wide nuclear power industry. This proliferation of new techniques, coupled with the subsequent contraction of the commercial market for enriched uranium, has created a situation in which uranium enrichment technology might well become the most important contributor to further nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the issues addressed in this book are: A technical analysis of the most important enrichment techniques in a form that is relevant to analysis of proliferation risks; A detailed projection of the world demand for uranium enrichment services; A summary and critique of present institutional non-proliferation arrangements in the world enrichment industry, and An identification of the states most likely to pursue the enrichment route to acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Stopping the Bomb

Stopping the Bomb PDF Author: Nicholas L. Miller
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501717820
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 471

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Book Description
This is an intense and meticulously sourced study on the topic of nuclear weapons proliferation, beginning with America's introduction of the Atomic Age... His book provides a full explanation of America's policy with a time sequence necessarily focusing on the domino effect of states acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and the import of bureaucratic decisions on international political behavior.― Choice Stopping the Bomb examines the historical development and effectiveness of American efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Nicholas L. Miller offers here a novel theory that argues changes in American nonproliferation policy are the keys to understanding the nuclear landscape from the 1960s onward. The Chinese and Indian nuclear tests in the 1960s and 1970s forced the US government, Miller contends, to pay new and considerable attention to the idea of nonproliferation and to reexamine its foreign policies. Stopping the Bomb explores the role of the United States in combating the spread of nuclear weapons, an area often ignored to date. He explains why these changes occurred and how effective US policies have been in preventing countries from seeking and acquiring nuclear weapons. Miller's findings highlight the relatively rapid move from a permissive approach toward allies acquiring nuclear weapons to a more universal nonproliferation policy no matter whether friend or foe. Four in-depth case studies of US nonproliferation policy—toward Taiwan, Pakistan, Iran, and France—elucidate how the United States can compel countries to reverse ongoing nuclear weapons programs. Miller's findings in Stopping the Bomb have important implications for the continued study of nuclear proliferation, US nonproliferation policy, and beyond.

Shooting Down a "Star" Program 437, the US Nuclear ASAT System and Present-Day Copycat Killers

Shooting Down a Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Nuclear Logics

Nuclear Logics PDF Author: Etel Solingen
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400828023
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 421

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Book Description
Nuclear Logics examines why some states seek nuclear weapons while others renounce them. Looking closely at nine cases in East Asia and the Middle East, Etel Solingen finds two distinct regional patterns. In East Asia, the norm since the late 1960s has been to forswear nuclear weapons, and North Korea, which makes no secret of its nuclear ambitions, is the anomaly. In the Middle East the opposite is the case, with Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Libya suspected of pursuing nuclear-weapons capabilities, with Egypt as the anomaly in recent decades. Identifying the domestic conditions underlying these divergent paths, Solingen argues that there are clear differences between states whose leaders advocate integration in the global economy and those that reject it. Among the former are countries like South Korea, Taiwan, and Japan, whose leaders have had stronger incentives to avoid the political, economic, and other costs of acquiring nuclear weapons. The latter, as in most cases in the Middle East, have had stronger incentives to exploit nuclear weapons as tools in nationalist platforms geared to helping their leaders survive in power. Solingen complements her bold argument with other logics explaining nuclear behavior, including security dilemmas, international norms and institutions, and the role of democracy and authoritarianism. Her account charts the most important frontier in understanding nuclear proliferation: grasping the relationship between internal and external political survival. Nuclear Logics is a pioneering book that is certain to provide an invaluable resource for researchers, teachers, and practitioners while reframing the policy debate surrounding nonproliferation.

The Opportunity

The Opportunity PDF Author: Steven Pifer
Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
ISBN: 0815724306
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
For some observers, nuclear arms control is either a relic of the cold war, or a utopian dream about a denuclearized planet decades in the future. But, as Brookings scholars Steven Pifer and Michael O'Hanlon argue in The Opportunity, arms control can address some key security challenges facing Washington today and enhance both American and global security. Pifer and O'Hanlon make a compelling case for further arms control measures—to reduce the nuclear threat to the United States and its allies, to strengthen strategic stability, to promote greater transparency regarding secretive nuclear arsenals, to create the possibility for significant defense budget savings, to bolster American credibility in the fight to curb nuclear proliferation, and to build a stronger and more sustainable U.S.-Russia relationship. President Obama gave priority to nuclear arms control early in his first term and, by all accounts, would like to be transformational on these questions. Can there be another major U.S.-Russia arms treaty? Can the tactical and surplus strategic nuclear warheads that have so far escaped controls be brought into such a framework? Can a modus vivendi be reached between the two countries on missile defense? And what of multilateral accords on nuclear testing and production of fissile materials for nuclear weapons? Pifer and O'Hanlon concisely frame the issues, the background, and the choices facing the president; provide practical policy recommendations, and put it all in clear and readable prose that will be easily understood by the layman.