Italian Physicists and the Bomb: Edoardo Amaldi’s Network for Arms Control and Peace during the Cold War

2021 ◽  
pp. 002200942098052
Author(s):  
Lodovica Clavarino
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Leading Role ◽  
Edoardo Amaldi ◽  
Industrial Use ◽  
Scientific Expertise ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
The Cold War

This article investigates the contribution of the Italian physicist Edoardo Amaldi to the anti-nuclear peace movement at national and international level. Amaldi (1908–89) was one of the leading nuclear physicists of the twentieth century. He grew up in the extraordinary environment of the ‘Via Panisperna Boys’, a group of young physicists active in Rome during the late 1920s and 1930s, under Enrico Fermi’s leadership. Yet Amaldi was not only a renowned academic but also an avid supporter of the movement against the nuclear arms race. He advocated the peaceful and industrial use of nuclear energy and tenaciously opposed its military exploitation. The only Italian invited to the first Pugwash meeting in 1957, he soon played a leading role in the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs and other similar events throughout his life. During the 1970s and 1980s, Amaldi – and many others among his colleagues – campaigned for a different security policy based on détente and broad transnational dialogue across the Cold War blocs. This essay focuses on some practical initiatives of the Italian community of physicists, underlying the political and civil use of their scientific expertise.

New ''Cold War''

2020 ◽  
pp. 27-34
Author(s):  
Vladimir Batiuk
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Armed Conflict ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Ideological Struggle ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Nuclear Arms

In this article, the ''Cold War'' is understood as a situation where the relationship between the leading States is determined by ideological confrontation and, at the same time, the presence of nuclear weapons precludes the development of this confrontation into a large-scale armed conflict. Such a situation has developed in the years 1945–1989, during the first Cold War. We see that something similar is repeated in our time-with all the new nuances in the ideological struggle and in the nuclear arms race.

National Security and Public Anxiety: Our Changing Perceptions

2010 ◽  
pp. 32-40
Author(s):  
Sir Richard Dearlove
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Private Citizens ◽  
Russian Military ◽  
Full Force ◽  
The Cold War

This article discusses the changing perceptions on national security and civic anxiety. During the Cold War and its aftermath, security was rather a simple and straightforward issue. The countries knew their enemies, where they are and the threats they presented. On the event that, the enemies's secrets were unknown, probing techniques were employed to determine the weaknesses of the enemy. This formulaic situation which seeped through in to the twenty-first century left little room for innovation. In fact, in some countries, security maintained at the Cold War levels despite criticisms that new and emerging national security threats should be addressed at a new level. Of the powerful nations, America maintained the role of a world policeman and adapted its national security priorities according to its perception of a new series of strategic threats; however these new security strategies were without a sense of urgency. However, the perception of global threats and national security radically changed in the event of the 9/11 attack. The sleeping national security priorities of America came to a full force which affected the national security priorities of other nations as well. In the twenty-first globalized world, no conflict remains a regional clash. The reverberations of the Russian military action in Georgia, the Israeli intervention in Gaza, and the results of the attacks in Mumbai resonates loudly and rapidly through the wider international security system. While today, nations continue to seek new methods for addressing new security threats, the paradox of the national security policy is that nation-states have lost their exclusive grip of their own security at a time when the private citizens are assailed by increased fears for their own security and demand a more enhanced safety from the state. Nation-states have been much safer from large-scale violence, however there exists a strong sense of anxiety about the lack of security in the face of multiplicity of threats. Nations have been largely dependent on international coordinated action to achieve their important national security objectives. National policies and security theory lack precision. In addition, the internationalization of national security has eroded the distinction between domestic and foreign security. These blurring lines suggest that the understanding of national security is still at the height of transformations.

An unfinished battle: George C. Marshall and intelligence in the early Cold War

2021 ◽  
pp. 096834452110179
Author(s):  
Raphaël Ramos
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Central Intelligence Agency ◽  
Truman Administration ◽  
Intelligence Community ◽  
Intelligence Agency ◽  
Covert Action ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article deals with the influence of Gen. George C. Marshall on the foundation of the US intelligence community after the Second World War. It argues that his uneven achievements demonstrate how the ceaseless wrangling within the Truman administration undermined the crafting of a coherent intelligence policy. Despite his bureaucratic skills and prominent positions, Marshall struggled to achieve his ends on matters like signals intelligence, covert action, or relations between the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency. Yet he crafted an enduring vision of how intelligence should supplement US national security policy that remained potent throughout the Cold War and beyond.

scholarly journals Preventing Nuclear Weapon Proliferation as Nuclear Power Expands

MRS Bulletin ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 33 (4) ◽  
pp. 340-342 ◽  
Author(s):  
Siegfried S. Hecker
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Global Climate Change ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Power ◽  
Nuclear Energy ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Energy Sources ◽  
Nuclear Attack ◽  
The Cold War

Raj et al. describe the promise of nuclear energy as a sustainable, affordable, and carbon-free source available this century on a scale that can help meet the world's growing need for energy and help slow the pace of global climate change. However, the factor of millions gain in energy release from nuclear fssion compared to all conventional energy sources that tap the energy of electrons (Figure 1) has also been used to create explosives of unprecedented lethality and, hence, poses a serious challenge to the expansion of nuclear energy worldwide. Although the end of the cold war has eliminated the threat of annihilating humanity, the likelihood of a devastating nuclear attack has increased as more nations, subnational groups, and terrorists seek to acquire nuclear weapons.

Continuity and Change in British Thinking about Nuclear Weapons

1994 ◽  
Vol 42 (2) ◽  
pp. 228-242 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Croft
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Policy Debate ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Continuity And Change ◽  
Mind Set ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Constant Argument

For almost fifty years there has been constant argument between those who have supported the development and possession of nuclear weapons by Britain and those opposed to those policies. This article argues that there has been a continuity in the arguments made by policy-makers and their critics, both operating within an unchanging series of linked assumptions forming a paradigm or mind-set. This article sets out the character of the assumptions of the orthodox and alternative thinkers, as they are termed in the article, examining their coherence and differences, particularly during the cold war. It concludes by attempting to draw out some implications for the British security policy debate in the post-cold war period.

scholarly journals Transformations of the national security concepts of Belarus and Russia and historical policy: substantive aspects

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-99
Author(s):  
A.A. Mushta ◽  
◽  
T.V. Rastimehina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Holistic Concept ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Cold War

The interrelated concepts of memory policy, historical policy and security policy are considered. It is shown that in Russia and in the Republic of Belarus there is a steady trend of securitization of historical policy and memory policy. The tendencies of indoctrination of the securitist model of historical policy into official documents of both states are considered. It is shown that both in Belarus and in Russia, the internal political confrontation is considered in the historicist construct of the Cold War. It is argued that in the context of the need to deepen integration within the framework of the Union State, it is necessary to search for a relatively unified holistic concept of history for all the forces of Russian and Belarusian societies.

On the group matrix and the morality of the nuclear deterrent: The worldview of Gregory van der Kleij

2018 ◽  
Vol 51 (3) ◽  
pp. 368-376
Author(s):  
Harold Behr
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Moral Dilemma ◽  
Second World War ◽  
World War ◽  
Group Matrix ◽  
The Holocaust ◽  
Nuclear Arms Race ◽  
High Level ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Second World

This article presents the writings of Gregory van der Kleij, group analyst and Catholic priest, whose experiences of the holocaust during the Second World War shaped his thinking, not only as a therapist but also as a campaigner against the nuclear arms race. The author re-visits two significant articles on the group matrix published in this journal in the 1980s and introduces the reader to a little-known monograph addressed to the Catholic community which examines the moral dilemma faced by Christians during the Cold War. The monograph contains an exhortation to rise up in protest against what Gregory considers to be ‘the madness’ of high-level thinking on the morality of the nuclear deterrent.

Dreams of Freedom, Temptations of Power

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-280
Author(s):  
Melvyn P. Leffler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
September 11 ◽  
World War ◽  
Memory Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
September 11 Attacks ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter considers the end of the Cold War as well as its implications for the September 11 attacks in 2001, roughly a decade after the Cold War ended. While studying the Cold War, the chapter illustrates how memory and values as well as fear and power shaped the behavior of human agents. Throughout that struggle, the divergent lessons of World War II pulsated through policymaking circles in Moscow and Washington. Now, in the aftermath of 9/11, governments around the world drew upon the lessons they had learned from their divergent national experiences as those experiences had become embedded in their respective national memories. For policymakers in Washington, memories of the Cold War and dreams of human freedom tempted the use of excessive power with tragic consequences. Memory, culture, and values played a key role in shaping the evolution of U.S. national security policy.

Helmut Schmidt, Euromissiles, and the Peace Movement

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (1) ◽  
pp. 148-171
Author(s):  
Noel D. Cary
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Ronald Reagan ◽  
The United States ◽  
Peace Movement ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Nuclear Missiles ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Vladimir Putin

On February 1, 2019, President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from a landmark Cold War treaty: the agreement between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev to ban intermediate-range nuclear missiles from Europe. One day after Trump's announcement, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia would also withdraw from the treaty. Allegations of Russian violations in recent years have thus led to actions that threaten to return Europe to some of the most frightening days of the Cold War.

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