My Journey at the Nuclear Brink

My Journey at the Nuclear Brink PDF Author: William Perry
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804797145
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 277

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Book Description
“Perry has long been one of the more strenuous advocates for confronting the dangers of the nuclear age, and his engaging memoir explains why.” —Foreign Affairs My Journey at the Nuclear Brink is a continuation of former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry's efforts to keep the world safe from a nuclear catastrophe. It tells the story of his coming of age in the nuclear era, his role in trying to shape and contain it, and how his thinking has changed about the threat these weapons pose. In a remarkable career, Perry has dealt firsthand with the changing nuclear threat. Decades of experience and special access to top-secret knowledge of strategic nuclear options have given Perry a unique, and chilling, vantage point from which to conclude that nuclear weapons endanger our security rather than securing it. This book traces his thought process as he journeys from the Cuban Missile Crisis, to crafting a defense strategy in the Carter Administration to offset the Soviets’ numeric superiority in conventional forces, to presiding over the dismantling of more than 8,000 nuclear weapons in the Clinton Administration, and to his creation in 2007, with George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and Henry Kissinger, of the Nuclear Security Project to articulate their vision of a world free from nuclear weapons and to lay out the urgent steps needed to reduce nuclear dangers. “Perry’s authoritative memoir. . . . is a clear, sobering and, for many, surprising warning that the danger of a nuclear catastrophe today is actually greater than it was during that era of U.S.-Soviet competition…a significant and insightful memoir and a necessary read.” —Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U.S. News & World Report

My Journey at the Nuclear Brink

My Journey at the Nuclear Brink PDF Author: William Perry
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804797145
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 277

Get Book

Book Description
“Perry has long been one of the more strenuous advocates for confronting the dangers of the nuclear age, and his engaging memoir explains why.” —Foreign Affairs My Journey at the Nuclear Brink is a continuation of former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry's efforts to keep the world safe from a nuclear catastrophe. It tells the story of his coming of age in the nuclear era, his role in trying to shape and contain it, and how his thinking has changed about the threat these weapons pose. In a remarkable career, Perry has dealt firsthand with the changing nuclear threat. Decades of experience and special access to top-secret knowledge of strategic nuclear options have given Perry a unique, and chilling, vantage point from which to conclude that nuclear weapons endanger our security rather than securing it. This book traces his thought process as he journeys from the Cuban Missile Crisis, to crafting a defense strategy in the Carter Administration to offset the Soviets’ numeric superiority in conventional forces, to presiding over the dismantling of more than 8,000 nuclear weapons in the Clinton Administration, and to his creation in 2007, with George Shultz, Sam Nunn, and Henry Kissinger, of the Nuclear Security Project to articulate their vision of a world free from nuclear weapons and to lay out the urgent steps needed to reduce nuclear dangers. “Perry’s authoritative memoir. . . . is a clear, sobering and, for many, surprising warning that the danger of a nuclear catastrophe today is actually greater than it was during that era of U.S.-Soviet competition…a significant and insightful memoir and a necessary read.” —Mortimer B. Zuckerman, U.S. News & World Report

Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace

Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace PDF Author: Michael Krepon
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503629619
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 544

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Book Description
The definitive guide to the history of nuclear arms control by a wise eavesdropper and masterful storyteller, Michael Krepon. The greatest unacknowledged diplomatic achievement of the Cold War was the absence of mushroom clouds. Deterrence alone was too dangerous to succeed; it needed arms control to prevent nuclear warfare. So, U.S. and Soviet leaders ventured into the unknown to devise guardrails for nuclear arms control and to treat the Bomb differently than other weapons. Against the odds, they succeeded. Nuclear weapons have not been used in warfare for three quarters of a century. This book is the first in-depth history of how the nuclear peace was won by complementing deterrence with reassurance, and then jeopardized by discarding arms control after the Cold War ended. Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace tells a remarkable story of high-wire acts of diplomacy, close calls, dogged persistence, and extraordinary success. Michael Krepon brings to life the pitched battles between arms controllers and advocates of nuclear deterrence, the ironic twists and unexpected outcomes from Truman to Trump. What began with a ban on atmospheric testing and a nonproliferation treaty reached its apogee with treaties that mandated deep cuts and corralled "loose nukes" after the Soviet Union imploded. After the Cold War ended, much of this diplomatic accomplishment was cast aside in favor of freedom of action. The nuclear peace is now imperiled by no less than four nuclear-armed rivalries. Arms control needs to be revived and reimagined for Russia and China to prevent nuclear warfare. New guardrails have to be erected. Winning and Losing the Nuclear Peace is an engaging account of how the practice of arms control was built from scratch, how it was torn down, and how it can be rebuilt.

Cultures of Counterproliferation

Cultures of Counterproliferation PDF Author: Raphael BenLevi
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000987868
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
This book argues that the nature of counterproliferation strengthens the effect of cultural factors in policy choices, and illustrates this by focusing on US and Israeli policy toward the Iranian nuclear program. The United States and Israel have been the two states most active in opposing Iran’s nuclear ambitions; however, the respective strategies of each of these states have changed repeatedly. This book explores how competing cultural schools of thought on grand strategy within each state inform and shape the key policy decisions in their attempts to prevent a nuclear Iran. Drawing on numerous interviews conducted with former high-level officials in each country as well as published memoirs, this book first describes in detail the belief systems of the competing schools and then analyses the internal debates and key decisions on policy toward the Iranian Nuclear Program, while critically assessing the extent to which these beliefs influenced policy in the face of material-structural pressures. This in-depth analysis of the internal debates and dilemmas within the national leadership of the two states most prominent in the effort to prevent a nuclear Iran constitutes an indispensable guide for scholars and policymakers who will inevitably face similar dilemmas in dealing with this ongoing challenge and additional cases of nuclear proliferation around the world. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation, US and Israeli foreign policy, Middle Eastern politics and IR in general.

The Human Factor

The Human Factor PDF Author: Archie Brown
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190614919
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
In this penetrating analysis of the role of political leadership in the Cold War's ending, Archie Brown shows why the popular view that Western economic and military strength left the Soviet Union with no alternative but to admit defeat is wrong. To understand the significance of the parts played by Mikhail Gorbachev, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in East-West relations in the second half of the 1980s, Brown addresses several specific questions: What were the values and assumptions of these leaders, and how did their perceptions evolve? What were the major influences on them? To what extent were they reflecting the views of their own political establishment or challenging them? How important for ending the East-West standoff were their interrelations? Would any of the realistically alternative leaders of their countries at that time have pursued approximately the same policies? The Cold War got colder in the early 1980s and the relationship between the two military superpowers, the USA and the Soviet Union, each of whom had the capacity to annihilate the other, was tense. By the end of the decade, East-West relations had been utterly transformed, with most of the dividing lines - including the division of Europe - removed. Engagement between Gorbachev and Reagan was a crucial part of that process of change. More surprising was Thatcher's role. Regarded by Reagan as his ideological and political soulmate, she formed also a strong and supportive relationship with Gorbachev (beginning three months before he came to power). Promoting Gorbachev in Washington as 'a man to do business with', she became, in the words of her foreign policy adviser Sir Percy Cradock, 'an agent of influence in both directions'.

A Korean Peninsula Free of Nuclear Weapons

A Korean Peninsula Free of Nuclear Weapons PDF Author: Chan Young Bang
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 303145233X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
This book focuses on three main subjects: the DPRK's inability to survive as a nuclear state; the importance of China’s role in encouraging denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula; and the possibility of an alternative political organization for the DPRK including a transition to a market-economy in exchange for giving up its nuclear weapons. The book approaches North Korean issues from the perspective that the regime cannot survive without nuclear weapons which, rather than being a genuine danger to other states, are bargaining chips for security and survival. The book includes views from prominent academics and practitioners, including a former British ambassador to North Korea, putting forward an ambitious set of recommendations and analyses based on hands-on experience in the region.

Partnership within Hierarchy

Partnership within Hierarchy PDF Author: Sung Chull Kim
Publisher: State University of New York Press
ISBN: 1438463952
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Examines intra-alliance politics between the United States, Japan, and South Korea. In an age of increasingly complex security situations around the world, it is essential that students and practitioners understand alliances and minilateral security mechanisms. Partnership within Hierarchy examines, in depth, the troubled evolution of theUS–Japan–South Korea security triangle from the Cold War period to the present time. Referencing a voluminous amount of declassified documents in three different languages, Sung Chull Kim, through six case studies, delves into the common questions arising in different historical periods, such as who should pay costs, what to commit, and why. Burden sharing and commitment, Kim shows, emerged as the main subject of competing expectations and disagreements arising between the capable middle power Japan and the weak power South Korea. Kim details how the dominant power, the United States, has controlled the red lines and intervened in the disputes, the result of which is in most instances a balancing effect for the triangle. In this vein, he persuasively accounts for why historical disputes between Japan and South Korea, which submerged during the Cold War, reverberate today when asymmetry between the two is substantially balanced. Sung Chull Kim is Humanities Korea Professor at the Institute for Peace and Unification Studies at Seoul National University and the author of North Korea under Kim Jong Il: From Consolidation to Systemic Dissonance, also published by SUNY Press.

The War That Must Not Occur

The War That Must Not Occur PDF Author: Jean-Pierre Dupuy
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 1503636658
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 209

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Book Description
The possibility of a nuclear war that could destroy civilization has influenced the course of international affairs since 1945, suspended like a sword of Damocles above the heads of the world's leaders. The fact that we have escaped a third world war involving strategic nuclear weapons—indeed, that no atomic weapon of limited power has yet been used under battlefield conditions—seems nothing short of a miracle. Revisiting debates on the effectiveness and ethics of nuclear deterrence, Jean-Pierre Dupuy is led to reformulate some of the most difficult questions in philosophy. He develops a counterintuitive but powerful theory of apocalyptic prophecy: once a major catastrophe appears to be possible, one must assume that it will in fact occur. Dupuy shows that the contradictions and paradoxes riddling discussions of deterrence arise from the tension between two opposite conceptions of time: one in which the future depends on decisions and strategy, and another in which every occurring event is one that could not have failed to occur. Considering the immense destructive power of nuclear warheads and the almost unimaginable ruin they are bound to cause, Dupuy reaches a provocative conclusion: whether they bring about good or evil does not depend on the present or future intentions of those who are in a position to use them. The mere possession of nuclear weapons is a moral abomination.

World Peace Through Law

World Peace Through Law PDF Author: James Taylor Ranney
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351348744
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 126

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Book Description
This book deals with the history and future of the concept of ‘world peace through law’ (WPTL), which advocates replacing the use of international force with the global rule of law. WPTL calls for replacing war with the global rule of law by arms reductions, including the abolition of nuclear weapons, global alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, and various enforcement mechanisms. This book sets forth a three-part proposal: 1) arms reductions – primarily the abolition of nuclear weapons, with necessarily concomitant reductions in conventional forces; 2) a four-stage system of global alternative dispute resolution (ADR), utilizing both law and equity; 3) adequate enforcement mechanisms, including a UN Peace Force. The core of this proposal is alternative dispute resolution mechanisms—international ADR. International ADR would consist of a four-stage process of compulsory negotiation, compulsory mediation, compulsory arbitration., and compulsory adjudication by the World Court. The fundamental proposition of this book is that the use of alternatives to war, global ADR, is the ultimate solution to the problem of peace. The full implementation of WPTL will entail a vast array of progressive initiatives on many fronts, including abolition of nuclear weapons, with the global rule of law being the capstone to all of these developments. This book will be of great interest to students of peace studies, arms control, international law, and world politics.

Challenging nuclearism

Challenging nuclearism PDF Author: Marianne Hanson
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526165082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Challenging nuclearism explores how a deliberate ‘normalisation’ of nuclear weapons has been constructed, why it has prevailed in international politics for over seventy years and why it is only now being questioned seriously. The book identifies how certain practices have enabled a small group of states to hold vast arsenals of these weapons of mass destruction and how the close control over nuclear decisions by a select group has meant that the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons have been disregarded for decades. The recent UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons will not bring about quick disarmament. It has been decried by the nuclear weapon states. But by rejecting nuclearism and providing a clear denunciation of nuclear weapons, it will challenge nuclear states in a way that has until now not been possible. Challenging nuclearism analyses the origins and repercussions of this pivotal moment in nuclear politics.

North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order

North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order PDF Author: Edward Howell
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192888323
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
For a state that has gained a global reputation as a violator of international norms, not least through its unwavering pursuit of nuclear weapons, North Korea's determination to become a nuclear-armed state is puzzling. If nuclear weapons beget security, insecurity, and other costs for the state, how might we understand this pursuit, and the delinquent behaviour that has arisen from it? In North Korea and the Global Nuclear Order, Edward Howell offers an answer to this question, focusing on North Korea's quest for status in the international system and developing the theoretical framework of 'strategic delinquency'. Featuring previously unpublished and new interviews with international negotiators with North Korea, and drawing upon new academic literature, Howell proffers an original theoretical framework to apply to the North Korean case. Covering a time period from the 1990s to the present-day, and using unprecedentedly rich empirical evidence, he makes the overarching argument that North Korea has strategically deployed behaviour that breaks international norms in order to reap benefits. In so doing, this book posits how over time, North Korea has learnt that despite the low status and opprobrium that might ensue, bad behaviour can pay.