This is a chapter in the second edition of The National Security Enterprise, a book edited by Roger Z.

Are nuclear weapons useful for coercive diplomacy?

 In Unclear Physics, Malfrid Braut-Hegghammer tells the story of the Iraqi and Libyan programs from their origins in the late 1950s and 1960s until their dismantling.

Doomed to Cooperate tells the remarkable story of nuclear scientists from two former enemy nations, Russia and the United States, who reached across political, geographic, and cultural divides to...

The paper provides technical and circumstantial evidence that the detection of a "double flash" by a Vela satellite on 9/22/79 was that of an Israeli nuclear test logistically assisted by South...

The so-called “Cuban missile crisis” is turning 52, but it is certainly not forgotten; on the contrary, almost everyone seems to have an opinion on it.

Abstract: How do experts evaluate complex techno-political futures? This essay addresses the question by showing how scientists and engineers confronted U.S.

Abstract Chinese commentators assessing the 2010 US Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) acknowledged a number of ways in which they felt it was "better" than the 2001 NPR but still found much to criticize...

Abstract: This paper explores how, in the two decades following the laser's invention, the popular image of the laser weapon was transformed from a terrifying "death ray" capable of contaminating...

Jeff Richardson, a senior scientist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, outlines the rationale for retiring land-based ballistic missiles and leaving a strategic dyad of submarine-launched...

The intercept of the disabled USA-193 spy satellite the United States conducted on February 20 set a new benchmark for military exercises that have no benefits, but come at a tremendous political...