Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons

Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons PDF Author: Ward Wilson
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 054785787X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 205

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Book Description
Expanded from an article that created a stir in foreign policy circles, this book shows why five central arguments promoting nuclear weapons are, in essence, myths.

Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons

Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons PDF Author: Ward Wilson
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 054785787X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 205

Get Book Here

Book Description
Expanded from an article that created a stir in foreign policy circles, this book shows why five central arguments promoting nuclear weapons are, in essence, myths.

Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons

Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons PDF Author: Ward Wilson
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
ISBN: 0547858175
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
“Brilliant, original, and important—the best analysis yet of why nuclear weapons don’t work.” —Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb Nuclear weapons have always been a serious but seemingly insoluble problem: while they’re obviously dangerous, they are also, apparently, necessary. This groundbreaking study shows why five central arguments promoting nuclear weapons are, in essence, myths. It clears up such common misconceptions as . . . • Nuclear weapons necessarily shock and awe opponents, including Japan at the end of World War II • Nuclear deterrence is reliable in a crisis • Destruction wins wars • The bomb has kept the peace for sixty-five years • We can’t put the nuclear genie back in the bottle Drawing on new information and the latest historical research, Wilson poses a fundamental challenge to the myths on which nuclear weapons policy is currently built. Using pragmatic arguments and an unemotional, clear-eyed insistence on the truth, he arrives at a surprising conclusion: nuclear weapons are enormously dangerous, but don’t appear to be terribly useful. In that case, he asks, why would we want to keep them? This book will be widely read and discussed by everyone who cares about war, peace, foreign policy, and security in the twenty-first century. “Magisterial in its sweep, research, and erudition, yet written in a direct, unstuffy style, which makes it an easy read.” —Commander Robert D. Green, Royal Navy (ret.) “This slim, persuasively argued, tightly written book provides much food for thought and could make some readers radically change their perceptions about nuclear weapons.” —Booklist

India's Nuclear Bomb

India's Nuclear Bomb PDF Author: George Perkovich
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 9780520232105
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 676

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Book Description
Publisher Fact Sheet The definitive history of India's long flirtation with nuclear capability, culminating in the nuclear tests that surprised the world in May 1998.

Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy

Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy PDF Author: Todd S. Sechser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110710694X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

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Book Description
Are nuclear weapons useful for coercive diplomacy? This book argues that they are useful for deterrence but not for offensive purposes.

Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation

Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation PDF Author: Allan S. Krass
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100020054X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

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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.

India's Emerging Nuclear Posture

India's Emerging Nuclear Posture PDF Author: Ashley J. Tellis
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 9780833027818
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 928

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Book Description
"This book brings together the many pieces of India's nuclear puzzle and the ramifications for South Asia. The author examines the choices facing India from New Delhi's point of view in order to discern which future courses of action appear most appealing to Indian security managers. He details how such choices, if acted upon, would affect U.S. strategic interests, India's neighbors, and the world."--BOOK JACKET.

Full Body Burden

Full Body Burden PDF Author: Kristen Iversen
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307955656
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 434

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Book Description
“An intimate and deeply human memoir that shows why we should all be concerned about nuclear safety, and the dangers of ignoring science in the name of national security.”—Rebecca Skloot, #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks A shocking account of the government’s attempt to conceal the effects of the toxic waste released by a secret nuclear weapons plant in Colorado and a community’s vain search for justice—soon to be a feature documentary Kristen Iversen grew up in a small Colorado town close to Rocky Flats, a secret nuclear weapons plant once designated "the most contaminated site in America." Full Body Burden is the story of a childhood and adolescence in the shadow of the Cold War, in a landscape at once startlingly beautiful and--unknown to those who lived there--tainted with invisible yet deadly particles of plutonium. It's also a book about the destructive power of secrets--both family and government. Her father's hidden liquor bottles, the strange cancers in children in the neighborhood, the truth about what was made at Rocky Flats--best not to inquire too deeply into any of it. But as Iversen grew older, she began to ask questions and discovered some disturbing realities. Based on extensive interviews, FBI and EPA documents, and class-action testimony, this taut, beautifully written book is both captivating and unnerving.

The Second Nuclear Age

The Second Nuclear Age PDF Author: Paul Bracken
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1429945044
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 305

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Book Description
A leading international security strategist offers a compelling new way to "think about the unthinkable." The cold war ended more than two decades ago, and with its end came a reduction in the threat of nuclear weapons—a luxury that we can no longer indulge. It's not just the threat of Iran getting the bomb or North Korea doing something rash; the whole complexion of global power politics is changing because of the reemergence of nuclear weapons as a vital element of statecraft and power politics. In short, we have entered the second nuclear age. In this provocative and agenda-setting book, Paul Bracken of Yale University argues that we need to pay renewed attention to nuclear weapons and how their presence will transform the way crises develop and escalate. He draws on his years of experience analyzing defense strategy to make the case that the United States needs to start thinking seriously about these issues once again, especially as new countries acquire nuclear capabilities. He walks us through war-game scenarios that are all too realistic, to show how nuclear weapons are changing the calculus of power politics, and he offers an incisive tour of the Middle East, South Asia, and East Asia to underscore how the United States must not allow itself to be unprepared for managing such crises. Frank in its tone and farsighted in its analysis, The Second Nuclear Age is the essential guide to the new rules of international politics.

Restricted Data

Restricted Data PDF Author: Alex Wellerstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602038X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 558

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Book Description
"Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--

Nuclear Statecraft

Nuclear Statecraft PDF Author: Francis J. Gavin
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801465761
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
We are at a critical juncture in world politics. Nuclear strategy and policy have risen to the top of the global policy agenda, and issues ranging from a nuclear Iran to the global zero movement are generating sharp debate. The historical origins of our contemporary nuclear world are deeply consequential for contemporary policy, but it is crucial that decisions are made on the basis of fact rather than myth and misapprehension. In Nuclear Statecraft, Francis J. Gavin challenges key elements of the widely accepted narrative about the history of the atomic age and the consequences of the nuclear revolution. On the basis of recently declassified documents, Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. In case after case, he finds that we know far less than we think we do about our nuclear history. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers. Gavin's rigorous historical work not only tells us what happened in the past but also offers a powerful tool to explain how nuclear weapons influence international relations. Nuclear Statecraft provides a solid foundation for future policymaking.