Japan, 1952–1980

2018 ◽  
pp. 79-109
Author(s):  
Alexander Lanoszka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
The United States ◽  
Military Alliance ◽  
The Military

Many scholars would hold that a robust military alliance as well as strong anti-nuclear norms in domestic society would make any nuclear proliferation-related behaviour unlikely on the part of Japan. This chapter challenges such arguments, showing that the alliance with the United States did not fully inhibit Japan’s nuclear ambitions since Japan ratcheted up its interest in enrichment and reprocessing technologies in the late 1960. Indeed, Japan’s nuclear interest piqued amid concerns that the military alliance was weakening. Moreover, although the alliance did discourage some level of interest in nuclear weapons, the United States was reluctant to coerce Japan directly on this issue. Domestic politics and—to a lesser extent—prestige considerations were arguably a greater influence on Japan’s nuclear decision-making in the 1970s than alliance-related ones.

The United States and the Iranian Nuclear Programme

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Hurst
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Decision Making ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nixon Administration ◽  
Comprehensive Plan ◽  
The Us ◽  
Nuclear Issue ◽  
The Relationship

The United States, Iran and the Bomb provides the first comprehensive analysis of the US-Iranian nuclear relationship from its origins through to the signing of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) in 2015. Starting with the Nixon administration in the 1970s, it analyses the policies of successive US administrations toward the Iranian nuclear programme. Emphasizing the centrality of domestic politics to decision-making on both sides, it offers both an explanation of the evolution of the relationship and a critique of successive US administrations' efforts to halt the Iranian nuclear programme, with neither coercive measures nor inducements effectively applied. The book further argues that factional politics inside Iran played a crucial role in Iranian nuclear decision-making and that American policy tended to reinforce the position of Iranian hardliners and undermine that of those who were prepared to compromise on the nuclear issue. In the final chapter it demonstrates how President Obama's alterations to American strategy, accompanied by shifts in Iranian domestic politics, finally brought about the signing of the JCPOA in 2015.

The Making of the Western Defense System: France, the United States, and MC 48

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marc Trachtenberg
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Defense System ◽  
New Strategy ◽  
History Of ◽  
Military Strength ◽  
The Military

This chapter focuses on a document formally adopted by the NATO Council in December 1954, called MC 48, a report by the Alliance's Military Committee on “The Most Effective Pattern of NATO Military Strength for the Next Few Years.” In approving this document, the Council authorized the military authorities of the Alliance to “plan and make preparations on the assumption that atomic and thermonuclear weapons will be used in defense from the outset.” One very important consequence of the new strategy from the European point of view had to do with what was called “nuclear sharing”—that is, with the provision of American nuclear weapons to the NATO allies. This policy of nuclear sharing was one of the key elements in the history of this period.

Iraq versus the United States

Tempting Fate ◽  
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.

Domestic politics, reputational sanctions, and international compliance

2013 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 300-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jong Hee Park ◽  
Kentaro Hirose
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
International Cooperation ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
North Korea ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
International Negotiations ◽  
Different Types ◽  
Reputational Concerns

The argument that reputational concerns promote compliance is at the center of the literature of international cooperation. In this paper, we study how reputational sanctions affect compliance when domestic parties carry their own reputations in international negotiations. We showed that the prospect of international cooperation varies a lot depending on who sits at the negotiation table, how partisan preferences for compliance are different, and how much international audiences discriminate between different types of noncompliance. We illustrate implications of our model using episodes from the negotiations between the United States and North Korea over North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

The future unlike the past: nuclear proliferation and American security policy

1981 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 193-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Nacht
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Nuclear Proliferation ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Future ◽  
Nuclear Arms Control

An examination of the past relationships between nuclear proliferation and American security policy substantiates several propositions. First, the political relationship between the United States and each new nuclear weapon state was not fundamentally transformed as a result of nuclear proliferation. Second, with the exception of the Soviet Union, no new nuclear state significantly affected U.S. defense programs or policies. Third, American interest in bilateral nuclear arms control negotiations has been confined to the Soviet Union. Fourth, a conventional conflict involving a nonnuclear ally prompted the United States to intervene in ways it otherwise might not have in order to forestall the use of nuclear weapons.In all respects, however, the relationship between nuclear proliferation and American security policy is changing. The intensification of the superpower rivalry and specific developments in their nuclear weapons and doctrines, the decline of American power more generally, and the characteristics of nuclear threshold states all serve to stimulate nuclear proliferation. It will be increasingly difficult in the future for American security policy to be as insulated from this process as it has been in the past.

Philippines-US Relations

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patricio N. Abinales
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Special Relationship ◽  
National Interests ◽  
Global War On Terror ◽  
Military Alliance ◽  
Global War ◽  
The Military

An enduring resilience characterizes Philippine–American relationship for several reasons. For one, there is an unusual colonial relationship wherein the United States took control of the Philippines from the Spanish and then shared power with an emergent Filipino elite, introduced suffrage, implemented public education, and promised eventual national independence. A shared experience fighting the Japanese in World War II and defeating a postwar communist rebellion further cemented the “special relationship” between the two countries. The United States took advantage of this partnership to compel the Philippines to sign an economic and military treaty that favored American businesses and the military, respectively. Filipino leaders not only accepted the realities of this strategic game and exploited every opening to assert national interests but also benefitted from American largesse. Under the dictatorship of President Ferdinand Marcos, this mutual cadging was at its most brazen. As a result, the military alliance suffered when the Philippines terminated the agreement, and the United States considerably reduced its support to the country. But the estrangement did not last long, and both countries rekindled the “special relationship” in response to the U.S. “Global War on Terror” and, of late, Chinese military aggression in the West Philippine Sea.

West Germany, 1954–1970

2018 ◽  
pp. 48-78
Author(s):  
Alexander Lanoszka
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Domestic Politics ◽  
The United States ◽  
West Germany ◽  
Direct Role ◽  
The Cold War

Several leading international scholars argue that West Germany enjoyed limited autonomy in the Cold War and was thus susceptible to American coercion, especially on issues relating to nuclear weapons. This chapter challenges such arguments. It shows that the alliance with the United States was less useful for curbing West German nuclear ambitions than commonly presumed. It also demonstrates that in-theater conventional forces mattered for bolstering American extended nuclear guarantees to West Germany. American coercion of West Germany was important, but it played a much less direct role than what many scholars claim. Other factors—especially domestic politics—drove West Germany’s final choices pertaining to whether it should get nuclear weapons.

„Chcą urządzić masakrę, od której oślepłyby wieki...” – bomba atomowa a kultura Zachodu w polskiej poezji socrealistycznej

2017 ◽  
pp. 69-79
Author(s):  
Marcin Kowalczyk
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Atomic Bomb ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
Socialist Realism ◽  
The United States ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Western Power ◽  
The World ◽  
The Military

The atomic bomb used in 1945 by the United States disturbed the military and symbolic balance of the world then. It became a sign of the Western power. The communist propaganda sought to neutralize the meaning of a new weapon. The text reconstructs the attempts of this neutralization and indicates the ways of presentation of nuclear weapons in the Polish poetry of socialist realism. Several motifs can be mentioned here: juxtaposition of the atomic bomb with apocalyptic motifs, highlighting the lack of intellectual and moral qualifications for possessing it, and emphasizing that it is a dangerous by-product of the Western desire for profit. Above all, however, the poetry of socialist realism underlined that Western culture is an incomprehensible and inhuman evil.

Notes on the Military Problems of Europe

1958 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 182-201
Author(s):  
George W. Rathjens
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Limited War ◽  
Minor Powers ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Military

There can be little doubt that the development and increasing availability of modern, especially nuclear, weapons will greatly alter the military policies and relationships that obtain among nations. This article addresses itself to those topics; more particularly it considers, in the light of changing technology, such problems as the objectives of major and minor powers in both general and limited war, the definition of limitations in limited war, the validity of alliances, and alternative military postures for the United States and for small nations.

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