Chasing a Grand Illusion: Replacing Deterrence with Disarmament - Softcover

Payne, Keith B

Softcover

ISBN 13: 9798218147563

Publisher: National Institute for Public Policy, 2023

Synopsis

Chasing a Grand Illusion focuses on the positions expressed by church-based and secular scholars regarding the morality of nuclear weapons and effectiveness of deterrence. Of particular interest is their frequent conclusion that the solution to the threat posed by the existence of nuclear weapons is global nuclear disarmament and not what they describe as unacceptably dangerous policies of nuclear deterrence. The text examines the assumptions and logic of the narrative, common to church-based and secular commentary, that global disarmament is a safer and more effective path to addressing the threat posed by nuclear weapons than is continuing reliance on policies of deterrence. In particular, this study examines the frequently expressed proposal by church-based and secular proponents of global disarmament that disarmament can follow from the establishment of a new law-abiding global political order that is governed by a global orderer with the authority and power to mandate and enforce nuclear disarmament.

About this title

About the Author

Keith Payne is a co-founder of the National Institute for Public Policy, a nonprofit research center located in Fairfax, Virginia and Professor Emeritus, Missouri State University, Graduate Department of Defense and Strategic Studies. In 2005, he was awarded the Vicennial Medal from Georgetown University for his many years on the faculty of the graduate National Security Studies Program. Dr. Payne has served in the Department of Defense as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Forces Policy and as a Senior Advisor to the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD). He received both the Distinguished Public Service Medal and the OSD Award for Outstanding Achievement. Dr. Payne also served as a Commissioner on the bipartisan Congressional Commission on the Strategic Posture of the United States and is a co-author of the Commission’s final report (2009). He also served in Democratic and Republican administrations as a member of the Secretary of State’s International Security Advisory Board, and as Chair of U.S. Strategic Command’s Senior Advisory Group, Policy and Strategy Panel. He is an award-winning author, co-author, or editor of over 250 published articles and 40 books and monographs, some of which have been translated into German, Russian, Chinese, Japanese or Spanish. Dr. Payne’s articles have appeared in major U.S., European and Japanese professional journals and newspapers. His most recent monograph is, Tailored Deterrence: China and the Taiwan Question (2022). Dr. Payne received an A.B. (honors) in political science from the University of California at Berkeley in 1976, studied in Heidelberg, Germany and received a Ph.D. (with distinction) in international relations from the University of Southern California.

Edition details

• Publisher: National Institute for Public Policy
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 13: 9798218147563
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 108