National Government Policy Options for Contributing to Regional Economic Stability: The US Department of Energy's Major Nuclear Weapons Sites

AbstractThe Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) will not be effective until all the 44 states listed in its Annex 2 ratify it. A special link has been established between the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and the CTBT. The disarmament obligation set by Article VI of the NPT, which has not yet been complied with, remains highly controversial. The relevant subsequent practice of the states parties to the NPT shows that the ratification of the CTBT is to be considered the first of the practical steps towards compliance with Article VI. However, as the practical steps do not set any legally binding norms, there is no legal obligation to ratify the CTBT, not even for the 44 states listed in Annex 2 whose ratification is essential. The paper deals with the position of nuclear powers party to the NPT that have not yet ratified the CTBT (most prominently the US and China) and demonstrates that these states should at least provide detailed motivation for their conduct. Otherwise, other states parties to the NPT could consider them as not complying in good faith with Article VI of the NPT and invoke the inadimplenti non est ademplendum rule to justify breaches of their own obligations under the same treaty.

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Hitler's Antarctic base: the myth and the reality

Polar Record ◽

10.1017/s003224740600578x ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 43 (1) ◽

pp. 1-21 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Colin Summerhayes ◽

Peter Beeching

Keyword(s):

Soviet Union ◽

Nuclear Weapons ◽

Background Knowledge ◽

The Arctic ◽

Lack Of Information ◽

The Soviet Union ◽

The Us ◽

Us Navy ◽

Dronning Maud Land ◽

Do So

In January-February 1939, a secret German expedition visited Dronning (or Queen) Maud Land, Antarctica, apparently with the intention inter alia of establishing a base there. Between 1943 and 1945 the British launched a secret wartime Antarctic operation, code-named Tabarin. Men from the Special Air Services Regiment (SAS), Britain's covert forces for operating behind the lines, appeared to be involved. In July and August 1945, after the German surrender, two U-boats arrived in Argentina. Had they been to Antarctica to land Nazi treasure or officials? In the southern summer of 1946–1947, the US Navy appeared to ‘invade’ Antarctica using a large force. The operation, code-named Highjump, was classified confidential. In 1958, three nuclear weapons were exploded in the region, as part of another classified US operation, code-named Argus. Given the initial lack of information about these various activities, it is not, perhaps, surprising that some people would connect them to produce a pattern in which governments would be accused of suppressing information about ‘what really happened’, and would use these pieces of information to construct a myth of a large German base existing in Antarctica and of allied efforts to destroy it. Using background knowledge of Antarctica and information concerning these activities that has been published since the early 1940s, it is demonstrated: that the two U-Boats could not have reached Antarctica; that there was no secret wartime German base in Dronning Maud Land; that SAS troops did not attack the alleged German base; that the SAS men in the region at the time had civilian jobs; that Operation Highjump was designed to train the US Navy for a possible war with the Soviet Union in the Arctic, and not to attack an alleged German base in Antarctica; and that Operation Argus took place over the ocean more than 2000 km north of Dronning Maud Land. Activities that were classified have subsequently been declassified and it is no longer difficult to separate fact from fancy, despite the fact that many find it attractive not to do so.

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Jacksonian Consular Reform and the Forging of America’s First Global Bureaucracy

Journal of Policy History ◽

10.1017/s089803062100018x ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 33 (4) ◽

pp. 401-428

Author(s):

SIMEON ANDONOV SIMEONOV

Keyword(s):

Foreign Policy ◽

South America ◽

Government Policy ◽

Government Regulation ◽

Central Government ◽

Us Foreign Policy ◽

National Character ◽

Department Of State ◽

The Us ◽

Professional Bureaucracy

AbstractAs revolutions swept across Central and South America in the 1820s and 1830s, Andrew Jackson’s administration undertook a landmark reform that transformed the US foreign policy apparatus into the nation’s first global bureaucracy. With the introduction of Edward Livingston’s 1833 consular reform bill to Congress, the nation embarked on a long path toward the modernization of its consular service in line with the powers of Europe and the new American republics. Despite the popularity of Livingston’s plan to turn a dated US consular service comprised of mercantile elites into a salaried professional bureaucracy, the Jacksonian consular reform dragged on for more than two decades before the passing of a consular bill in 1856. Contrary to Weberian models positing a straightforward path toward bureaucratization, the trajectory of Jacksonian consular reform demonstrates the power of mercantile elites to resist central government regulation just as much as it highlights how petty partisans—the protégé consuls appointed via the Jacksonian “spoils system”—powerfully shaped government policy to achieve personal advantages. In the constant tug-of-war between merchant-consuls and Jacksonian protégés, both groups mobilized competing visions of the “national character” in their correspondence with the Department of State and in the national press. Ultimately, the Jacksonian reform vision of an egalitarian and loyal consular officialdom prevailed over the old mercantile model of consulship as a promoter of national prestige and commercial expertise, but only after protégé consuls successfully exploited merchant-consuls’ perceived inability to compete with the salaried European officials across the sister-republics of the southwestern hemisphere.

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Iraq versus the United States

Tempting Fate ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501740381.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 40-62

Author(s):

Paul C. Avey

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Decision Making ◽

Nuclear Weapons ◽

Regime Change ◽

The United States ◽

Civil Defense ◽

Military Action ◽

The Us ◽

Saddam Hussein ◽

Political Dispute

This chapter provides a background for Iraqi behavior during the period of American nuclear monopoly beginning in 1979 when Saddam Hussein was officially Iraqi president, focusing most heavily on events in 1989–1991. In an intense political dispute, Iraqi leadership took actions they believed would fall below the threshold of nuclear use. Most of the limitations that Iraq exhibited were due to its own weakness; it could do little more. For Iraq as a weak actor, war with the United States was possible precisely because it would pose such a low danger to the United States. Even then, Iraqi leadership incorporated the US nuclear arsenal into their decision making in 1990–1991. That confrontation is the most important to examine because it involved Iraqi military action that Iraqi leaders believed would invite some form of US response, and US compellent demands did not center on Iraqi regime change. In 1990, Saddam and his lieutenants held their own unconventional weapons in reserve and discounted an American nuclear strike because of the high strategic costs that such a strike would impose on the United States. They also undertook various civil defense measures to minimize losses from nuclear strikes. Fortunately, the Americans had little intention of using nuclear weapons and did not face a need to resort to nuclear use.

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The United States and Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Program, 1961–1973

Defending Frenemies ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190939304.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 64-111

Author(s):

Jeffrey W. Taliaferro

Keyword(s):

Middle East ◽

Nuclear Weapons ◽

Power Distribution ◽

The United States ◽

Johnson Administration ◽

Arms Transfers ◽

The Us ◽

Nuclear Issue ◽

Secondary Objective ◽

The Cold War

Chapter 3 posits that the overriding objective of the Kennedy, Johnson, and Nixon administrations was to avoid containment failure in the Middle East. Thwarting the Israeli nuclear weapons program was a secondary objective. As Soviet arms sales to Egypt and Syria accelerated in the mid-1960s, the regional power distribution became unfavorable and the time horizons of threats to US interests grew shorter. The Johnson administration abandoned Kennedy’s demands for inspections of the Dimona reactor and instead sold M-48 tanks, A-4 Skyhawks, and later F-12 Phantoms to bolster Israel’s defenses. Congress, however, made it difficult for the Johnson and the Nixon administrations to link arms transfers to Israeli concessions on the nuclear issue. Chapter 3 examines the evolution of the US-Israeli strategic relationship against the backdrop of the Cold War from Kennedy’s demands for inspections in 1961 through the October 1973 Middle East War.

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Precarious Labor and the Contestation of Policymaking in Japan

Contesting Precarity in Japan ◽

10.7591/cornell/9781501749926.003.0006 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 90-108

Author(s):

Saori Shibata

Keyword(s):

Government Policy ◽

Policy Outcomes ◽

Political Elites ◽

Policy Options ◽

Public Attention ◽

The Public ◽

Policy Goals ◽

Precarious Labor ◽

The Impact

This chapter examines the impact of Japan's precarious workers' movement on policymaking in Japan, highlighting three cases through which one can witness the effects of opposition mobilized by Japanese nonregular workers on policy outcomes. In each case, one witnesses political elites being forced to respond to successful mobilizations by precarious workers and organizations that have emerged to represent their interests. These mobilizations have served to attract public attention to the impact that neoliberal government policy has on precarious workers. When faced with criticism and opposition from the public, on each occasion governments were forced either to compromise on policy goals or proposals or to abolish or postpone policies to reduce criticism. While precarious workers were not always able to achieve all of their goals, collectively they have become an important actor that is able to gain concessions or raise significant obstacles to the implementation of neoliberal policy options so that their demands must be accommodated in some way.

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