U. S. Strategic Nuclear Forces

U. S. Strategic Nuclear Forces PDF Author: Amy F. Woolf
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437920438
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 27

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Book Description
Contents: (1) Introduction; (2) Background: The Strategic Triad: Force Structure and Size During the Cold War; Force Structure and Size After the Cold War; Future Force Structure and Size; (3) Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles: Ongoing Plans and Programs: (a) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles: Peacekeeper; Minuteman III; Minuteman Modernization Programs; Future Programs; (b) Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles: The SSGN Program; The Backfit Program; Basing Changes; Warhead Issues; Modernization Plans and Programs; Future Programs; (c) Bombers: B-1 Bomber; B-2 Bomber; B-52 Bomber; Future Bomber Plans; (4) Issues for Congress: Force Size; Force Structure; Safety, Security, and Management Issues. Illustrations.

U. S. Strategic Nuclear Forces

U. S. Strategic Nuclear Forces PDF Author: Amy F. Woolf
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1437920438
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 27

Get Book Here

Book Description
Contents: (1) Introduction; (2) Background: The Strategic Triad: Force Structure and Size During the Cold War; Force Structure and Size After the Cold War; Future Force Structure and Size; (3) Strategic Nuclear Delivery Vehicles: Ongoing Plans and Programs: (a) Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles: Peacekeeper; Minuteman III; Minuteman Modernization Programs; Future Programs; (b) Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles: The SSGN Program; The Backfit Program; Basing Changes; Warhead Issues; Modernization Plans and Programs; Future Programs; (c) Bombers: B-1 Bomber; B-2 Bomber; B-52 Bomber; Future Bomber Plans; (4) Issues for Congress: Force Size; Force Structure; Safety, Security, and Management Issues. Illustrations.

The Future of the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force

The Future of the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force PDF Author: Lauren Caston
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833076264
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 185

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Book Description
The authors assess alternatives for a next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) across a broad set of potential characteristics and situations. They use the current Minuteman III as a baseline to develop a framework to characterize alternative classes of ICBMs, assess the survivability and effectiveness of possible alternatives, and weigh those alternatives against their cost.

Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Strategy

Reassessing U.S. Nuclear Strategy PDF Author: David W. Kearn
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781604979640
Category : National security
Languages : en
Pages : 252

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Book Description
"This book reassesses the nuclear strategy of the United States. Despite the appearance of continuity in official policy statements, views within the Obama and Trump administrations and across the larger defense policy community have diverged on the appropriate role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security, the optimal nuclear strategy for advancing U.S. interests, force structure requirements, and critical related issues. This is an important book for security and strategic studies and should be of interest to both scholars and practitioners in political science and international relations, especially in the field of nuclear weapons policy"--

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"--

Arms and Influence

Arms and Influence PDF Author: Thomas C. Schelling
Publisher: Yale University Press
ISBN: 0300253486
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
“This is a brilliant and hardheaded book. It will frighten those who prefer not to dwell on the unthinkable and infuriate those who have taken refuge in stereotypes and moral attitudinizing.”—Gordon A. Craig, New York Times Book Review Originally published more than fifty years ago, this landmark book explores the ways in which military capabilities—real or imagined—are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new introduction to the work shows how Schelling’s framework—conceived of in a time of superpowers and mutually assured destruction—still applies to our multipolar world, where wars are fought as much online as on the ground.

China’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrent

China’s Evolving Nuclear Deterrent PDF Author: Eric Heginbotham
Publisher: Rand Corporation
ISBN: 0833096524
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 213

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Book Description
China’s approach to nuclear deterrence has been broadly consistent since its first test in 1964, but it has recently accelerated nuclear force modernization. China’s strategic environment is likely to grow more complex, and nuclear constituencies are gaining a larger bureaucratic voice. Beijing is unlikely to change official nuclear policies but will probably increase emphasis on nuclear deterrence and may adjust the definition of key concepts.

Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice

Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice PDF Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
ISBN: 1428910336
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 369

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Book Description
Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline. The United States has rejected the notion that threatening population centers with nuclear attacks is a legitimate way to assure deterrence. Most recently, it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement based on MAD. American opposition to MAD also is reflected in the Bush administration's desire to develop smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons that would reduce the number of innocent civilians killed in a nuclear strike. Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries' cities at risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea. At a minimum, acquiring nuclear weapons is still viewed as being sensible to face off a hostile neighbor that might strike one's own cities. Thus, our diplomats have been warning China that Japan would be under tremendous pressure to go nuclear if North Korea persisted in acquiring a few crude weapons of its own. Similarly, Israeli officials have long argued, without criticism, that they would not be second in acquiring nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Indeed, given that Israelis surrounded by enemies that would not hesitate to destroy its population if they could, Washington finds Israel's retention of a significant nuclear capability totally "understandable."

Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence

Post-Cold War Conflict Deterrence PDF Author: Naval Studies Board
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309553237
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 244

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Book Description
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.

U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues

U.S. Strategic Nuclear Forces: Background, Developments, and Issues PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 30

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Book Description
During the Cold War, the U.S. nuclear arsenal contained many types of delivery vehicles for nuclear weapons. The longer range systems, which included long-range missiles based on U.S. territory, long-range missiles based on submarines, and heavy bombers that could threaten Soviet targets from their bases in the United States, are known as strategic nuclear delivery vehicles. At the end of the Cold War, in 1991, the United States deployed more than 10,000 warheads on these delivery vehicles. That number has declined to around 6,000 warheads today, and is slated, under the 2002 Moscow Treaty, to decline to 2,200 warheads by the year 2012. At the present time, the U.S. land-based ballistic missile force (ICBMs) consists of 500 Minuteman III ICBMs, each deployed with between one and three warheads, for a total of 1,200 warheads. The Air Force recently deactivated all 50 of the 10- warhead Peacekeeper ICBMs; it plans to eventually deploy Peacekeeper warheads on some of the Minuteman ICBMs. The 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) report also indicated that it planned to eliminate 50 of the Minuteman III missiles, leaving a force of 450 missiles that would carry, perhaps, 500-600 warheads. The Air Force is also modernizing the Minuteman missiles, replacing and upgrading their rocket motors, guidance systems, and other components. The Air Force had expected to begin replacing the Minuteman missiles around 2018, but has decided, instead, to continue to modernize and maintain the existing missiles. The U.S. ballistic missile submarine fleet currently consists of 14 Trident submarines; each carries 24 Trident II (D-5) missiles. The Navy has converted 4 of the original 18 Trident submarines to carry non-nuclear cruise missiles. The remaining submarines currently carry around 2,000 warheads in total, a number that may decline by a few hundred as the United States implements the Moscow Treaty.

Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy

Nuclear Weapons and American Grand Strategy PDF Author: Francis J. Gavin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780815737919
Category : Nuclear arms control
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
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.