Security with Nuclear Weapons? Different Perspectives on National Security

Recent improvements in East–West relations and the process of dramatic political change in Europe may result in unprecedented opportunities to reduce the global arsenal of nuclear weapons. Despite these welcome developments, the prospects for effectively controlling the spread of nuclear capability in the Third World have remained much less encouraging. The possibility of large reductions in nuclear weapons poses fundamental questions about their purpose. Why have some states chosen to acquire nuclear weapons? How—and why—have these decisions been maintained over time? Why have some states elected to approach, but not cross, the nuclear threshold?

Security With Nuclear Weapons? examines the commonalities and differences in political approaches to nuclear weapons both within and between three groups of states: nuclear, non-nuclear and threshold. The chapters explore the evolution of thinking about nuclear weapons and the role these weapons play in national security planning, and question the official security rationales offered by the nuclear weapon states for the maintenance of nuclear capabilities. For the non-nuclear weapon states, the book presents an analysis of alternative ways of assuring security and foreign policy effectiveness. For the threshold states, it examines the regional contexts within which these states maintain their threshold status. Security With Nuclear Weapons? transcends traditional East-West approaches to analysis of nuclear issues by giving equal prominence to the issues of nuclear proliferation and non-nuclearism, The book also provides a comprehensive analysis of how current approaches to nuclear weapons have evolved both within and among the groups of countries under study.