This monograph examines the strategic importance of Egypt for the United States by exploring Egypt's role in the Arab-Israeli peace process, its geographical role (providing air and naval access) for U.S. military assets heading to the Persian Gulf, and joint training programs. With so much at stake in the Middle East, the idea of "losing" Egypt as a strategic ally would be a significant setback for the United States. The Egyptian revolution of early 2011 was welcomed by U.S. officials because the protestors wanted democratic government which conformed to U.S. ideals, and the institution that would shepherd the transition, the Egyptian military, had close ties with the United States. To bolster the U.S.-Egyptian relationship and help keep Egypt on the democratic path, the monograph recommends that U.S. military aid should not be cut, economic aid should be increased, and U.S. administration officials should not oppose congressional conditions tying aid...

A vigorous debate is occurring among American elites with respect to whether and when the United States should relinquish its nuclear weapons. Bolstering hopes for tangible results is that a U.S. President is again publicly and forcefully supporting disarmament. While this debate, which addresses both technical and political factors related to abolition, may be the most serious one of its kind since the dawn of the nuclear age, the future of U.S. nuclear weapons policy remains uncertain. The general approach advanced today in U.S. policy circles largely hews, after all, to the logic of the past 65 years: arms control and nonproliferation now, disarmament at an undetermined time in the future. Moreover, several conceptual and strategic barriers continue to block serious progress toward U.S. disarmament. By situating the current pro-disarmament rhetoric in this larger historical and strategic context, this monograph argues that there is reason to doubt whether the current push for disarmament will produce meaningful and lasting results.

Nuclear weapons are here to stay. They have survived into the twenty-first century as instruments of influence for the US, Russia, and other major military powers. But, unlike the Cold War era, future nuclear forces will be developed and deployed within a digital-driven world of enhanced conventional weapons. As such, established nuclear powers will have smaller numbers of nuclear weapons for the purpose of deterrence working in parallel with smarter conventional weapons and elite military personnel. The challenge is to agree proportional reductions in nuclear inventories or abstinence requiring an effective nonproliferation regime to contain aspiring or threshold nuclear weapons states. This is the most comprehensive view of nuclear weapons policy and strategy currently available. The author’s division of the nuclear issue into the three ages is a never seen before analytical construct. With President Obama reelected, the reduction and even elimination of nuclear weapons will now rise to the top of the agenda once more. Moreover, given the likelihood of reductions in US defense spending, the subject of the triad, which is covered in Chapter One, will no doubt be an important subject of debate, as will the issue of missile defense, covered in Chapter 10. This book provides an excellent analysis of the spread of nuclear weapons in Asia and the Middle East and the potential dangers of a North Korean or Iranian breakout, subjects that dominate current policy debates.

The view that America and Russia have burned their candles on security cooperation with respect to nuclear weapons is simply mistaken. This timely study identifies twelve themes or issue areas that must be addressed by the United States and Russia if they are to provide shared, successful leadership in the management of nuclear world order. Designed as supplementary reading in upper division and graduate courses in national security policy, defense, and nuclear arms control, it is also suitable for courses taught at military staff and command colleges and-or war colleges.

Over the past few years, a vigorous debate about the wisdom and mechanics of nuclear di armament has emerged around the world, particularly in the United States. Washington's current wave of support for disarmament was ignited unexpectedly in 2007 by a bipartisan group of national security experts. Calls for the elimination of nuclear weapons have existed for almost as long as the weapons themselves. But these developments, coupled with President Barack Obama's clear support for disarmament and the suc¬cessful ratification of the New Strategic Arms Reduc¬tion Treaty, have left American supporters of abolition feeling as if the scales may finally be weighted in favor of their goal-even though they acknowledge that it will not be easily achieved. In his monograph, Jonathan Pearl challenges the notion that the probability of nuclear disarmament is increasing. He argues that, contrary to popular belief, there is little new about the current push for disarma¬ment, buttressing his claim with a historical overview of the nuclear age that highlights important similari¬ties between past and present disarmament efforts. Building on this historical analysis, Pearl surveys the current political-strategic context, one that is marked by continuing proliferation, various forms of conflict, and significant conceptual and structural barriers to abolishing nuclear weapons. It is far from certain, Pearl provocatively concludes, whether Washington's current pro-disarmament efforts will produce mean¬ingful or lasting results. The Strategic Studies Institute is pleased to offer this monograph as an important contribution to the debate over nuclear disarmament. Whether readers are disarmament supporters or skeptics, Pearl's con¬tribution will serve as an important reference point for debates on this critical subject.

Investigates how leaders’ personalities shape important foreign policy shifts. Why do hawkish leaders change course to pursue dovish policies? In Why Hawks Become Doves, Guy Ziv argues that conventional international relations theory is inadequate for explaining these momentous foreign policy shifts, because it underestimates the importance of leaders and their personalities. Applying insights from cognitive psychology, Ziv argues that decision-makers’ cognitive structure—specifically, their levels of cognitive openness and complexity—is a critical causal variable in determining their propensity to revise their beliefs and pursue new policies. To illustrate his point, he examines Israeli statesman Shimon Peres. Beginning his political career as a tough-minded security hawk, Peres emerged as one of the Middle East’s foremost champions of Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking. Drawing on a vast range of sources, including interviews with Peres and dozens of other political elites, archival research, biographies, and memoirs, Ziv finds that Peres’s highly open and complex cognitive structure facilitated a quicker and more profound dovish shift on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict than his less cognitively open and complex rivals. “Guy Ziv has written a masterful and intriguing study that breaks new ground in demonstrating the importance of the individual leader in framing foreign policy. The comparisons of Peres, Rabin, Begin, and Shamir are extraordinary, and effectively demonstrate the advantages of a leader who has a talent for adapting to altered conditions and listening to differing perspectives. It’s both an absorbing page-turner and a stimulating eye-opener.” — Steven L. Spiegel, coauthor of The Peace Puzzle: America’s Quest for Arab-Israeli Peace, 1989–2011 “Ziv has written a fascinating account of how some leaders (Peres, Rabin, Sharon) are able to shift their goals and strategies to a less conflictual mode, and how others (Shamir, Begin, Netanyahu) are simply incapable of doing so. Ziv makes a strong case for the proposition that the cognitive structure of leaders matters. A turn towards peace requires national leaders who are personally capable of making that turn. Ziv’s tome is a substantial contribution to the literatures of foreign policy analysis and political psychology, and is an important read for all who seek a more peaceful world.” — Valerie M. Hudson, author of Foreign Policy Analysis: Classic and Contemporary Theory

A vigorous debate is occurring among American elites with respect to whether and when the United States should relinquish its nuclear weapons. Bolstering hopes for tangible results is that a U.S. President is again publicly and forcefully supporting disarmament. While this debate, which addresses both technical and political factors related to abolition, may be the most serious one of its kind since the dawn of the nuclear age, the future of U.S. nuclear weapons policy remains uncertain. The general approach advanced today in U.S. policy circles largely hews, after all, to the logic of the past 65 years: arms control and nonproliferation now, disarmament at an undetermined time in the future. Moreover, several conceptual and strategic barriers continue to block serious progress toward U.S. disarmament. By situating the current pro-disarmament rhetoric in this larger historical and strategic context, this monograph argues that there is reason to doubt whether the current push for disarmament will produce meaningful and lasting results.