EXTENDED DETERRENCE IN THE MIDDLE EAST

The article presents and analyzes the US extended deterrence commitments in the Middle East as well as those provided by regional states, and assesses the effectiveness and credibility of these commitments. The article then proceeds to analyze a situation wherein Iran successfully develops nuclear weapons. It considers first the security requirements and alternatives of Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, and then proceeds to assess the stability—or instability—of an Israeli-Iranian nuclear balance. The enhancement of US extended deterrence in the region is required in order to deter Iran, reassure allies, and contribute to the stability of an Israeli-Iranian nuclear balance. The article also discusses several contextual issues, such as: the future form of US extended deterrence; distinguishing between the latter and other US extended deterrence commitments; and the different approaches of specific GCC states and Israel.     

Icons Off the Mark

In two landmark articles, longtime scholars Kenneth N. Waltz and Thomas C. Schelling have re-emphasized the utility of nuclear deterrence over nuclear nonproliferation (Waltz) and nuclear disarmament (Schelling). While the thrust of the articles is seemingly different, both are rooted in the same intellectual ground: an epistemology that assumes problem-free inferences, drawn from past experiences, are applicable in future scenarios; a foundational rooting in strategic rationality that entangles them in unsolvable contradictions concerning comparable risks of different nuclear constellations, namely deterrence versus proliferation and disarmament; and a bias in framing the empirical record that makes nuclear deterrence more conducive to security than nuclear disarmament. The common normative-practical denominator, then, is to let a nuclear weapon-free world appear both less desirable and less feasible than it might actually be.     

Deterrence in the Gulf War

A recently published collection of captured Iraqi records offers an opportunity to better understand Saddam Hussein's perception of US and Israeli deterrence signals, affording innovative insights into the reasons behind Iraq's restraint from using weapons of mass destruction against Israeli targets during the 1991 Gulf War. This article tests a wide range of suggested hypotheses, and suggests that US and Israeli deterrence played only a minimal role in dissuading Iraqi use of WMD. The article concludes with some thoughts on the practical implications, particularly on the effectiveness of a “no-first-use” nuclear policy.     

THE G8 GLOBAL PARTNERSHIP

ABSTRACT

Since the 1990s, the group of stakeholders working to combat biological weapons (BW) proliferation has broadened to include new actors who have not traditionally focused on security issues, including organizations from the public health sector, researchers in the life sciences, and the biosafety community. This has had significant benefits for the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BWC) and the arms control establishment more broadly. However, the BWC's agenda has become increasingly dominated by issues of international health and global health security. By focusing solely on response strategies, the United States and other interested parties risk losing sight of other important elements of a counter-BW strategy, including deterrence and prevention. Focusing on public health-related issues to the exclusion of more traditional security matters puts the nonproliferation regime at risk, because it limits the amount of time that stakeholders have available to grapple with the critical questions facing the BWC and the biological weapons nonproliferation establishment—questions that must be answered if the regime is to survive.     

Strategic defense and attack for series and parallel reliability systems: reply 1 to comment 1

Kovenock and Roberson's [2011] comment provides initial work which has the potential, when suitably extended, to advance the research frontier. Kovenock and Roberson's paper consists of three sections. The first section is an interesting introduction. The second section, titled ‘Model and Main Result,’ provides no contribution beyond Hausken [2008a]. It consists of Equations (1)–(10) which are equivalent to equations developed by Hausken, and Equation (11) which is equivalent to the utility requirements u???0 and U???0 provided after Equation (17) in Hausken. The third section provides interesting ideas about mixed-strategy equilibria that can be extended in future research.     

THE NUCLEAR TABOO: THE UNITED STATES AND THE NON-USE OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS SINCE 1945

Uranium: War, Energy and the Rock That Shaped the World, by Tom Zoellner. VikingPenguin, 2009. 337 pages, $26.95.

Plutonium: A History of the World's Most Dangerous Element, by Jeremy Bernstein.Joseph Henry Press, 2007. 194 pages, $27.95.     

NUCLEAR WEAPONS AS THE CURRENCY OF POWER

There are important similarities between the pattern of behavior Karl Marx identified with respect to commodities—a pattern he called “fetishism”—and the pattern of behavior identified in this article with respect to military force. Marx identified money as the mature expression of commodity fetishism; the author identifies nuclear weapons as the mature expression of the fetishism of force. As such, nuclear weapons function as the currency of power in the international system. This article lays out a theory of nuclear fetishism by adapting four themes that are characteristic of the pattern of behavior known as fetishism: materiality, historicality, efficacy, and reification. By applying these categories to the fetishism of nuclear weapons, the author shows that nuclear weapons represent a new social form consistent with, yet distinct from, other fetish objects.     

GREAT POWER RESPONSIBILITY AND NUCLEAR ORDER

A Perpetual Menace: Nuclear Weapons and International Order, by William Walker. Routledge, 2012. 247 pages, $42.95.     

ESCAPE FROM NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

Since the post-World War II genesis of nuclear deterrence, two presidential initiatives have been presented to deliver humanity from the threat of its failure. The first was the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a constellation of space- and ground-based systems that President Ronald Reagan envisioned would render nuclear weapons “impotent and obsolete.” The second is President Barack Obama's roadmap to “a world without nuclear weapons,” commonly referred to as “Global Zero.” While these proposals appear to have little in common, deeper investigation reveals a number of provocative similarities in motivation and presentation. Moreover, both generated fierce debate, often with ideological overtones, about their strategic desirability and technical feasibility. We use these parallels, as well as prominent dissimilarities, to draw lessons from the SDI experience that can be applied to the debate over Global Zero.     

THE MYTH OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE

Nuclear deterrence is sometimes treated as a known quantity—a definite thing that keeps us safe and ensures our security. It has also often been used as a justification for possessing nuclear weapons. Nuclear deterrence, however, is based on an unexamined notion: the belief that the threat to destroy cities provides decisive leverage. An examination of history (including recent reinterpretations of the bombing of Hiroshima) shows that destroying cities rarely affects the outcome of wars. How is it possible that an action that is unlikely to be decisive can make an effective threat? Recent work on terrorism suggests that attacks against civilians are often not only ineffective but also counterproductive. And a review of the practical record of nuclear deterrence shows more obvious failures than obvious successes. Given this, the record of nuclear deterrence is far more problematic than most people assume. If no stronger rationale for keeping these dangerous weapons can be contrived, perhaps they should be banned.