Robert Wuthnow
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780199730872
- eISBN:
- 9780199777389
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199730872.003.0002
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter focuses on people's responses to the nuclear era. The ebb and flow of public concern has been noted by nearly all historians of the nuclear era. What is more interesting is how the ...
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This chapter focuses on people's responses to the nuclear era. The ebb and flow of public concern has been noted by nearly all historians of the nuclear era. What is more interesting is how the public came to view nuclear weapons as a problem — not only in the negative sense, but often as a positive opportunity to be exploited — and how rolling up its collective sleeves to work on this problem became the accepted way of coexisting with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Unlike the prospect of one's own death and the death of a loved one, and even unlike the occasional airplane crash or earthquake that takes dozens or hundreds of lives, the possibility of a nuclear conflagration — a holocaust from having unlocked the basic power of the universe and creating weaponry capable of putting the world in danger of sudden destruction — was anything but normal. Yet it became normal. After the initial emotional shock, when Americans inescapably experienced bewilderment, uncertainty, and some level of grief for those who had died, attention turned to more practical concerns. The nuclear era became one of problem solving. People decided that whatever it had taken to produce such powerful weapons could surely be harnessed for other commendable purposes. They looked to government officials to protect them and occasionally searched for better measures to protect themselves.Less
This chapter focuses on people's responses to the nuclear era. The ebb and flow of public concern has been noted by nearly all historians of the nuclear era. What is more interesting is how the public came to view nuclear weapons as a problem — not only in the negative sense, but often as a positive opportunity to be exploited — and how rolling up its collective sleeves to work on this problem became the accepted way of coexisting with the threat of nuclear annihilation. Unlike the prospect of one's own death and the death of a loved one, and even unlike the occasional airplane crash or earthquake that takes dozens or hundreds of lives, the possibility of a nuclear conflagration — a holocaust from having unlocked the basic power of the universe and creating weaponry capable of putting the world in danger of sudden destruction — was anything but normal. Yet it became normal. After the initial emotional shock, when Americans inescapably experienced bewilderment, uncertainty, and some level of grief for those who had died, attention turned to more practical concerns. The nuclear era became one of problem solving. People decided that whatever it had taken to produce such powerful weapons could surely be harnessed for other commendable purposes. They looked to government officials to protect them and occasionally searched for better measures to protect themselves.
David French
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199548231
- eISBN:
- 9780191739224
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199548231.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Military History
This chapter analyses the evolution of the army's doctrine for nuclear war fighting, from the moment when it first began to consider the possible impact of nuclear weapons on an army in the field in ...
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This chapter analyses the evolution of the army's doctrine for nuclear war fighting, from the moment when it first began to consider the possible impact of nuclear weapons on an army in the field in the late 1940s, to the point at which it had evolved a mature doctrine for such operations, in the late 1960s. It is a topic that has largely been ignored by historians of nuclear strategy, who have focused their attention on the adoption of the far more destructive strategic nuclear weapons. Such references as they have made to the introduction of tactical nuclear weapons have examined their impact on NATO's overall strategy, but little has been written about how the army considered they might be used, or the impact that their introduction had on how the army was configured and prepared for war.Less
This chapter analyses the evolution of the army's doctrine for nuclear war fighting, from the moment when it first began to consider the possible impact of nuclear weapons on an army in the field in the late 1940s, to the point at which it had evolved a mature doctrine for such operations, in the late 1960s. It is a topic that has largely been ignored by historians of nuclear strategy, who have focused their attention on the adoption of the far more destructive strategic nuclear weapons. Such references as they have made to the introduction of tactical nuclear weapons have examined their impact on NATO's overall strategy, but little has been written about how the army considered they might be used, or the impact that their introduction had on how the army was configured and prepared for war.
Clark Ian
- Published in print:
- 1988
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780198273257
- eISBN:
- 9780191684012
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198273257.003.0006
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter analyses the prospect of nuclear war and the place of such a prospect in nuclear strategies of deterrence. It examines nuclear targeting, nuclear war-fighting doctrines, and problems ...
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This chapter analyses the prospect of nuclear war and the place of such a prospect in nuclear strategies of deterrence. It examines nuclear targeting, nuclear war-fighting doctrines, and problems associated with the attempt to make judgments about war purely on the basis of individual weapon systems, such as nuclear arms. The chapter focuses on the principles of discrimination and proportionality in warfare and examines whether the justice of war can reside in the very nature of the weapons by means of which it is fought.Less
This chapter analyses the prospect of nuclear war and the place of such a prospect in nuclear strategies of deterrence. It examines nuclear targeting, nuclear war-fighting doctrines, and problems associated with the attempt to make judgments about war purely on the basis of individual weapon systems, such as nuclear arms. The chapter focuses on the principles of discrimination and proportionality in warfare and examines whether the justice of war can reside in the very nature of the weapons by means of which it is fought.
David French
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199548231
- eISBN:
- 9780191739224
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199548231.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Military History
The veterans of the Fourteenth Army who fought in Burma between 1942 and 1945 called themselves ‘the forgotten army’. But that appellation could equally well be applied to the whole of the British ...
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The veterans of the Fourteenth Army who fought in Burma between 1942 and 1945 called themselves ‘the forgotten army’. But that appellation could equally well be applied to the whole of the British army after 1945. Histories of Britain's post‐war defence policy have usually focused on how and why Britain acquired a nuclear deterrent. This book takes a new look at it by placing the army centre‐stage. Drawing on archival sources that have hardly been used by historians, it shows how British governments tried to create an army that would enable them to maintain their position as a major world power at a time when their economy struggled to foot the bill. The result was a growing mismatch between the military resources that the government thought it could afford on the one hand, and a long list of overseas commitments, in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East, that it was reluctant to surrender. The result was that the British created a Potemkin army, a force that had an outwardly impressive facade, but that in reality had only very limited war‐fighting capabilities.Less
The veterans of the Fourteenth Army who fought in Burma between 1942 and 1945 called themselves ‘the forgotten army’. But that appellation could equally well be applied to the whole of the British army after 1945. Histories of Britain's post‐war defence policy have usually focused on how and why Britain acquired a nuclear deterrent. This book takes a new look at it by placing the army centre‐stage. Drawing on archival sources that have hardly been used by historians, it shows how British governments tried to create an army that would enable them to maintain their position as a major world power at a time when their economy struggled to foot the bill. The result was a growing mismatch between the military resources that the government thought it could afford on the one hand, and a long list of overseas commitments, in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and the Far East, that it was reluctant to surrender. The result was that the British created a Potemkin army, a force that had an outwardly impressive facade, but that in reality had only very limited war‐fighting capabilities.
Dee Garrison
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195183191
- eISBN:
- 9780199788804
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183191.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This prologue outlines how the advent of hydrogen weapons transformed the practice of war. It explains why modern nuclear weapons cannot be compared with those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It ...
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This prologue outlines how the advent of hydrogen weapons transformed the practice of war. It explains why modern nuclear weapons cannot be compared with those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It then discusses the effects of a nuclear explosion and life after a nuclear war.Less
This prologue outlines how the advent of hydrogen weapons transformed the practice of war. It explains why modern nuclear weapons cannot be compared with those dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It then discusses the effects of a nuclear explosion and life after a nuclear war.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846317088
- eISBN:
- 9781846319792
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846317088.003.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This introductory chapter presents an overview of the main themes covered in this study, which is anchored by the assertion that nuclear weapons are white weapons, and that the virtues and vices of ...
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This introductory chapter presents an overview of the main themes covered in this study, which is anchored by the assertion that nuclear weapons are white weapons, and that the virtues and vices of white people and nations are condensed in the figure of nuclear weapons. The study outlines two broad ways in which nuclear weapons have been seen as white: first, because the weapons themselves symbolize the achievements, atrocities and attitudes of European and American modernity; and second, because the post-nuclear-war future that such weapons could make possible is deemed to reproduce a (European) colonial or (American) frontier dynamic in which white Europeans and their descendents defend and enlarge their societies at the expense of non-white peoples.Less
This introductory chapter presents an overview of the main themes covered in this study, which is anchored by the assertion that nuclear weapons are white weapons, and that the virtues and vices of white people and nations are condensed in the figure of nuclear weapons. The study outlines two broad ways in which nuclear weapons have been seen as white: first, because the weapons themselves symbolize the achievements, atrocities and attitudes of European and American modernity; and second, because the post-nuclear-war future that such weapons could make possible is deemed to reproduce a (European) colonial or (American) frontier dynamic in which white Europeans and their descendents defend and enlarge their societies at the expense of non-white peoples.
Eglė Rindzevičiūtė
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- May 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781501703188
- eISBN:
- 9781501706257
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501703188.003.0007
- Subject:
- Political Science, Russian Politics
This chapter looks at the nuclear winter project, an outcome of global modeling. The idea that the Earth could be plunged into a “nuclear winter” as the catastrophic outcome of a nuclear war was ...
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This chapter looks at the nuclear winter project, an outcome of global modeling. The idea that the Earth could be plunged into a “nuclear winter” as the catastrophic outcome of a nuclear war was announced by a group of leading climate and environment scientists from the United States, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union shortly after Ronald Reagan delivered his “Star Wars” speech in March 1983. Drawing on experiments with data-based computer models, these scholars claimed that a nuclear war, unlike the two world wars, would be not simply a regional, but a truly global disaster. Nuclear missiles, detonated over urban areas, would ignite massive fire storms, which in turn would propel soot particles and aerosols into high levels of the atmosphere. As a result, the computer models predicted, a dust shield would emerge that would be transported by air currents to both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.Less
This chapter looks at the nuclear winter project, an outcome of global modeling. The idea that the Earth could be plunged into a “nuclear winter” as the catastrophic outcome of a nuclear war was announced by a group of leading climate and environment scientists from the United States, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union shortly after Ronald Reagan delivered his “Star Wars” speech in March 1983. Drawing on experiments with data-based computer models, these scholars claimed that a nuclear war, unlike the two world wars, would be not simply a regional, but a truly global disaster. Nuclear missiles, detonated over urban areas, would ignite massive fire storms, which in turn would propel soot particles and aerosols into high levels of the atmosphere. As a result, the computer models predicted, a dust shield would emerge that would be transported by air currents to both the Northern and Southern hemispheres.
William French
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- May 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780195372427
- eISBN:
- 9780199949618
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195372427.003.0012
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This essay describes strategies developed by the author for teaching a course on the Just War theory. The most prominent of the western religious traditions to articulate the conditions necessary for ...
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This essay describes strategies developed by the author for teaching a course on the Just War theory. The most prominent of the western religious traditions to articulate the conditions necessary for the moral use of armed force, the Just War tradition, with its roots in the medieval Catholic theology of Augustine and Aquinas, stipulates two sets of criteria, jus ad bellum (the discernment of the moral reasons for going to war), and jus in bello (the morality of the execution of the war itself). His course trains students in critical thinking about violence by emphasizing the careful analysis of wartime logic and the restraint of violence that this theological tradition has demanded. Students become empowered to exercise creative moral reasoning by exploring the possible expansion of the theory’s criteria, on the basis of the planet’s accumulated experience of 100 years of modern and nuclear warfare, to include a consideration of jus post bellum, the justice of a post-war circumstances, as part of the assessment of an action’s moral status.Less
This essay describes strategies developed by the author for teaching a course on the Just War theory. The most prominent of the western religious traditions to articulate the conditions necessary for the moral use of armed force, the Just War tradition, with its roots in the medieval Catholic theology of Augustine and Aquinas, stipulates two sets of criteria, jus ad bellum (the discernment of the moral reasons for going to war), and jus in bello (the morality of the execution of the war itself). His course trains students in critical thinking about violence by emphasizing the careful analysis of wartime logic and the restraint of violence that this theological tradition has demanded. Students become empowered to exercise creative moral reasoning by exploring the possible expansion of the theory’s criteria, on the basis of the planet’s accumulated experience of 100 years of modern and nuclear warfare, to include a consideration of jus post bellum, the justice of a post-war circumstances, as part of the assessment of an action’s moral status.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846317088
- eISBN:
- 9781846319792
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846317088.003.0005
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter comments on several American films and novels from the 1950s, early 1960s and the 1980s, focusing on a major theme structuring interracial relations in the post-nuclear-war world: who is ...
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This chapter comments on several American films and novels from the 1950s, early 1960s and the 1980s, focusing on a major theme structuring interracial relations in the post-nuclear-war world: who is to have sex, and with whom? This is a crucial issue because the reproduction of the survivors will determine who will repopulate the United States (in some instances, the world). The narratives dramatize the conflict that ensues when some of the characters disagree with the racial ingredients out of which the Americans of the future will emerge. The chapter emphasizes the decisions made by survivors in choosing a mate for procreation; it uses Werner Sollors' model of how American identities are held in tension between descent and consent relations to discuss the strategies used to explain characters' decisions to reproduce ‘with their own kind’ — or not.Less
This chapter comments on several American films and novels from the 1950s, early 1960s and the 1980s, focusing on a major theme structuring interracial relations in the post-nuclear-war world: who is to have sex, and with whom? This is a crucial issue because the reproduction of the survivors will determine who will repopulate the United States (in some instances, the world). The narratives dramatize the conflict that ensues when some of the characters disagree with the racial ingredients out of which the Americans of the future will emerge. The chapter emphasizes the decisions made by survivors in choosing a mate for procreation; it uses Werner Sollors' model of how American identities are held in tension between descent and consent relations to discuss the strategies used to explain characters' decisions to reproduce ‘with their own kind’ — or not.
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846317088
- eISBN:
- 9781846319792
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846317088.003.0006
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter explores the image of nuclear war in the context of the black Atlantic as a counterculture of modernity. It asks how racial oppression and nuclear weapons have been considered ...
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This chapter explores the image of nuclear war in the context of the black Atlantic as a counterculture of modernity. It asks how racial oppression and nuclear weapons have been considered concurrently by black Atlantic thinkers, writers and performers to emphasize the structures of racial oppression within Western societies, and the questionable morality and desirability of the West's technological progress. It argues that confronting contemporary racial injustice on an international scale must be connected to nuclear disarmament programmes.Less
This chapter explores the image of nuclear war in the context of the black Atlantic as a counterculture of modernity. It asks how racial oppression and nuclear weapons have been considered concurrently by black Atlantic thinkers, writers and performers to emphasize the structures of racial oppression within Western societies, and the questionable morality and desirability of the West's technological progress. It argues that confronting contemporary racial injustice on an international scale must be connected to nuclear disarmament programmes.
Ross McGarry and Sandra Walklate
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- January 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781529202595
- eISBN:
- 9781529202649
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781529202595.003.0005
- Subject:
- Sociology, Law, Crime and Deviance
In chapter five, From nuclear to “degenerate” war, we turn attention to criminological work produced in the aftermath of the Cold War, specifically related to nuclear warfare. In doing so, seminal ...
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In chapter five, From nuclear to “degenerate” war, we turn attention to criminological work produced in the aftermath of the Cold War, specifically related to nuclear warfare. In doing so, seminal work within criminology is used to provide an account of the ways in which the detonation, production, and proliferation of nuclear weapons can be considered as forms of extortion, deviance, and international state criminality. An intervention is then made in this work to suggest that if alternatively understood as a form of “degenerate war”, then analytic attention would draw not only state criminality into view but, importantly, state victimisation.Less
In chapter five, From nuclear to “degenerate” war, we turn attention to criminological work produced in the aftermath of the Cold War, specifically related to nuclear warfare. In doing so, seminal work within criminology is used to provide an account of the ways in which the detonation, production, and proliferation of nuclear weapons can be considered as forms of extortion, deviance, and international state criminality. An intervention is then made in this work to suggest that if alternatively understood as a form of “degenerate war”, then analytic attention would draw not only state criminality into view but, importantly, state victimisation.
Matthew Kroenig
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- February 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780190849184
- eISBN:
- 9780190870591
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190849184.003.0002
- Subject:
- Political Science, International Relations and Politics
This chapter develops a new theory of nuclear deterrence, the superiority-brinkmanship synthesis theory. The theory brings together traditional arguments in the nuclear strategy literature about the ...
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This chapter develops a new theory of nuclear deterrence, the superiority-brinkmanship synthesis theory. The theory brings together traditional arguments in the nuclear strategy literature about the advantages of nuclear superiority and combines them with nuclear brinkmanship theory to provide the first coherent theoretical explanation for why nuclear superiority provides states with geopolitical advantages. It argues that military nuclear advantages reduce a state’s expected cost of nuclear war, increasing its effective resolve, and enhancing its bargaining position. On the other hand, states in an inferior strategic position face a relatively higher cost of nuclear war, are less willing to run risks in a crisis, and are more likely to back down early in a dispute. This chapter serves, therefore, as the theoretical and conceptual core for the first half of the bookLess
This chapter develops a new theory of nuclear deterrence, the superiority-brinkmanship synthesis theory. The theory brings together traditional arguments in the nuclear strategy literature about the advantages of nuclear superiority and combines them with nuclear brinkmanship theory to provide the first coherent theoretical explanation for why nuclear superiority provides states with geopolitical advantages. It argues that military nuclear advantages reduce a state’s expected cost of nuclear war, increasing its effective resolve, and enhancing its bargaining position. On the other hand, states in an inferior strategic position face a relatively higher cost of nuclear war, are less willing to run risks in a crisis, and are more likely to back down early in a dispute. This chapter serves, therefore, as the theoretical and conceptual core for the first half of the book
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- June 2013
- ISBN:
- 9781846317088
- eISBN:
- 9781846319792
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Liverpool University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5949/liverpool/9781846317088.003.0003
- Subject:
- Literature, Criticism/Theory
This chapter examines American novels and short stories that depict the post-nuclear-war United States needing the intervention and tolerance of other nations to survive, namely Whitley Strieber and ...
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This chapter examines American novels and short stories that depict the post-nuclear-war United States needing the intervention and tolerance of other nations to survive, namely Whitley Strieber and James W. Kunetka's novel Warday (1984), William Tenn's short story ‘Eastward Ho!’ (1958) and Michael Swanwick's short story ‘The Feast of Saint Janis’ (1980). These three stories invert the central conceit of nuclear frontier fiction so World War Three actually leaves the USA open to recolonization. In these texts the iconography of the frontier is reversed, using white settlement in North America to signify primitivism in opposition to the civilizations of the Sioux, New Africa, Japan and Britain.Less
This chapter examines American novels and short stories that depict the post-nuclear-war United States needing the intervention and tolerance of other nations to survive, namely Whitley Strieber and James W. Kunetka's novel Warday (1984), William Tenn's short story ‘Eastward Ho!’ (1958) and Michael Swanwick's short story ‘The Feast of Saint Janis’ (1980). These three stories invert the central conceit of nuclear frontier fiction so World War Three actually leaves the USA open to recolonization. In these texts the iconography of the frontier is reversed, using white settlement in North America to signify primitivism in opposition to the civilizations of the Sioux, New Africa, Japan and Britain.
Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- January 2021
- ISBN:
- 9781501749292
- eISBN:
- 9781501749315
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9781501749292.003.0005
- Subject:
- Political Science, Security Studies
This chapter explores the ability of nuclear weapons to deter conventional war. For nuclear weapons to mitigate traditional security competition, they must not only render nuclear war unwinnable but ...
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This chapter explores the ability of nuclear weapons to deter conventional war. For nuclear weapons to mitigate traditional security competition, they must not only render nuclear war unwinnable but also serve as a robust deterrent to major conventional attacks. It explains how a potential victim of conventional attack can make credible threats to escalate to nuclear war if the attacker can retaliate in kind. The chapter also discusses about countries facing threats of overwhelming conventional attack that have almost always opted to develop nuclear forces that are flexible enough to be used in limited ways. It shows that nuclear-armed countries that face dire prospects in conventional war are the same ones that tend to develop nuclear postures tailored to coercive nuclear escalation.Less
This chapter explores the ability of nuclear weapons to deter conventional war. For nuclear weapons to mitigate traditional security competition, they must not only render nuclear war unwinnable but also serve as a robust deterrent to major conventional attacks. It explains how a potential victim of conventional attack can make credible threats to escalate to nuclear war if the attacker can retaliate in kind. The chapter also discusses about countries facing threats of overwhelming conventional attack that have almost always opted to develop nuclear forces that are flexible enough to be used in limited ways. It shows that nuclear-armed countries that face dire prospects in conventional war are the same ones that tend to develop nuclear postures tailored to coercive nuclear escalation.
Claudia Kemper
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9781784994402
- eISBN:
- 9781526115126
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Manchester University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7228/manchester/9781784994402.003.0010
- Subject:
- History, Military History
How did physicians feed the imagination of the Cold War? The example of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) clearly illustrates how medical expertise drew attention on ...
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How did physicians feed the imagination of the Cold War? The example of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) clearly illustrates how medical expertise drew attention on the fact that a nuclear war did not begin with the firing of a missile, but with the psychological effects of the nuclear threat. Within the debate about the deployment of nuclear arms, physicians tried both to be neutral doctors and political stakeholders. But defining the Cold War as a disease and providing therapies remained a difficult balancing act between professional practice and political partisanship. More generally, IPPNW took part in creating a special perception of the Cold War, in order to transpose simulated future destructions into the societal and political present.Less
How did physicians feed the imagination of the Cold War? The example of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) clearly illustrates how medical expertise drew attention on the fact that a nuclear war did not begin with the firing of a missile, but with the psychological effects of the nuclear threat. Within the debate about the deployment of nuclear arms, physicians tried both to be neutral doctors and political stakeholders. But defining the Cold War as a disease and providing therapies remained a difficult balancing act between professional practice and political partisanship. More generally, IPPNW took part in creating a special perception of the Cold War, in order to transpose simulated future destructions into the societal and political present.
Stanley Wolpert
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780520266773
- eISBN:
- 9780520925755
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of California Press
- DOI:
- 10.1525/california/9780520266773.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Asian History
Beginning in 1947, when “India and Pakistan were born to conflict,” this book provides a primer on what is potentially the world's most dangerous crisis. It distills sixty-three years of complex ...
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Beginning in 1947, when “India and Pakistan were born to conflict,” this book provides a primer on what is potentially the world's most dangerous crisis. It distills sixty-three years of complex history, tracing the roots of the relationship between these two antagonists, explaining the many attempts to resolve their disputes, and assessing the dominant political leaders. While the tragic Partition left many urgent problems, none has been more difficult than the problem over Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan. This intensely divisive issue has triggered two conventional wars, killed some 100,000 Kashmiris, and almost ignited two nuclear wars since 1998, when both India and Pakistan openly emerged as nuclear-weapon states. In addition to providing a comprehensive perspective on the origin and nature of this urgent conflict, the book examines all the proposed solutions and concludes with a road map for a brighter future for South Asia.Less
Beginning in 1947, when “India and Pakistan were born to conflict,” this book provides a primer on what is potentially the world's most dangerous crisis. It distills sixty-three years of complex history, tracing the roots of the relationship between these two antagonists, explaining the many attempts to resolve their disputes, and assessing the dominant political leaders. While the tragic Partition left many urgent problems, none has been more difficult than the problem over Kashmir, claimed by both India and Pakistan. This intensely divisive issue has triggered two conventional wars, killed some 100,000 Kashmiris, and almost ignited two nuclear wars since 1998, when both India and Pakistan openly emerged as nuclear-weapon states. In addition to providing a comprehensive perspective on the origin and nature of this urgent conflict, the book examines all the proposed solutions and concludes with a road map for a brighter future for South Asia.
Lawrence Badash
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262012720
- eISBN:
- 9780262258531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262012720.003.0013
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
The fact that some of the computer models used in nuclear winter research were derived from others raised concern that many scientists were reaching the same conclusions. Those who studied the ...
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The fact that some of the computer models used in nuclear winter research were derived from others raised concern that many scientists were reaching the same conclusions. Those who studied the nuclear war scenarios, the physical and chemical effects, and the climatic consequences generally viewed their research as independent and were thus confident of its direction. Aside from the independence of models used in the research, another issue was their intrinsic value—that is, whether they were worth believing. In early 1985, better results were obtained from interactive models, which supplanted the one-dimensional representation used by the TTAPS team of Richard Turco, Owen Brian Toon, Thomas Ackerman, James Pollack, and Carl Sagan and the two- and three-dimensional models, which were unable to move smoke around. A number of fire studies were conducted to verify or challenge the TTAPS findings. New research on the biological and ecological implications of nuclear war also appeared.Less
The fact that some of the computer models used in nuclear winter research were derived from others raised concern that many scientists were reaching the same conclusions. Those who studied the nuclear war scenarios, the physical and chemical effects, and the climatic consequences generally viewed their research as independent and were thus confident of its direction. Aside from the independence of models used in the research, another issue was their intrinsic value—that is, whether they were worth believing. In early 1985, better results were obtained from interactive models, which supplanted the one-dimensional representation used by the TTAPS team of Richard Turco, Owen Brian Toon, Thomas Ackerman, James Pollack, and Carl Sagan and the two- and three-dimensional models, which were unable to move smoke around. A number of fire studies were conducted to verify or challenge the TTAPS findings. New research on the biological and ecological implications of nuclear war also appeared.
Lawrence Badash
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262012720
- eISBN:
- 9780262258531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262012720.003.0020
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
In March 1986, the General Accounting Office submitted a report to Congress detailing the technical uncertainties surrounding the long-term effects of nuclear war. Titled “Nuclear winter: ...
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In March 1986, the General Accounting Office submitted a report to Congress detailing the technical uncertainties surrounding the long-term effects of nuclear war. Titled “Nuclear winter: Uncertainties surround the long-term effects of nuclear war,” the report was drafted by a committee headed by Alan Hecht of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and comprised of several scientists. The GAO report was reviewed by other government agencies involved with nuclear winter, including the Defense Nuclear Agency. In May 1986, the Department of Defense issued its own report to Congress. Five years later, nuclear winter theory gave way to experiment when most of Kuwait’s 1,250 oil wells were torched in the wake of the Persian Gulf War. This chapter examines the politics and policy issues surrounding the nuclear winter debate.Less
In March 1986, the General Accounting Office submitted a report to Congress detailing the technical uncertainties surrounding the long-term effects of nuclear war. Titled “Nuclear winter: Uncertainties surround the long-term effects of nuclear war,” the report was drafted by a committee headed by Alan Hecht of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and comprised of several scientists. The GAO report was reviewed by other government agencies involved with nuclear winter, including the Defense Nuclear Agency. In May 1986, the Department of Defense issued its own report to Congress. Five years later, nuclear winter theory gave way to experiment when most of Kuwait’s 1,250 oil wells were torched in the wake of the Persian Gulf War. This chapter examines the politics and policy issues surrounding the nuclear winter debate.
Joseph Cirincione
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- November 2020
- ISBN:
- 9780198570509
- eISBN:
- 9780191918100
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198570509.003.0025
- Subject:
- Earth Sciences and Geography, Environmental Geography
The American poet Robert Frost famously mused on whether the world will end in fire or in ice. Nuclear weapons can deliver both. The fire is obvious: modern hydrogen bombs duplicate on the surface ...
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The American poet Robert Frost famously mused on whether the world will end in fire or in ice. Nuclear weapons can deliver both. The fire is obvious: modern hydrogen bombs duplicate on the surface of the earth the enormous thermonuclear energies of the Sun, with catastrophic consequences. But it might be a nuclear cold that kills the planet. A nuclear war with as few as 100 hundred weapons exploded in urban cores could blanket the Earth in smoke, ushering in a years-long nuclear winter, with global droughts and massive crop failures. The nuclear age is now entering its seventh decade. For most of these years, citizens and officials lived with the constant fear that long-range bombers and ballistic missiles would bring instant, total destruction to the United States, the Soviet Union, many other nations, and, perhaps, the entire planet. Fifty years ago, Nevil Shute’s best-selling novel, On the Beach, portrayed the terror of survivors as they awaited the radioactive clouds drifting to Australia from a northern hemisphere nuclear war. There were then some 7000 nuclear weapons in the world, with the United States outnumbering the Soviet Union 10 to 1. By the 1980s, the nuclear danger had grown to grotesque proportions. When Jonathan Schell’s chilling book, The Fate of the Earth, was published in 1982, there were then almost 60,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled with a destructive force equal to roughly 20,000 megatons (20 billion tons) of TNT, or over 1 million times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ anti-missile system was supposed to defeat a first-wave attack of some 5000 Soviet SS-18 and SS-19 missile warheads streaking over the North Pole. ‘These bombs’, Schell wrote, ‘were built as “weapons” for “war”, but their significance greatly transcends war and all its causes and outcomes. They grew out of history, yet they threaten to end history. They were made by men, yet they threaten to annihilate man’.
Less
The American poet Robert Frost famously mused on whether the world will end in fire or in ice. Nuclear weapons can deliver both. The fire is obvious: modern hydrogen bombs duplicate on the surface of the earth the enormous thermonuclear energies of the Sun, with catastrophic consequences. But it might be a nuclear cold that kills the planet. A nuclear war with as few as 100 hundred weapons exploded in urban cores could blanket the Earth in smoke, ushering in a years-long nuclear winter, with global droughts and massive crop failures. The nuclear age is now entering its seventh decade. For most of these years, citizens and officials lived with the constant fear that long-range bombers and ballistic missiles would bring instant, total destruction to the United States, the Soviet Union, many other nations, and, perhaps, the entire planet. Fifty years ago, Nevil Shute’s best-selling novel, On the Beach, portrayed the terror of survivors as they awaited the radioactive clouds drifting to Australia from a northern hemisphere nuclear war. There were then some 7000 nuclear weapons in the world, with the United States outnumbering the Soviet Union 10 to 1. By the 1980s, the nuclear danger had grown to grotesque proportions. When Jonathan Schell’s chilling book, The Fate of the Earth, was published in 1982, there were then almost 60,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled with a destructive force equal to roughly 20,000 megatons (20 billion tons) of TNT, or over 1 million times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ anti-missile system was supposed to defeat a first-wave attack of some 5000 Soviet SS-18 and SS-19 missile warheads streaking over the North Pole. ‘These bombs’, Schell wrote, ‘were built as “weapons” for “war”, but their significance greatly transcends war and all its causes and outcomes. They grew out of history, yet they threaten to end history. They were made by men, yet they threaten to annihilate man’.
Lawrence Badash
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262012720
- eISBN:
- 9780262258531
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262012720.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
In 1983, Carl Sagan, a planetary astronomer and a renowned science popularizer, coined the phrase “nuclear winter” to describe the effects on Earth’s climate of the explosion of nuclear weapons. This ...
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In 1983, Carl Sagan, a planetary astronomer and a renowned science popularizer, coined the phrase “nuclear winter” to describe the effects on Earth’s climate of the explosion of nuclear weapons. This book examines one of the effects of nuclear explosions: decreased temperature and illumination caused by reduced sunlight. As an introduction, this chapter looks at attempts to predict certain climatic consequences of nuclear war and considers the obscuration of sunlight as the main mechanism, with ozone depletion and the altered reflection of sunlight as additional paths. It also examines some of the effects of nuclear weapons, from electromagnetic pulse and ozone depletion to radioactive fallout, global incineration, and climate change. These effects appear to be disparate, but are nevertheless linked by the geographical extent of their consequences.Less
In 1983, Carl Sagan, a planetary astronomer and a renowned science popularizer, coined the phrase “nuclear winter” to describe the effects on Earth’s climate of the explosion of nuclear weapons. This book examines one of the effects of nuclear explosions: decreased temperature and illumination caused by reduced sunlight. As an introduction, this chapter looks at attempts to predict certain climatic consequences of nuclear war and considers the obscuration of sunlight as the main mechanism, with ozone depletion and the altered reflection of sunlight as additional paths. It also examines some of the effects of nuclear weapons, from electromagnetic pulse and ozone depletion to radioactive fallout, global incineration, and climate change. These effects appear to be disparate, but are nevertheless linked by the geographical extent of their consequences.
