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A nuclear conflict between the superpowers is more likely to arise from the loss of control during a crisis than from a premeditated decision to embark on war. Yet governments and the public continue to focus on the size and shape of nuclear arsenals rather than on the ability of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. to prevent an altercation from escalating into nuclear combat. In this book, Desmond Ball, Paul Bracken, General Lloyd R. Leavitt, and numerous other political, military, and technical experts propose a variety of measures to enhance "crisis stability"--the ability to retain control over events in a grave crisis. The result of a study sponsored by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences a...
Given the disappointing history of arms control negotiations and agreements, disconcerting trends in the balance of power, and emerging technologies that challenge conventional assumptions about deterrence, new ways to promote security through negotiations must be identified and utilized if arms control is ever to play an integral role in enhancing deterrence and reducing instabilities. Confidence-building measures (CBMs) may offer one way out of the contemporary arms control morass. Instead of focusing on limiting the number and types of weaponry, CBMs are designed to control how, when, where, and why military activities occur. By clarifying military intentions and regulating the operations...
During the Cold War, many believed that the superpowers shared a conception of strategic stability, a coexistence where both sides would compete for global influence but would be deterred from using nuclear weapons. In actuality, both sides understood strategic stability and deterrence quite differently. Today’s international system is further complicated by more nuclear powers, regional rivalries, and nonstate actors who punch above their weight, but the United States and other nuclear powers still cling to old conceptions of strategic stability. The purpose of this book is to unpack and examine how different states in different regions view strategic stability, the use or non-use of nucl...
“This is a brilliant and hardheaded book. It will frighten those who prefer not to dwell on the unthinkable and infuriate those who have taken refuge in stereotypes and moral attitudinizing.”—Gordon A. Craig, New York Times Book Review Originally published more than fifty years ago, this landmark book explores the ways in which military capabilities—real or imagined—are used, skillfully or clumsily, as bargaining power. Anne-Marie Slaughter’s new introduction to the work shows how Schelling’s framework—conceived of in a time of superpowers and mutually assured destruction—still applies to our multipolar world, where wars are fought as much online as on the ground.
This book examines the theory and practice of nuclear deterrence between India and Pakistan, two highly antagonistic South Asian neighbors who recently moved into their third decade of overt nuclear weaponization. It assesses the stability of Indo-Pakistani nuclear deterrence and argues that, while deterrence dampens the likelihood of escalation to conventional—and possibly nuclear—war, the chronically embittered relations between New Delhi and Islamabad mean that deterrence failure resulting in major warfare cannot be ruled out. Through an empirical examination of the effects of nuclear weapons during five crises between India and Pakistan since 1998, as well as a discussion of the theoretical logic of Indo-Pakistani nuclear deterrence, the book offers suggestions for enhancing deterrence stability between these two countries.
Applying advances in game theory to the study of nuclear deterrence, Robert Powell examines the foundations of deterrence theory. Game-theoretic analysis allows the author to explore some of the most complex and problematic issues in deterrence theory, including the effects of first-strike advantages, limited retaliation, and the number of nuclear powers in the international system on the dynamics of escalation.
Arguing that previous critiques of rational choice and deterrence theory are not convincing, Frank Harvey constructs a new set of empirical tests of rational deterrence theory to illuminate patterns of interaction between rival nuclear powers. He analyses the crisis management techniques used by the United States and the Soviet Union in twenty-eight post-war crises and isolates factors that promote or inhibit escalation of these crises. This "crises"-based data set serves as the basis for identifying patterns of response when one nuclear state is threatened by another. The Future's Back offers new directions for testing that emphasize a more unified approach to theory building and assesses the feasibility of alternative courses of action to prevent escalation of future disputes characterized by nuclear rivalry.
The world has entered a second nuclear age shaped by rising nuclear states and military technologies. Gregory Koblentz argues that the United States should work with the other nuclear-armed states to manage threats to nuclear stability in the near term and establish processes for multilateral arms control efforts over the longer term.