Our 2015 survey experiment—reported in the 2017 International Security article “Revisiting Hiroshima in Iran”—asked a representative sample of Americans to choose between continuing a ground invasion of Iran that would kill an estimated 20,000 U.S. soldiers or launching a nuclear attack on an Iranian city that would kill an estimated 100,000 civilians.1 Fifty-six percent of the respondents preferred the nuclear strike.
This article assesses American public attitudes toward the just war principles of proportionality, due care and distinction. Consistent with the logic of proportionality, the authors find that Americans are less willing to inflict collateral deaths on foreign civilians when the military advantage of destroying a target is lower. Most Americans also are willing to risk the deaths of American soldiers to avert a larger number of collateral foreign civilian deaths, which accords with the due care principle.
High-security organizations around the world face devastating threats from insiders—trusted employees with access to sensitive information, facilities, and materials. From Edward Snowden to the Fort Hood shooter to the theft of nuclear materials, the threat from insiders is on the front page and at the top of the policy agenda. Insider Threats offers detailed case studies of insider disasters across a range of different types of institutions, from biological research laboratories, to nuclear power plants, to the U.S. Army. Matthew Bunn and Scott D.
This book—the culmination of a truly collaborative international and highly interdisciplinary effort—brings together Japanese and American political scientists, nuclear engineers, historians, and physicists to examine the Fukushima accident from a new and broad perspective.
Scott Sagan, in this piece for Foreign Policy, remembers his longtime friend and colleague Kenneth Waltz. Waltz passed away on May 13. Sagan praised his work, noting that the realist perspective on the stabilizing effects of nuclear weapons struck a chord with international experts and strategists, even though his views were not popular in the United States. Waltz's contributions to the debate about nuclear weapons have left an enguring legacy.
Overview, from W.W. Norton & Company:
A long-time staple of International Relations courses, this new edition continues the important discussion of nuclear proliferation, while looking at the regions and issues now at the forefront of the nuclear question.
In a paper prepared for the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, CISAC research assistant Reid Pauly and senior fellow Scott Sagan share new evidence of instances when nuclear test sites, weapons in transit and deployed weapons were threatened during times of political instability.
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences has published a paper with seven essays from leading scholars invited to respond to Scott Sagan's concluding essay in the Fall 2009 special issue of Daedalus on the global nuclear future. The paper includes Scott's original essay and responses by James M. Acton, Jayantha Dhanapala, Mustafa Kibaroglu, Harald Muller, Yukio Satoh, Mohamed I. Shaker and Achilles Zaluar.
As Leslie Berlowitz, CEO of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, states in an excerpt from the paper's introduction:
The nuclear debate continues:
First paragraph of the book chapter:
The spread of nuclear weapons is one of the most significant challenges to global security in the 21st century. Limiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons and materials may be the key to preventing a nuclear war or a catastrophic act of nuclear terrorism. Going Nuclear offers conceptual, historical, and analytical perspectives on current problems in controlling nuclear proliferation. It includes essays that examine why countries seek nuclear weapons as well as studies of the nuclear programs of India, Pakistan, and South Africa.
Nuclear-armed adversaries India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their creation as sovereign states in 1947. They went to the brink of a fourth in 2001 following an attack on the Indian parliament, which the Indian government blamed on the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist organizations. Despite some attempts at rapprochement in the intervening years, a new standoff between the two countries was precipitated when India accused Lashkar-e-Taiba of being behind the Mumbai attacks late last year.
Interest in nuclear disarmament has grown rapidly in recent years. Starting with the 2007 Wall Street Journal article by four former U.S. statesmen-George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, William Perry, and Sam Nunn-and followed by endorsements from similar sets of former leaders from the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland, Australia, and Italy, the support for global nuclear disarmament has spread. The Japanese and Australian governments announced the creation of the International Commission on Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament in June 2008. Both Senators John
In this introductory essay, we aim first to demonstrate why the question of which states will develop nuclear power in the future matters for global security. To do so, we briefly discuss the connections between nuclear power, nuclear proliferation, and terrorism risks; we present data contrasting existing nuclear-power states with potential new entrants with respect to factors influencing those risks.
The forthcoming U.S. Nuclear Posture Review should broaden the traditional focus of such policy reviews on deterrence requirements and include a thorough analysis of how U.S. nuclear declaratory policy influences the likelihood of nuclear proliferation, the consequences of proliferation, and perceptions of the illegitimacy of nuclear terrorism. Such a broader frame of analysis leads to the conclusion that it would be in the U.S. national interest to adopt a no-first-use declaratory policy, stating clearly that 'the role of U.S.
On 8 February 2007, at the Kellogg Conference Center at the Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), the Journal of International Affairs and the Middle East Institute hosted a live debate between Scott Sagan and Kenneth Waltz. The two political scientists revisited their classic debate on nuclear weapons, addressing recent developments in Iran and possible global responses. Richard K. Betts moderated the event. Dean Lisa Anderson delivered opening remarks. This article is a transcript of the discussion.
The debate over how to deal with Iran's nuclear program is clouded by historical amnesia. Nuclear proliferation has been stopped before, and it can and should be stopped in this case as well. Unfortunately, with Tehran -- as with some of its predecessors -- the price for Washington will be relinquishing the threat of regime change by force.
This volume offers a unique perspective on the discussion of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) by broadening the terms of the debate to include both secular and religious investigations not normally considered. The volume contains a structured dialogue between representatives of the following ethical traditions: Buddhism, Christianity, Confucianism, feminism, Hinduism, Islam, Judaism, liberalism, natural law, pacifism, and realism. There are two introductory chapters on the technical aspects of WMD and international agreements for controlling WMD.