scholarly journals Deconstructing the Struggle Against Nuclearism

2022 ◽  
Vol 25 ◽  
pp. 11-23
Author(s):  
Richard A. Falk
Keyword(s):  
Global Stability ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Personal Experience ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Shared Values ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Nuclear Age

In such a complex and uncertain world, it may help to think like a Hindu, and accept contradiction as more in keeping with social and political reality than is finding a right answer to complex policy puzzles. What is almost impossible for those trained within Western frames of reference is to grasp that there are diverse perspectives of understanding that may result in seemingly contradictory recommendations despite shared values and goals. Civilizational perspectives and personal experience inevitably color what we feel, think, and do, and so being likeminded when it comes abolishing nuclear weapons is often coupled with somewhat divergent views on what to advocate when it comes to tactics and priorities. In this spirit, this paper tries to depict a set of reasons why the goal of nuclear disarmament will never be reached so long as arms control and nonproliferation of nuclear weaponry are seen as the pillars of global stability in the nuclear age.

5. Nuclear deterrence and arms control

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph M. Siracusa
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Military Strategy ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Good Luck ◽  
World War ◽  
Political Reality ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
Nuclear Stability

The nuclear revolution, it is argued, caused an era of relative peace. Not all agree. Some suggest that nuclear weapons were actually irrelevant to keeping the peace because a world war had become too costly. ‘Nuclear deterrence and arms control’ considers both sides of the argument. Not until the second decade of the nuclear age was the danger of nuclear weaponry and the perception of this danger enough to give impetus to the concept of deterrence and cause a Cold War stalemate. Deterrence did not emerge as a military strategy, it was just a political reality. Nuclear stability prevailed due to good luck and mutual prudence.

12. The Second Nuclear Age: Nuclear Weapons in the Twenty-First Century

2018 ◽  
pp. 202-219
Author(s):  
C. Dale Walton
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
First Century ◽  
Strategic Culture ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
The World ◽  
The Face ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter examines the role played by nuclear weapons in international politics during and after the cold war, making a distinction between the First Nuclear Age and the ongoing Second Nuclear Age. After providing a background on the First Nuclear Age, the chapter considers the various risks present in the Second Nuclear Age, focusing on issues related to nuclear deterrence, nuclear proliferation networks, strategic culture, and ballistic missile defences. It then discusses the assumption that arms control and disarmament treaties are the best means to further counterproliferation efforts. It also assesses the future of nuclear weapons and whether the world is facing a Third Nuclear Age before concluding with an analysis of the relevance of deterrence in the face of changing political and technological circumstances.

scholarly journals Is Zero Disarmament Possible? Multilateralism and Nuclear Arms Control Treaties

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
P. Sean Morris
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Nuclear Nonproliferation ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Nuclear Forces ◽  
Post Cold War ◽  
Success Stories ◽  
Nuclear Arms Control ◽  
Policy Prescription

This article concerns two Cold War treaties on nuclear nonproliferation and arms control and whether the success of one treaty can be instrumental in leading to the reduction of nuclear weapons. The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) have been essential to world peace. Although it might be impossible to envisage a world free of nuclear weapons, the post-Cold War nuclear posture requires multilateral engagement to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons technology and treaties such as the NPT can be amended to include the INF treaty and therefore lead to further nuclear disarmament. This is because the NPT treaty has been granted indefinite extension and the INF treaty has been one of the success stories in nuclear disarmament and that success should be further built upon. The paper is not an exhaustive discussion of the nuclear treaties regime—rather the arguments and policy prescription in the paper are illustrative.

Disarmament without Agreements?

2005 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
pp. 363-380 ◽  
Author(s):  
Randy Rydell
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Institutional Support ◽  
The Political ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
International Support ◽  
Multilateral Negotiations ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Alternative Approaches ◽  
Multilateral Regimes

AbstractThe literature on arms control and disarmament is replete with studies demonstrating the numerous difficulties in negotiating agreements for the control or elimination of nuclear weapons. These studies stress the time consumed during negotiations, the complexity of the emerging agreements, the trade-offs required to achieve agreement, the political difficulties of treaty ratification, and the alleged advantages of alternative approaches to arms control and disarmament not involving treaties. This essay examines whether treaties and negotiations are in fact dispensable in achieving agreed multilateral disarmament objectives. It surveys recent multilateral efforts in the field of nuclear disarmament and identifies six basic criteria that enjoy broad international support as standards for assessing the merits of disarmament agreements. The essay concludes that tacit understandings and other informal political arrangements offer no substitute for legally-binding treaty obligations. This conclusion leads to several implications affecting the conduct of multilateral negotiations, and the kinds of institutional support required in the negotiating process and for the maintenance of key commitments by the relevant multilateral regimes.

No First Use of Nuclear Weapons

Worldview ◽  
1976 ◽  
Vol 19 (11) ◽  
pp. 9-11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bruce Russett
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
Arms Race ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Weapons Systems ◽  
Nuclear Arms

As a result of nuclear proliferation, new weapons systems, and new strategic doctrines, the danger of nuclear war is increasing. The very modest "arms control" agreements negotiated or in prospect under SALT are totally inadequate to contain this danger. According to Herbert Scoville, "Arms control negotiations have become a mechanism for promoting the arms race rather than controlling it." Even by a less skeptical evaluation the negotiations can at best slow Soviet and American acquisition of new weapons systems. Disarmament in the realm of strategic nuclear arms is nowhere in sight. Other countries, which have long demanded some degree of Soviet-American nuclear disarmament as the price of an effective nonproliferation agreement, can plainly see that their price will not be met.

Strategic Scripts and Nuclear Disarmament

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew Harries ◽  
Benedict Wilkinson
Keyword(s):  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
The Other ◽  
Nuclear Disarmament ◽  
Stable Reduction ◽  
The Way

This chapter spans Freedman’s earliest focus on nuclear weapons and his development of strategic scripts as an analytical tool over three decades later. It discusses the way in which opposing logics of disarmament and armament co-existed in relation to nuclear weapons. It deploys the notion of strategic scripts to explain the contradictions inherent in approaches to nuclear disarmament, developing the concept of strategic scripts as it does so. The notion of scripts can be used to explore and even to promote nuclear disarmament. Two scripts, one of ‘stable reduction’, the other of ‘disarmament’, each serve to frame thinking. These scripts and the interactions they generate facilitate understanding of the way in which opposite instinctive reactions and, stemming from these, scripts about nuclear weapons co-exist, but are fragile as either an analytical or a strategic tool.

A Bifurcated Global Nuclear Order

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ramesh Thakur
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
United Nations ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Nuclear Deterrence ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The World ◽  
The United Nations

The very destructiveness of nuclear weapons makes them unusable for ethical and military reasons. The world has placed growing restrictions on the full range of nuclear programs and activities. But with the five NPT nuclear powers failing to eliminate nuclear arsenals, other countries acquiring the bomb, arms control efforts stalled, nuclear risks climbing, and growing awareness of the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of nuclear war, the United Nations adopted a new treaty to ban the bomb. Some technical anomalies between the 1968 and 2017 treaties will need to be harmonized and the nuclear-armed states’ rejection of the ban treaty means it will not eliminate any nuclear warheads. However, it will have a significant normative impact in stigmatizing the possession, use and threat of use of nuclear weapons and serve as a tool for civil society to mobilize domestic and world public opinion against the doctrine of nuclear deterrence.

scholarly journals Why Arms Control?

Daedalus ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 149 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-115
Author(s):  
Jon Brook Wolfsthal
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Arms Control ◽  
Good Deal ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Age ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Cold War

America survived the nuclear age through a complex combination of diplomatic and military decisions, and a good deal of luck. One of the tools that proved its value in both reducing the risks of nuclear use and setting rules for the ongoing nuclear competition were negotiated, legally binding, and verified arms control agreements. Such pacts between the United States and the Soviet Union arguably prevented the nuclear arms racing from getting worse and helped both sides climb off the Cold War nuclear precipice. Several important agreements remain in place between the United States and Russia, to the benefit of both states. Arms control is under threat, however, from domestic forces in the United States and from Russian actions that range from treaty violations to the broader weaponization of risk. But arms control can and should play a useful role in reducing the risk of nuclear war and forging a new agreement between Moscow and Washington on the new rules of the nuclear road.

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