Security without Nuclear Weapons? Different Perspectives on Non-Nuclear Security

by Cowen Karp, Regina

• ISBN13: 9780198291435
• ISBN10: 0198291434
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1993-01-07
• Publisher: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

Summary

This book examines the question: is the elimination of nuclear weapons feasible? Individual chapters address the major conceptual, technical, and economic issues in the design of a non-nuclear security regime. Other chapters explore more specialized issues as they relate to the feasibilityof the elimination of nuclear weapons: elite perceptions and the decision-making process, verification, nuclear proliferation, fissile materials and warheads, alliances and regional hegemonies, and deterrence. The concluding chapter addresses those issues relating to the maintenance of anon-nuclear security regime.

Table of Contents

Preface
Foreword
Abbreviations and acronyms
Introduction	p. 1
Competing security perceptions: strategy, disarmament and peace research	p. 1
Nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence	p. 3
Security without nuclear weapons?	p. 5
Is non-nuclear security feasible?	p. 18
Beyond nuclearism	p. 21
Fictional utopias	p. 21
Confronting the unthinkable	p. 24
Balancing risks	p. 27
Post-existential deterrence	p. 31
The mechanics of nuclear weapon abolition	p. 34
Critique of The Abolition	p. 36
Grand treaties or process utopias?	p. 40
Towards an anti-nuclear non-violent conflict culture	p. 43
Knowledge and theory building	p. 46
Conclusion: 'Obtain the possible: demand the impossible'	p. 52
Towards non-nuclear security: costs, benefits, requisites	p. 56
Introduction: the economic perspective on nuclear weapons	p. 56
The case for nuclear weapons	p. 57
The costs of nuclear weapons	p. 61
The utility of nuclear weapons	p. 66
Nuclear proliferation	p. 70
Nuclear disarmament	p. 73
Legal issues concerning the feasibility of nuclear weapon elimination	p. 80
The relevance of international law	p. 80
The role of international law	p. 82
The measurement of legal feasibility	p. 83
The relationship between law and force	p. 86
The current situation	p. 87
First wave legal contribution	p. 95
Last wave legal contribution	p. 100
Thinking about no nuclear forces: technical and strategic constraints on transitions and end-points	p. 103
Technology, security strategy and the international system	p. 105
Technical issues in the development of a new security system	p. 110
Technical issues associated with any path towards zero nuclear weapons	p. 115
Verification of nuclear weapon elimination	p. 128
Building on foundations	p. 129
Verification of missile and warhead reductions	p. 132
Verification of very low levels of nuclear missiles	p. 135
Going to zero	p. 137
Nuclear non-proliferation and verification	p. 138
Proliferation and nuclear testing	p. 140
Verification of warhead destruction	p. 141
Organization of verification	p. 142
Verification of unilateral measures	p. 143
Verification as security	p. 145
The costs of verification	p. 146
Appendix 6A. Tagging for verification	p. 151
Nuclear weapon elimination: missile material and warheads	p. 153
A production cut-off of nuclear weapon fissile material	p. 154
Nuclear warhead dismantlement	p. 160
Accounting for already-produced fissile materials	p. 161
The end of superpower nuclear arms control?	p. 164
Conditions	p. 166
Crucial domestic actors and possible responses	p. 171
Assessment of feasibility	p. 198
Nuclear proliferation and the elimination of nuclear weapons	p. 202
Interlocking logic	p. 202
Conflicting interests	p. 204
The logic of denuclearization and deproliferation	p. 205
Motives for proliferation in the past	p. 206
Nuclear behaviour which 'realism' would not have predicted	p. 211
The model of the Baruch Plan	p. 213
Conclusion: some very general observations	p. 224
The role of hegemonies and alliances	p. 226
Definitions	p. 226
Hegemonies	p. 227
Alliances	p. 236
Security regimes as prerequisites for a non-nuclear world	p. 243
Global conditions for non-nuclear security systems	p. 246
Minimum deterrence and nuclear abolition	p. 250
The idea and practice of minimum deterrence	p. 250
An examination of the objections to radical nuclear reductions in US-Soviet relations	p. 254
The prospects for a US-Soviet security community	p. 262
The medium nuclear powers and strategic arms reductions	p. 265
The proliferation problem and minimum deterrence	p. 268
Towards global control of weapons of mass destruction	p. 270
About the contributors	p. 281
Index	p. 284
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