Too often, our focus on the relative handful of countries with nuclear weapons keeps us from asking an important question: Why do so many more states not have such weapons? More important, what can we learn from these examples of nuclear restraint? Maria Rost Rublee argues that in addition to understanding a state's security environment, we must appreciate the social forces that influence how states conceptualize the value of nuclear weapons. Much of what Rublee says also applies to other weapons of mass destruction, as well as national security decision making in general. The nuclear nonproliferation movement has created an international social environment that exerts a variety of normative pressures on how state elites and policymakers think about nuclear weapons. Within a social psychology framework, Rublee examines decision making about nuclear weapons in five case studies: Japan, Egypt, Libya, Sweden, and Germany. In each case, Rublee considers the extent to which nuclear forbearance resulted from persuasion (genuine transformation of preferences), social conformity (the desire to maximize social benefits and/or minimize social costs, without a change in underlying preferences), or identification (the desire or habit of following the actions of an important other). The book offers bold policy prescriptions based on a sharpened knowledge of the many ways we transmit and process nonproliferation norms. The social mechanisms that encourage nonproliferation-and the regime that created them-must be preserved and strengthened, Rublee argues, for without them states that have exercised nuclear restraint may rethink their choices.

This is the first book-length study of why states sometimes ignore, oppose, or undermine elements of the nuclear nonproliferation regime--even as they formally support it. These essays show that success must be measured not only by how many states join the effort but also by how they participate once they join.

This book examines the linkage between deviance and norm change in international politics. It draws on an original theoretical perspective grounded in the sociology of deviance to study the violations of norms and rules in the global nuclear non-proliferation regime. As such, this project provides a unique conceptual framework and applies it to highly salient issues in the contemporary international security environment. The theoretical/conceptual chapters are accompanied by three extensive case studies: Iran, North Korea, and India.

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.

Fifty years into the nuclear non-proliferation treaty (NPT) regime, the risks of nuclear war, terrorism, and the threat of further proliferation remain. A lack of significant progress towards disarmament will cast doubt upon the viability of the NPT. By recognizing that certain fissile materials are essential to every nuclear weapon and that controlling their usage provides the foundation for international efforts to limit their spread, this book presents a comprehensive framework for nuclear disarmament. Based upon phased reductions, Shea provides a mechanism for the disposal of weapon-origin fissile material and controls on peaceful nuclear activities and non-explosive military uses. He explores the technological means for monitoring and verification, the legal arrangements required to provide an enduring foundation, and a financial structure which will enable progress. This book will be invaluable to professional organizations, arms control NGOs, government officials, scientists, and politicians. It will also appeal to academics and postgraduate researchers working on security studies, disarmament diplomacy and the politics and science of verification.

A top cybersecurity journalist tells the story behind the virus that sabotaged Iran’s nuclear efforts and shows how its existence has ushered in a new age of warfare—one in which a digital attack can have the same destructive capability as a megaton bomb. “Immensely enjoyable . . . Zetter turns a complicated and technical cyber story into an engrossing whodunit.”—The Washington Post The virus now known as Stuxnet was unlike any other piece of malware built before: Rather than simply hijacking targeted computers or stealing information from them, it proved that a piece of code could escape the digital realm and wreak actual, physical destruction—in this case, on an Iranian nuclear facility. In these pages, journalist Kim Zetter tells the whole story behind the world’s first cyberweapon, covering its genesis in the corridors of the White House and its effects in Iran—and telling the spectacular, unlikely tale of the security geeks who managed to unravel a top secret sabotage campaign years in the making. But Countdown to Zero Day also ranges beyond Stuxnet itself, exploring the history of cyberwarfare and its future, showing us what might happen should our infrastructure be targeted by a Stuxnet-style attack, and ultimately, providing a portrait of a world at the edge of a new kind of war.

This is an intense and meticulously sourced study on the topic of nuclear weapons proliferation, beginning with America's introduction of the Atomic Age... His book provides a full explanation of America's policy with a time sequence necessarily focusing on the domino effect of states acquiring a nuclear weapons capability and the import of bureaucratic decisions on international political behavior.― Choice Stopping the Bomb examines the historical development and effectiveness of American efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. Nicholas L. Miller offers here a novel theory that argues changes in American nonproliferation policy are the keys to understanding the nuclear landscape from the 1960s onward. The Chinese and Indian nuclear tests in the 1960s and 1970s forced the US government, Miller contends, to pay new and considerable attention to the idea of nonproliferation and to reexamine its foreign policies. Stopping the Bomb explores the role of the United States in combating the spread of nuclear weapons, an area often ignored to date. He explains why these changes occurred and how effective US policies have been in preventing countries from seeking and acquiring nuclear weapons. Miller's findings highlight the relatively rapid move from a permissive approach toward allies acquiring nuclear weapons to a more universal nonproliferation policy no matter whether friend or foe. Four in-depth case studies of US nonproliferation policy—toward Taiwan, Pakistan, Iran, and France—elucidate how the United States can compel countries to reverse ongoing nuclear weapons programs. Miller's findings in Stopping the Bomb have important implications for the continued study of nuclear proliferation, US nonproliferation policy, and beyond.