Kategoria BISAC: Political Science >> International Relations - Arms Control

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...

Good data, Michael Ward argues, serve to enhance a perception about life as well as to deepen an understanding of reality. This history of the UN's role in fostering international statistics in the postwar period demonstrates how statistics have shaped our understanding of the world. Drawing on well over 40 years of experience working as a statistician and economist in more than two dozen countries around the world, Ward traces the evolution of statistical ideas and how they have responded to the needs of policy while unraveling the question of why certain data were considered important...

This is the first description of the formation of America's nulcear surveillance system. Drawing on interviews with participants and the little documentation available under the Freedom of Information Act, Ziegler and Jacobson tell a story not told before. They shed new light on questions raised in earlier interpretations of the early Cold War years and reveal the origins of a surveillance activity that is implied, but not explained, in today's headlines.

This book provides the first documented description of the genesis and institutionalization of America's nuclear...

Presenting alternative methods of conflict resolution, this examination of the philosophy of peace presents nonlethal weaponry as a solution to the destructiveness of war. Conventional lethal weapons and weapons of mass destruction evolved into an unprecedented 900 billion dollar a year defense industry. This industry and its war makers have taken the lives of an estimated 170 million human beings in this century. A new approach appropriate to the new world order must be found. This study provides a historical analysis of weapons and forces in this century and traces the development of...

This study examines three major bomber aircraft acquisition programs: the B-36, the B-52, and the B-2. The central question for each of these programs is whether they were chosen to fit national strategic objectives or to meet the more narrow political and economic needs of the so-called military-industrial complex. The book concludes that U.S. Air Force senior leadership acquired better bombers than did civilian defense leaders. The extensive use of original documents in this book reveals that Air Force generals were less concerned about defending their own interests than previous...

The existence of a national style of warfare, an American Way of War, has been used to characterize fundamental elements of American military strategy. During his tenure as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Colin Powell became the proponent for a strategic framework to guide the consideration of how military forces should be used to support national policy objectives. His framework was reflected in the Chairman's National Military Strategy published in early 1992 after Desert Storm under a concept titled Decisive Force. This book traces the development and evaluates the merits...

If wars are too important to be left to the generals, crises are too dangerous to be left exclusively to the social scientists. Humanistic inquiry has not realized its potential for illuminating these wars of words. Crises occur in a realm foreign to prevailing approaches, but familiar to interpretive approaches to politics. Decision-makers are no longer observers of unmistakable threats: they are interpreters of cryptic texts and symbolic performances. Accordingly, analysts (quite unwittingly) have become interpreters of interpretations--crises inquiry occurs in the archives, not the...

The on-site inspection (OSI) regimes concluded in the last decade to verify major arms control agreements have established unprecedented levels of military cooperation and openness, added military predictability and stability, and provided new verification tools to deal with the proliferation priorities at the century's turn.

This study is the first comprehensive effort to provide an overall understanding of how these regimes evolved, what they do, and how they contribute to national security goals. Rueckert concludes with a discussion of costs and benefits of the current approaches. A...

From riverine operations in the American Civil War and China in the 1860s to the major fleet engagements of the World Wars, plus more recent naval actions in the Falklands/Malvenas War and Gulf War, Lindberg and Todd methodically show how geography has shaped the strategy, tactics, and tools of naval warfare. Alfred T. Mahan was perhaps the first naval professional to recognize and acknowledge fully the influence of geography on navies and naval warfare. Many of his principles of seapower were inherently geographical and influenced both what kind of naval force a state would possess and...

For more than 40 years, U.S. defense policy and the design of military capabilities were driven by the threat to national security posed by the Soviet Union and its allies. As the Soviet Union collapsed, analysts wondered what effect this dramatic change would have upon defense policy and the military capabilities designed to support it. Strangely enough, this development would ultimately have little effect on our defense policy. Over a decade later, American forces are a smaller, but similar version of their Cold War predecessors. The author argues that, despite many suggestions for...

The threat of nuclear weapons did not fade away with the collapse of the Soviet Union. Rather, the geopolitical disorders of the post-Cold War era and the rise of global terrorism have ensured that they remain conspicuously present on the world stage as a serious international concern. With the eight or nine nuclear powers maintaining about 27,000 nuclear weapons in their arsenals to this day, it is clear that they are here to stay for the foreseeable future. The primary mission of these nuclear forces has been and remains deterrence. Using plain language rather than policy jargon, this...

The escalating arms race and increasing pressure for Third World development have created an intensifying competition for scarce resources. The escalation of the arms race has resulted in slower and more uneven economic growth and development. The disappointing history of disarmament efforts and the unsatisfactory results in establishing a new international economic order underlie the reluctance to perceive a viable relationship between development and disarmament. The seventeen articles in part one of this volume focus on some of the major problems faced by Third World countries, the...

This book will appeal to persons interested in national security issues and, more specifically, to those who may want to know more about the manpower and recruiting problems facing the military of the future. The authors come from a wide variety of backgrounds and academic disciplines--including economics, political science, psychology, sociology, operations research, education, and public administration. This book will also appeal to persons interested in human resource issues beyond the military, as well as those interested in tracking trends in the labor force, public opinion,...