Summary
Deadly Arsenals provides the most up-to-date and comprehensive assessment available on global proliferation dangers, with a critical assessment of international enforcement efforts. An invaluable resource for academics, policymakers, students, and the media, this atlas includes strategic and historical analysis; maps, charts, and graphs of the spread of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons and missile delivery systems; descriptions of the weapons and regimes—and policies to control them; and data on countries that have, want, or have given up weapons of mass destruction. The new edition addresses the recent, dramatic developments in Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, and the nuclear black market, analyzing strategic and policy implications. A Choice outstanding academic title from one of the premier nonproliferation research teams.
Country or Region: United States
Cirincione, Joseph
Summary
Since their inception, nuclear weapons have multiplied at an alarming rate, leaving everyone from policymakers to concerned citizens wondering what it will take to slow, stop, or even reverse their spread. With clarity and expertise, Joseph Cirincione presents an even-handed look at the history of nuclear proliferation and an optimistic vision of its future, providing a comprehensive survey of the wide range of critical perspectives.
Cirincione begins with the first atomic discoveries of the 1930s and covers the history of their growth all the way to current crisis with Iran. He unravels the science, strategy, and politics that have fueled the development of nuclear stockpiles and increased the chance of a nuclear terrorist attack. He also explains why many nations choose not to pursue nuclear weapons and pulls from this the outlines of a solution to the world’s proliferation problem: a balance of force and diplomacy, enforcement and engagement that yields a steady decrease in these deadly arsenals.
Though nuclear weapons have not been used in war since August 1945, there is no guarantee this good fortune will continue. A unique blend of history, theory, and security analysis, Bomb Scare is an engaging text that not only supplies the general reader and student with a clear understanding of this issue but also provides a set of tools policymakers and scholars can use to prevent the cataclysmic consequences of another nuclear attack.
Chafetz, Glenn
Talbott, Strobe
Summary
On May 11, 1998, three nuclear devices detonated under the Thar Desert in India shook the surrounding villages –and the rest of the world. The immediate effect was to plunge U.S.-India relations, already vexed by decades of tension and estrangement, into a new crisis. The situation deteriorated further when Pakistan responded in kind two weeks later, testing a nuclear weapon for the first time. Engaging India is the firsthand story of the diplomacy conducted between the United States and the two South Asian neighbors after the nuclear tests. In this book, the American point man for the dialogue takes us behind the scenes of one of the most suspenseful and consequential diplomatic dramas of our time, reconstructing what happened –and why –with narrative verve, rich human detail, and penetrating analysis.
From June 1998 to September 2000, in what was the most extensive dialogue ever between the United States and India, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott and Indian Minister of External Affairs Jaswant Singh met fourteen times in seven countries on three continents. They discussed both the immediate items on the security and nonproliferation agenda, as well as their wider visions for the U.S.-India relationship and the potential for economic and strategic cooperation between the two countries. As the relationship improved over the course of the talks, the United States was to able play a role in averting the possibility of nuclear war over the contested territory of Kashmir in the summer of 1999 –the specifics of which are included for the first time in this book, told in way only a protagonist can. The Talbott-Singh diplomacy laid the groundwork for the transformational visit of President Bill Clinton to India in March 2000 and helped end fifty years of estrangement between the world’s two largest democracies. As pursuit of Islamic militants continues across South Asia, the increased cooperation established by Talbott and Singh will be an invaluable asset for current and future leaders of both countries.
This book provides, for the first time, an insider’s perspective on the ground-breaking efforts to build a cordial relationship between the United States and India. The general reader will find it accessible, and more important, an indispensable tool for understanding America’s current role in South Asia, and the prospects for improved relations.
Ogilvie-White, Tanya, and David Santoro, eds.
Summary
From the publisher: In recent decades the debate on nuclear weapons has focused overwhelmingly on proliferation and nonproliferation dynamics. In a series of Wall Street Journal articles, however, George Shultz, William Perry, Henry Kissinger, and Sam Nunn called on governments to rid the world of nuclear weapons, helping to put disarmament back into international security discussions. More recently, U.S. president Barack Obama, prominent U.S. congressional members of both political parties, and a number of influential foreign leaders have espoused the idea of a world free of nuclear weapons.
Turning this vision into reality requires an understanding of the forces driving disarmament forward and those holding it back. Slaying the Nuclear Dragon provides in-depth, objective analysis of current nuclear disarmament dynamics. Examining the political, state-level factors that drive and stall progress, contributors highlight the challenges and opportunities faced by proponents of disarmament. These essays show that although conditions are favorable for significant reductions, numerous hurdles still exist. Contributors look at three categories of states: those that generate momentum for disarmament; those with policies that are problematic for disarmament; and those that actively hinder progress—whether openly, secretly, deliberately, or inadvertently.
Medeiros, Evan
Summary
Reluctant Restraint examines one of the most important changes in Chinese foreign policy since the country opened to the world: China’s gradual move to support the nonproliferation of nuclear weapons, missiles, and their related goods and technologies. Once a critic of the global nonproliferation regime, China is now a supporter of it, although with some reservations. Medeiros analyzes how and why Chinese nonproliferation policies have evolved so substantially since the early 1980s. He argues that U.S. diplomacy has played a significant and enduring role in shaping China’s gradual recognition of the dangers of proliferation, and in its subsequent altered behavior.
Basrur, Rajesh M. and Cohen, Stephen Philip
Abstract
This book considers the nuclear futures of India and Pakistan, respectively. Noting the multiplicity of actors affecting India’s future nuclear posture, Basrur and Cohen propose three basic scenarios and then consider how variations in ten of the most important factors – including India’s relations with Pakistan and China, the role of the United States, and the number and types of nuclear weapons – could shape which of the three ideal-type scenarios India will most closely approximate.
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Hemmer, Christopher M., and Peter J. Katzenstein
Summary
In this paper, we explain why the U.S. government chose multilateral security arrangements in Europe and bilateral ones in Asia in the 1940s and 1950s. After reviewing the inadequacies of a number of universal and indeterminate explanations, we put forward three explanations—great power status, efficient responses to threats, and regional identity—which rely on the combination of material and social forces for their explanatory power. Starting with common rationalist explanations that focus on material capabilities and institutional efficiency to explain the forms of international cooperation, we add to them the important effect that America’s collective identity had on the formulation of its foreign policy goals. U.S. policymakers believed that the United States was a natural part of the North Atlantic community but that Southeast Asia was part of an alien political community. This difference helped drive the U.S. government to adopt divergent policies in two regions that, far from being natural, were constructed politically only in the 1940s. We conclude by pointing to the advantage of eclectic combinations of rationalist and constructivist insights, with an extension to the politics of regional collective identity in the 1990s.
Hachigian, Nina, and Sutphen, Mona
Summary
The rise of other global powers is most often posed as a sorry tale, full of threats to America’s primacy, prosperity, and way of life. The potential loss of our #1 status implies a blow to our safety, economy, and prestige.
But this is a rare moment in history: none of the world’s big powers is our adversaries. In The Next American Century, Nina Hachigian and Mona Sutphen show that the “pivotal powers” — China, Europe, India, Japan, and Russia — seek greater influence, but each has an enormous stake in the world economy and a keen desire to thwart common threats. India is a key ally in the struggle against terrorism. China’s help is essential to containing pandemic disease. Russia is leading an effort to keep nuclear devices out of terrorists’ hands. Japan and Europe are critical partners in tackling climate change. None of these countries is a direct military or ideological challenger. In fact, their gains largely help, rather than hurt, America’s continuing prosperity, growth, and, to some extent, even its values. Will we have conflicts with these powers? Definitely. Some will be serious. But, by and large, they want what we want: a stable world and better lives for their citizens. We live in an era of opportunity, not of loss.
To take advantage of this moment, the United States must get its own house in order, making sure that American children can compete, American workers can adjust, America’s military remains cutting-edge, and American diplomacy entices rather than alienates. While America must be prepared for the possibility that a hostile superpower may one day emerge, it has to be careful not to turn a distant, uncertain threat into an immediate one. Washington should welcome the pivotal powers into a vigorous international order to share the burden of solving pressing global problems of peace, climate, health, and growth.
The avenue to a truly safer and more prosperous world runs through the pivotal powers. With them, we can build a world where Americans will thrive, today and tomorrow.
Goh, Evelyn
Summary
Traditional friends and allies of the United States in East Asia acknowledge that a key determinant of stability in the region has been the U.S. presence and its role as a security guarantor. In the post-Cold War period, regional uncertainties about the potential dangers attending a rising China have led some analysts to conclude that almost all Southeast Asian states now see the United States as the critical balancing force, both in the military and political-economic spheres. The existing literature on this Southeast Asia-U.S.-China security dynamic tends to assume that China’s rise is leading to a systemic power transition scenario in which the region will have to choose between a rising challenger and the incumbent power. The de facto expectation is that these countries will want to balance against China on the basis that a rising China is threatening. Thus, they will flock toward the United States as the lead balancer. Yet, most key states in the region face complex pressures with regard to China’s growing role and do not perceive themselves as having the stark choices of either balancing against or bandwagoning with this powerful neighbor. For Southeast Asia, there is a consensus among analysts that the subregion has adopted a twin strategy of deep engagement with China on the one hand and, on the other, “soft balancing” against potential Chinese aggression or disruption of the status quo. The latter strategy includes not only military acquisitions and modernization but also attempts to keep the United States involved in the region as a counterweight to Chinese power.
This study probes the nature of the Southeast Asian regional security dynamic by investigating the regional security strategies of three key states: Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam. Working from the premise that the United States is the vital security player in the region, the focus is on how these states envisage the United States acting out its role as security guarantor vis-à-vis the China challenge. That is, this study fleshes out Southeast Asia’s so-called hedging strategies against China—and particularly the role of the United States in these strategies.
Goh, Evelyn
Abstract
The small and medium-sized states in Southeast Asia have faced significant geostrategic changes with the end of the Cold War and the rise of China. Over the last decade, scholars have debated how these countries would cope with growing Chinese power, and how their relations with the other major powers in the region would change. Some analysts have suggested that the region is shifting toward a more China-centered order, but this view is premature. Eschewing the simple dichotomy of balancing versus bandwagoning, Southeast Asian countries do not want to choose between the two major powers, the United States and China. This avoidance strategy is not merely tactical or time-buying; instead, Southeast Asian states have actively tried to influence the shape of the new regional order. Key Southeast Asian states are pursuing two main pathways to order in the region: the “omni-enmeshment” of major powers and complex balance of influence. They have helped to produce an interim power distribution outcome, which is a hierarchical regional order that retains the United States’ dominant superpower position while incorporating China in a regional great power position just below that of the United States.
