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 feasibility of the elimination of nuclear weapons: elite perceptions and the decision-making process, verification, nuclear proliferation, fissile materials and warheads, alliance and regional hegemonies, and deterrence.

Revised and Updated 2018 Edition Eight years on from the first edition, worsening relations between the West and Russia, and the US and North Korea, have brought nuclear weapons back to the forefront of world attention and public concern. Almost thirty years after the Cold War ended, some 14,500 nuclear weapons remain; and the nuclear weapon states are all modernising their nuclear arsenals. They cite nuclear deterrence doctrine as the final, indispensable justification for maintaining them. This drives the spread of nuclear weapons to paranoid regimes and extremists who are least likely to be deterred. The fallacies of nuclear deterrence must, therefore, be exposed and alternatives offered if there is to be any serious prospect of eliminating nuclear weapons. A former operator of British nuclear weapons, Commander Green has drawn together a concise, carefully researched and documented account of the history, practicalities and dangerous contradictions at the heart of nuclear deterrence. He offers more credible, effective and responsible alternative strategies to deter aggression and achieve real security. Vice Admiral Sir Jeremy Blackham KCB, MA, a leading authority on deterrence, has written a major new Foreword to this edition, on the most sensitive and contentious issue in British defence policy with huge implications for the effectiveness, image and ethos of the Royal Navy. He concludes: 'This is a most important contribution to the debate on a subject which is crucial to the survival of the human race, and it needs to be read with a degree of humility and an open mind - qualities not always apparent among our decision-makers and their advisers.'

Since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, no state has unleashed nuclear weapons. What explains this? According to the author, the answer lies in a prohibition inherent in the tradition of non-use, a time-honored obligation that has been adhered to by all nuclear states—thanks to a consensus view that use would have a catastrophic impact on humankind, the environment, and the reputation of the user. The book offers an in-depth analysis of the nuclear policies of the U.S., Russia, China, the UK, France, India, Israel, and Pakistan and assesses the contributions of these states to the rise and persistence of the tradition of nuclear non-use. It examines the influence of the tradition on the behavior of nuclear and non-nuclear states in crises and wars, and explores the tradition's implications for nuclear non-proliferation regimes, deterrence theory, and policy. And it concludes by discussing the future of the tradition in the current global security environment.

Alternative Security offers the thinking person a place to begin to kick the “nuclear habit.” Even as it accepts the premise that war is endemic to the human condition, it provides reassurance that an other-than-nuclear deterrence policy can work to effectively safeguard national and transnational interests. These eight original essays, acco

Concern about the threat posed by nuclear weapons has preoccupied the United States and presidents of the United States since the beginning of the nuclear era. Nuclear Security draws from papers presented at the 2013 meeting of the American Nuclear Society examining worldwide efforts to control nuclear weapons and ensure the safety of the nuclear enterprise of weapons and reactors against catastrophic accidents. The distinguished contributors, all known for their long-standing interest in getting better control of the threats posed by nuclear weapons and reactors, discuss what we can learn from past successes and failures and attempt to identify the key ingredients for a road ahead that can lead us toward a world free of nuclear weapons. The authors review historical efforts to deal with the challenge of nuclear weapons, with a focus on the momentous arms control negotiations between U.S. president Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev. They offer specific recommendations for reducing risks that should be adopted by the nuclear enterprise, both military and civilian, in the United States and abroad. Since the risks posed by the nuclear enterprise are so high, they conclude, no reasonable effort should be spared to ensure safety and security.

The first systematic look at the different strategies that states employ in their pursuit of nuclear weapons Much of the work on nuclear proliferation has focused on why states pursue nuclear weapons. The question of how states pursue nuclear weapons has received little attention. Seeking the Bomb is the first book to analyze this topic by examining which strategies of nuclear proliferation are available to aspirants, why aspirants select one strategy over another, and how this matters to international politics. Looking at a wide range of nations, from India and Japan to the Soviet Union and North Korea to Iraq and Iran, Vipin Narang develops an original typology of proliferation strategies—hedging, sprinting, sheltered pursuit, and hiding. Each strategy of proliferation provides different opportunities for the development of nuclear weapons, while at the same time presenting distinct vulnerabilities that can be exploited to prevent states from doing so. Narang delves into the crucial implications these strategies have for nuclear proliferation and international security. Hiders, for example, are especially disruptive since either they successfully attain nuclear weapons, irrevocably altering the global power structure, or they are discovered, potentially triggering serious crises or war, as external powers try to halt or reverse a previously clandestine nuclear weapons program. As the international community confronts the next generation of potential nuclear proliferators, Seeking the Bomb explores how global conflict and stability are shaped by the ruthlessly pragmatic ways states choose strategies of proliferation.