The Quest for Domestic Politics in the American Nuclear Arms Control (original) (raw)
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The Political Effects of Nuclear Weapons
International Security, 1988
Perhaps the most striking characteristic of the postwar world is just that-it can be called "postwar" because the major powers have not fought each other since 1945. Such a lengthy period of peace among the most powerful states is unprecedented.1 Almost as unusual is the caution with which each superpower has treated the other. Although we often model superpower relations as a game of chicken, in fact the U.S. and USSR have not behaved like reckless teenagers. Indeed, superpower crises are becoming at least as rare as wars were in the past. Unless one strains and counts 1973, we have gone over a quarter of a century without a severe crisis. Furthermore, in those that have occurred, each side has been willing to make concessions to avoid venturing too near the brink of war. Thus the more we see of the Cuban missile crisis, the more it appears as a compromise rather than an American victory. Kennedy was not willing to withhold all inducements and push the Russians as hard as he could if this required using force or even continuing the volatile confrontation.2 It has been common to attribute these effects to the existence of nuclear weapons. Because neither side could successfully protect itself in an all-out war, no one could win-or, to use John Mueller's phrase, profit from it.3 Of The author would like to thank John Mueller for comments.
The Evolution of the Us Strategy Toward the Nuclear Nonproliferation After the Cold War
Міжнародні відносини, суспільні комунікації та регіональні студії, 2020
The article analyzes the US strategy in the nonproliferation field during three decades (in 1990s – 2018) and during the presidency of four US presidents (Bill Clinton, George Bush, Barack Obama, and Donald Trump). The author considers the key guidelines of US nonproliferation strategy that are described in four Nuclear Posture Reviews (NPR) issued by each post-Cold War presidential administration. These documents describe the US nuclear policy in general, but the author focused on analysis of those their sections that were devoted to dealing with the risks of proliferation of nuclear weapons. The National Security Strategies of 1996 and 2002 were also analyzed in the article to clarify the nonproliferation aspects of US strategy that were not explained well in the published excerpts of the first two Nuclear Posture Reviews of presidents Bill Clinton and George Bush. As George Bush faced with the new challenges that required developing updated nonproliferation strategy like he terro...
Given the destabilising effects of a new nuclear power, the risks of reactive proliferation and the reduction of its freedom of actions, the United States has always been concerned about nuclear proliferation and has always tried to curb the spread of nuclear weapons both among its allies and its enemies. With the end of the Cold War, the demand for nuclear weapons has seen a renewed increase. Countries previously under the Soviet nuclear umbrella or those already entangled in regional conflicts with the US, found themselves in a new precarious security situation. At the same time, the United States - as the sole remaining superpower - together with the international community, acquired the capacity to intervene and actively constrain proliferation (both militarily and diplomatically) even in hostile countries previously under Soviet influence. This evolution of the international system put proliferation and counterproliferation in a whole new dimension, centred around the complicated relations between the new proliferators, their neighbouring countries, the US and the other Great Powers of the international community. Consequently, the very interactions between these actors’ conflicting domestic politics and geopolitical interests became crucial. This work analyses the evolution of the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs, two countries traditionally hostile toward the United States, and the various counterproliferation strategies that the different American administrations have implemented, since the end of the Cold War to constrain them. The main focus will be on the Obama presidency in order to understand the reasons that motivated two opposite counterproliferation strategies toward the two regimes and to compare the consequent different outcomes.
“Atomic Diplomacy and National Security in a New World Order: A 60 Year Perspective.”
Few events have provoked as many questions as the dropping of the first atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Did the use of the atomic bomb save the lives of upwards of one million American soldiers destined to launch an invasion of the Japanese home islands in November 1945? If so, was this motive paramount in the minds of those who decided to use this weapon? If not, was Harry S. Truman’s principal motive to intimidate the Soviet Union? Such questions have caused enormous outpourings of emotion over the past few decades.1 The question that I explore is: How did the Truman administration come to have this revolutionary weapon? My research examines the Anglo-American partnership in atomic research from a political and scientific perspective, with emphasis on the political. It analyzes the internal dynamics of the British and American atomic energy programs to demonstrate that for both governments, the decision to devote massive resources to attempt to produce an atomic bomb was principally political. To the United Kingdom, possession of a nuclear weapon meant two things, the first of which was the ability to maintain postwar control of its empire. Secondly, an atomic capability would insure Britain’s security in Europe in the event that the United States retreated into postwar isolation. To the United States, control of a nuclear weapon meant the ability to implement its world-view, the construction of a postwar liberal-capitalist democratic world order. And of course, underlying these motives was the desire to beat Adolph Hitler to the bomb. A study of the politics of the atom sheds light on more than just the Anglo-American wartime alliance. It helps explains the fundamental character of Cold War American political discourse. At the heart of America’s atomic research program was the extension of American military research to American universities on a scale that had never before been seen. This infusion of military dollars into the civilian scientific community in this way laid the foundation of the postwar Military-Industrial Complex. The origins of the Military-Industrial Complex lies in the institutional framework that Vannevar Bush, a former Professor of Engineering at MIT, and James Conant, a chemist and former President of Harvard University, created through the National Defense Research Committee and the Office of Strategic Research and Development. The NDRC and OSRD, which President Franklin Roosevelt established within the White House Office of Emergency Management, was directly controlled by the Executive branch in close concert with the United States Army and Navy. This system not only set a precedent for close ties between the military, universities, and the scientific community; it led to an increase in Executive power. This latter development had a tremendous impact on future American Cold War politics. In an effort to maintain secrecy, the White House never informed Congress about its effort to construct an atomic bomb, even though Congress appropriated over $2 billion for this purpose. The attitude of Franklin Roosevelt’s White House toward Congress set a precedent for recent examples of covert Executive behavior, such as the aiding of Nicaraguan Contras in the 1980s and the arming of Bosnian Muslims in the 1990s.
Journal for Peace and Nuclear Disarmament, 2023
Stephen Herzog reviews "The Hegemon’s Tool Kit: US Leadership and the Politics of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Regime" by Rebecca Davis Gibbons, published by Cornell University Press in 2022.