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An ex-Trident submarine captain considers the evolution of UK nuclear deterrence policy and the implications of a previously unacknowledged, enduring aversion to military strategies that threaten civilian casualties. This book draws on extensive archival research to provide a uniquely concise synthesis of factors affecting British nuclear policy decision-making, and draws parallels between government debates about reprisals for First World War Zeppelin raids on London, the strategic bombing raids of the Second World War and the development of the nuclear deterrent to continuous at-sea deterrence, through the end of the Cold War and the announcement of the Dreadnought programme. It develops the idea that, in a supreme emergency, a breach of otherwise inviolable moral rules might be excused, but never justified, in order to prevent a greater moral catastrophe; and it explores the related ethical concept of dirty hands – when a moral actor faces a choice between two inevitable actions, mutually exclusive but both reprehensible. It concludes that, amongst all the technical factors, government aversion to be seen to condone civilian casualties has inhibited government engagement with the public on deterrence strategy since 1915 and, uniquely among nuclear weapon states, successive British governments have been coy about discussing nuclear deterrence policy publicly because they feared to expose the complexity of the moral reasoning behind the policy, a reticence exacerbated by the tendency of policy and media investigation to be reduced to simplistic soundbites.
This book addresses a critical issue in global politics: how recognition and misrecognition fuel conflict or initiate reconciliation. The main objective of this book is to demonstrate how representations of one state by another influence foreign policymaking behaviour. The key argument is that representations are important because they shape both the identity of a state and how it is recognised by others. States respond to representations of themselves that do not fit with how they wish to be recognised. The book provides a thorough conceptual engagement with the issues at stake and a detailed empirical investigation of the fraught bilateral relations between the United States and Iran, which is perhaps one of the most significant flashpoints in global politics today. Despite Iran and the US finally reaching an agreement on the nuclear issue that allows Iran limited nuclear technological capacity in exchange for the lifting of certain sanctions, the US withdrew from the deal in May 2018. However, questions remain about how best to explain the initial success of this deal considering the decades of animosity between Iran and the US, which have previously scuppered any attempts on both sides to reach an amicable agreement. Increasing concerns about declining Iran–US relations under the Trump administration suggest even more so the power of recognition and misrecognition in world politics. Scholars and strategists alike have struggled to answer the question of how this deal was made possible, which this book addresses.
From the start of the Cold War to the presidency of Donald Trump, nuclear weapons have been central to the internal dynamics of US alliances in Europe and Asia. But cooperation on policy, strategy, posture and deployment of US nuclear weapons has varied significantly between US alliances and over time. Partners in Deterrence goes beyond traditional accounts that focus on deterrence and reassurance in US nuclear policy, and instead places the objectives and influence of US allies at the centre of analysis. Through a series of case studies informed by a rigorous analytical framework, it reveals that US allies have wielded significant influence in shaping nuclear weapons cooperation with the US in ways that reflect their own, often idiosyncratic, objectives. Combining in-depth empirical analysis with an accessible theoretical lens, Partners in Deterrence provides important lessons for contemporary policy makers and makes an essential contribution to existing scholarship on alliances and nuclear weapons.
This book is a systematic study that considers how international environmental agreements are transformed into political action in Russia, using three case studies on the implementation process in the fields of fisheries management, nuclear safety, and air pollution control. It develops the social science debate on international environmental regimes and ‘implementing activities’ at both national and international level to include regional considerations.
Edward P. Thompson's activities and writings were diverse spanning literature, history, fiction and poetry, biography, adult education, socialist and libertarian politics, and peace-movement activism. This book explores the various aspects of his intellectual and political work, and its legacy to later generations of radical thinkers and activists in Britain and internationally. Thompson taught exclusively literature classes for the first three years at the University of Leeds, and aimed to attain and maintain a university standard of adult education. The book examines the way in which The Making of the English Working Class grew out of Thompson's day-to-day work at Leeds. Although Thompson's fusion of Marxism with social history constituted the central attraction of his work, he himself bore a degree of responsibility for subsequent dismissals of the Marxist dimension in his work. The book examines Thompson's career-long commitment to literature and to the craft of writing, and makes clear some significant continuities and contrasts within Thompson's specifically literary output. Thompson's concept of socialist humanism retained a resonance and distinctiveness for the twenty-first century, which was a defining characteristic of the early New Left after 1956. The content of Thompson's analyses provides us with one of the richest account of the flesh and blood of emancipation, and the experience, suffering, failure and courage of the working class. The book also looks at his peace movement from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the 1950s and 1960s to the European Nuclear Disarmament in the 1980s.
This is the second book in a two-volume study tracing the evolution of the Labour Party's foreign policy throughout the twentieth century to the present date. It is a comprehensive study of the history of the Labour Party's worldview and foreign policy. The study argues that Labour's foreign policy perspective should be seen not as the development of a socialist foreign policy, but as an application of the ideas of liberal internationalism. Volume Two provides a critical analysis of Labour's foreign policy since 1951. It examines Labour's attempts to rethink foreign policy, focusing on intra-party debates, the problems that Labour faced when in power, and the conflicting pressures from party demands and external pressures. The book examines attitudes to rearmament in the 1950s, the party's response to the Suez crisis and the Vietnam War, the bitter divisions over nuclear disarmament and the radicalisation of foreign and defence policy in the 1980s. It also examines Labour's desire to provide moral leadership to the rest of the world. The last two chapters focus on the Blair and Brown years, with Blair's response to the Kosovo crisis and to 9/11, and his role in the ‘war on terror’. Whereas Blair's approach to foreign affairs was to place emphasis on the efficacy of the use of military force, Brown's instead placed faith in the use of economic measures.
v 11 v Imagining the apocalypse: nuclear winter in science and the world Paul Rubinson Imagining Mars; imagining nuclear war Although rigorously trained in the rules of the scientific method, the astronomer Carl Sagan frequently relied on his imagination. At times, in fact, he could only use his imagination, since his proclaimed field of exobiology consisted of the study of life in outer space – something not yet proven to exist. Sagan’s imagination was especially active when it came to Mars; at one point he even pondered whether the moons of Mars were
Previous chapters have noted how nuclearism has been sustained for decades and how it continues, even as the risks of reliance on nuclear deterrence, the limited utility of these weapons, and the ongoing dangers of accidents and misperception suggest that a new approach is needed. There have been several attempts since the ending of the Cold War to persuade these
We have been fortunate that nuclear weapons have not been used since 1945, but the chance of them being launched, accidentally or intentionally, is still too high to warrant complacency. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists in January 2020 moved the ‘Doomsday Clock’ to 100 seconds before midnight, the closest it has been to disaster in its history (Spinnaze 2020 ). This remained the case in 2021
This volume takes the metaphorical character of the Cold War seriously and charts how the bomb was used as a symbol for nuclear war at the very heart of this conflict. The contributions consider the historical relevance of the political, cultural and artistic ramifications of nuclear weapons as signifiers for a new type of conflict. Tis understanding of the metaphorical qualities of the Cold War is encapsulated in the notion of an imaginary war, or, more precisely, a war against the imagination. As an attack against the imagination, the nuclear threat forced politicians and ordinary people to accept the notion that preparations for nuclear annihilation would contribute towards peace, and that the existence of these weapons, and the anticipation of large-scale destruction that came with them, were an inescapable corollary of security, freedom and future prosperity on both sides of the Cold war divide.