No Use : Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security

Thomas M. Nichols

ISBN 10: 0812245660 / ISBN 13: 9780812245660

Published by University Of Pennsylvania Press Dez 2013, 2013

About this Item

Neuware - For more than forty years, the United States has maintained a public commitment to nuclear disarmament, and every president from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama has gradually reduced the size of America's nuclear forces. Yet even now, over two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States maintains a huge nuclear arsenal on high alert and ready for war. The Americans, like the Russians, the Chinese, and other major nuclear powers, continue to retain a deep faith in the political and military value of nuclear force, and this belief remains enshrined at the center of U.S. defense policy regardless of the radical changes that have taken place in international politics. In No Use, national security scholar Thomas M. Nichols offers a lucid, accessible reexamination of the role of nuclear weapons and their prominence in U.S. security strategy. Nichols explains why strategies built for the Cold War have survived into the twenty-first century, and he illustrates how America's nearly unshakable belief in the utility of nuclear arms has hindered U.S. and international attempts to slow the nuclear programs of volatile regimes in North Korea and Iran. From a solid historical foundation, Nichols makes the compelling argument that to end the danger of worldwide nuclear holocaust, the United States must take the lead in abandoning unrealistic threats of nuclear force and then create a new and more stable approach to deterrence for the twenty-first century.

Seller Inventory # 9780812245660

Bibliographic Details

• Title: No Use : Nuclear Weapons and U.S. National Security
• Publisher: University Of Pennsylvania Press Dez 2013
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0812245660
• ISBN 13: 9780812245660
• Binding: Buch
• Condition: Neu
• Dimensions: 238W x 160H x 24D millimeters 238 millimeters width by 160 millimeters height by 24 millimeters depth
• Weight: 524 grams

About this title

Synopsis

For more than forty years, the United States has maintained a public commitment to nuclear disarmament, and every president from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama has gradually reduced the size of America's nuclear forces. Yet even now, over two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States maintains a huge nuclear arsenal on high alert and ready for war. The Americans, like the Russians, the Chinese, and other major nuclear powers, continue to retain a deep faith in the political and military value of nuclear force, and this belief remains enshrined at the center of U.S. defense policy regardless of the radical changes that have taken place in international politics.

In No Use, national security scholar Thomas M. Nichols offers a lucid, accessible reexamination of the role of nuclear weapons and their prominence in U.S. security strategy. Nichols explains why strategies built for the Cold War have survived into the twenty-first century, and he illustrates how America's nearly unshakable belief in the utility of nuclear arms has hindered U.S. and international attempts to slow the nuclear programs of volatile regimes in North Korea and Iran. From a solid historical foundation, Nichols makes the compelling argument that to end the danger of worldwide nuclear holocaust, the United States must take the lead in abandoning unrealistic threats of nuclear force and then create a new and more stable approach to deterrence for the twenty-first century.

About the Author

Thomas M. Nichols is Professor of National Security Affairs at the U.S. Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island, and author of Eve of Destruction: The Coming Age of Preventive War, also available from University of Pennsylvania Press.