NUCLEAR HEURISTICS: SELECTED WRITINGS of Albert and ROBERTA WOHLSTETTER
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Albert Wohlstetter's Legacy: the Neo-Cons, Not Carter, Killed
SPECIAL REPORT: NUCLEAR SABOTAGE ALBERT WOHLSTETTER’S LEGACY Wohlstetter was even stranger than the “Dr. Strangelove” depicted in the 1964 movie of that name. An early draft of the film was titled “The Delicate Balance of Terror,” the same title as Wohlstetter’s best-known unclassified work. Here, a still from the film. tives—Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Zalmay Khalilzad, to name a few. In Wohlstetter’s circle of influence were also Ahmed Chalabi (whom Wohlstetter championed), Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.), Sen. Robert Dole (R- Kan.), and Margaret Thatcher. Wohlstetter himself was a follower of Bertrand Russell, not only in mathematics, but in world outlook. The pseudo-peacenik Russell had called for a preemptive strike against the Soviet Union, after World War II and before the Soviets developed the bomb, as a prelude to his plan for bully- ing nations into a one-world government. Russell, a raving Malthusian, opposed economic development, especially in the Third World. Admirer Jude Wanniski wrote of Wohlstetter in an obituary, “[I]t is no exaggeration, I think, to say that Wohlstetter was the most influential unknown man in the world for the past half century, and easily in the top ten in importance of all men.” “Albert’s decisions were not automat- ically made official policy at the White House,” Wanniski wrote, “but Albert’s The Neo-Cons, Not Carter, genius and his following were such in the places where it counted in the Establishment that if his views were Killed Nuclear Energy resisted for more than a few months, it -
Discriminate Deterrence
DISCRIMINATE DETERRENCE Report of The Commission On Integrated Long-Term Strategy Co -C. I lairmea: Fred C. lkle and Albert Wohlstetter Moither, Anne L. Annsinmg Andrew l. Goodraster flenry /1 Kissinger Zbign ei Brzezinski fames L. Holloway, Ur Joshua Lederberg William P. Clark Samuel P. Huntington Bernard A. Schriever tV. Graham Ciaytor, John W. Vessey January 1988 COMMISSION ON INTEGRATED LONG-TERM STRATEGY January 11. 1988 MEMORANDUM FOR: THE SECRETARY OF DEFENSE THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS We are pleased to present this final report of Our Commission. Pursuant to your initial mandate, the report proposes adjustments to US. military strategy in view of a changing security environment in the decades ahead. Over the last fifteen months the Commission has received valuable counsel from members of Congress, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Service Chiefs. and the Presdent's Science Advisor, Members of the National Security Council Staff, numerous professionals in the Department of Defense and the Central Intelligence Agency, and a broad range of specialists outside the government provided unstinting support. We are also indebted to the Commission's hardworking staff. The Commission was supported generously by several specialized study groups that closely analyzed a number of issues, among them: the security environment for the next twenty years, the role of advanced technology in military systems, interactions between offensive and defensive systems on the periphery of the Soviet Union, and the U.S, posture in regional conflicts around the world. Within the next few months, these study groups will publish detailed findings of their own. -
Preempting Emergence: the Biological
PRE-EMPTING EMERGENCE – THE BIOLOGICAL TURN IN THE WAR ON TERROR Melinda Cooper 2 In 2004, three years after the sporadic and still unresolved anthrax attacks that followed September 11, the Bush administration became the first in US history to implement a national defence strategy against biological threats. In the same year, US Congress also approved the largest ever funding project for biodefence research, to be carried out over the following decade. The legislation, going under the name of Project Bioshield, authorized $5.6 billion for the purchase and stockpiling of vaccines and drugs against bioterrorist threats, granted the government new authority to initiate research programs and special dispensation to override drug regulations in the face of a national emergency. At the same time, a more secretive initiative was underway to establish four research centres for the testing of biological weapons defences. The US, it seems, was preparing itself for an attack of epidemic proportions. But what exactly was the US arming itself against? In his public addresses on the topic, George Bush seemed unsure whether the deadliest threat would be more likely to emanate from a deliberate bioterrorist attack or from any one of the resurgent or drug-resistant infectious diseases that now regularly afflict urban hospitals. Official documents declared that infectious disease outbreak and bioterrorism should be treated as identical threats, in the absence of any sure means of distinguishing the two. The confusion was further reflected in the allocation of resources. Much of the new funding for biodefence went to institutions that had previously been engaged in public health and infectious disease research, while the ailing biotech start-ups of the genomics era were encouraged to reinvest their energies in the new arena of military applications. -
Copyright by Paul Harold Rubinson 2008
Copyright by Paul Harold Rubinson 2008 The Dissertation Committee for Paul Harold Rubinson certifies that this is the approved version of the following dissertation: Containing Science: The U.S. National Security State and Scientists’ Challenge to Nuclear Weapons during the Cold War Committee: —————————————————— Mark A. Lawrence, Supervisor —————————————————— Francis J. Gavin —————————————————— Bruce J. Hunt —————————————————— David M. Oshinsky —————————————————— Michael B. Stoff Containing Science: The U.S. National Security State and Scientists’ Challenge to Nuclear Weapons during the Cold War by Paul Harold Rubinson, B.A.; M.A. Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of the Graduate School of The University of Texas at Austin in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Texas at Austin August 2008 Acknowledgements Thanks first and foremost to Mark Lawrence for his guidance, support, and enthusiasm throughout this project. It would be impossible to overstate how essential his insight and mentoring have been to this dissertation and my career in general. Just as important has been his camaraderie, which made the researching and writing of this dissertation infinitely more rewarding. Thanks as well to Bruce Hunt for his support. Especially helpful was his incisive feedback, which both encouraged me to think through my ideas more thoroughly, and reined me in when my writing overshot my argument. I offer my sincerest gratitude to the Smith Richardson Foundation and Yale University International Security Studies for the Predoctoral Fellowship that allowed me to do the bulk of the writing of this dissertation. Thanks also to the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy at Yale University, and John Gaddis and the incomparable Ann Carter-Drier at ISS. -
Kahn Used the Metaphor of an 'Escalation Ladder'
Preventing Nuclear Use: Internationally-Controlled Theater Missile Defenses Among Non- Super-Arsenal States1 Carolyn C. James, PhD University of Missouri, Columbia INTRODUCTION The current debates over missile defenses in the United States all have a common aspect - the systems are meant to provide a defense for US territory, allies, or troops abroad.2 This article proposes a different view with significant security potential. Specifically, theater missile defenses (TMD) should be considered as an international tool to prevent nuclear weapons use among proliferated states.3 Internationally-controlled TMD placed at potential flash points could prevent conflicts and crises from escalating to nuclear levels. These areas include borders with so-called “rogue” states, such as North Korea, Iran and Iraq, all of whom have seemingly aggressive ballistic missile programs and are embroiled in protracted conflicts with their neighbors.4 Similar to the goal of peacekeeping, reducing and limiting conflict in regions such as the Middle East clearly is in the US national interest. How, then, can nuclear use be prevented? Currently, there are seven declared nuclear weapon states (US, Russia, China, Great Britain, France, Pakistan, India), one non-declared “opaque” nuclear weapon state (Israel), and several states with known or suspected nuclear aspirations (including Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Libya and Taiwan). Two of these, the US and Russia, have established a legacy of Cold War deterrence policies. Nuclear deterrence, in particular, has been credited with maintaining crisis stability during those years.5 Today, a major debate in the field of security studies surrounds the question: Does nuclear deterrence really work? A common failure in most of these discussions about successful deterrence and avoiding nuclear use is the lack of distinction among nuclear force levels.6 The debate tends to be clarified by asking whether it was nuclear weapons, or mutual assured destruction (MAD), that kept the Cold War cold. -
NATO and the Frameworks of Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament
NATO and the Frameworks of Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament: Challenges for the for 10th and Disarmament: Challenges Conference NPT Review Non-proliferation of Nuclear and the Frameworks NATO Research Paper Tim Caughley, with Yasmin Afina International Security Programme | May 2020 NATO and the Frameworks of Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament Challenges for the 10th NPT Review Conference Tim Caughley, with Yasmin Afina with Yasmin Caughley, Tim Chatham House Contents Summary 2 1 Introduction 3 2 Background 5 3 NATO and the NPT 8 4 NATO: the NPT and the TPNW 15 5 NATO and the TPNW: Legal Issues 20 6 Conclusions 24 About the Authors 28 Acknowledgments 29 1 | Chatham House NATO and the Frameworks of Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament Summary • The 10th five-yearly Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (the NPT) was due to take place in April–May 2020, but has been postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. • In force since 1970 and with 191 states parties, the NPT is hailed as the cornerstone of a rules-based international arms control and non-proliferation regime, and an essential basis for the pursuit of nuclear disarmament. But successive review conferences have been riven by disagreement between the five nuclear weapon states and many non-nuclear weapon states over the appropriate way to implement the treaty’s nuclear disarmament pillar. • Although the number of nuclear weapons committed to NATO defence has been reduced by over 90 per cent since the depths of the Cold War, NATO nuclear weapon states, and their allies that depend on the doctrine of extended nuclear deterrence for their own defence, favour continued retention of the remaining nuclear weapons until the international security situation is conducive to further progress on nuclear disarmament. -
Omnicide “Here Is What We Now Know: the United States and Russia Each Have an Actual Doomsday Machine.”
Omnicide “Here is what we now know: the United States and Russia each have an actual Doomsday Machine.” By Daniel Ellsberg From The Doomsday Machine, published by Bloomsbury. The book is an account of America’s nuclear program in the 1960s drawn from Ellsberg’s experience as a consultant to the Department of Defense and the White House, drafting Secretary Robert McNamara’s plans for nuclear war. Ellsberg is the author of Secrets, a book about his experiences leaking the Pentagon Papers. At the conclusion of his 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove, Stanley Kubrick introduced the concept of a “Doomsday Machine”—designed by the Soviet Union to deter nuclear attack against the country by automating the destruction of all human life as a response to such an attack. The movie’s Russian leader had installed the system before revealing it to the world, however, and it was now being triggered by a single nuclear explosion from an American B-52 sent off by a rogue commander without presidential authorization. Kubrick had borrowed the name and the concept of the Doomsday machine from my former colleague Herman Kahn, a Rand physicist with whom he had discussed it. In his 1960 book On Thermonuclear War, Kahn wrote that he would be able to design such a device. It could be produced within ten years and would be relatively cheap— since it could be placed in one’s own country or in the ocean. It would not depend on sending warheads halfway around the world. But, he said, the machine was obviously undesirable. It would be too difficult to control— too inflexible and automatic—and its failure “kills too many people”— everyone, in fact, an outcome that the philosopher John Somerville later termed “omnicide.” Kahn was sure in 1961 that no such system had been built, nor would it be, by either the United States or the Soviet Union. -
Seymour Weiss Papers
http://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/kt0870316q No online items Register of the Seymour Weiss papers Finding aid prepared by David Jacobs Hoover Institution Library and Archives © 2016 434 Galvez Mall Stanford University Stanford, CA 94305-6003 [email protected] URL: http://www.hoover.org/library-and-archives Register of the Seymour Weiss 99004 1 papers Title: Seymour Weiss papers Date (inclusive): 1943-1998 Collection Number: 99004 Contributing Institution: Hoover Institution Library and Archives Language of Material: English Physical Description: 27 manuscript boxes, 1 oversize box(11.6 Linear Feet) Abstract: The papers document Seymour Weiss's long career as an analyst at the U.S. Department of State. Working closely with his counterparts in the Department of Defense, Weiss specialized in the fields of nuclear strategy and arms control. The bulk of his papers consist of correspondence, memoranda, photographs, and reports, among which are numerous studies of the strength of the Soviet military and analyses of treaties such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaties (SALT I and II). Creator: Weiss, Seymour Hoover Institution Library & Archives Access The collection is open for research; materials must be requested at least two business days in advance of intended use. Publication Rights For copyright status, please contact the Hoover Institution Library & Archives. Acquisition Information Acquired by the Hoover Institution Library & Archives in 1999. Preferred Citation [Identification of item], Seymour Weiss papers, [Box no., Folder no. or title], Hoover Institution Library & Archives. 1925 May Born, Chicago, Illinois 15 1968-1969 Director, Office of Strategic Research and Intelligence, U.S. Department of State 1972-1973 Deputy Director, Policy Planning Staff, U.S. -
Theory of International Politics
Theory of International Politics KENNETH N. WALTZ University of Califo rnia, Berkeley .A yy Addison-Wesley Publishing Company Reading, Massachusetts Menlo Park, California London • Amsterdam Don Mills, Ontario • Sydney Preface This book is in the Addison-Wesley Series in Political Science Theory is fundamental to science, and theories are rooted in ideas. The National Science Foundation was willing to bet on an idea before it could be well explained. The following pages, I hope, justify the Foundation's judgment. Other institu tions helped me along the endless road to theory. In recent years the Institute of International Studies and the Committee on Research at the University of Califor nia, Berkeley, helped finance my work, as the Center for International Affairs at Harvard did earlier. Fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and from the Institute for the Study of World Politics enabled me to complete a draft of the manuscript and also to relate problems of international-political theory to wider issues in the philosophy of science. For the latter purpose, the philosophy depart ment of the London School of Economics provided an exciting and friendly envi ronment. Robert Jervis and John Ruggie read my next-to-last draft with care and in sight that would amaze anyone unacquainted with their critical talents. Robert Art and Glenn Snyder also made telling comments. John Cavanagh collected quantities of preliminary data; Stephen Peterson constructed the TabJes found in the Appendix; Harry Hanson compiled the bibliography, and Nacline Zelinski expertly coped with an unrelenting flow of tapes. Through many discussions, mainly with my wife and with graduate students at Brandeis and Berkeley, a number of the points I make were developed. -
The Ship 2014/2015
A more unusual focus in your magazine this College St Anne’s year: architecture and the engineering skills that make our modern buildings possible. The start of our new building made this an obvious choice, but from there we go on to look at engineering as a career and at the failures and University of Oxford follies of megaprojects around the world. Not that we are without the usual literary content, this year even wider in range and more honoured by awards than ever. And, as always, thanks to the generosity and skills of our contributors, St Anne’s College Record a variety of content and experience that we hope will entertain, inspire – and at times maybe shock you. My thanks to the many people who made this issue possible, in particular Kate Davy, without whose support it could not happen. Hope you enjoy it – and keep the ideas coming; we need 2014 – 2015 them! - Number 104 - The Ship Annual Publication of the St Anne’s Society 2014 – 2015 The Ship St Anne’s College 2014 – 2015 Woodstock Road Oxford OX2 6HS UK The Ship +44 (0) 1865 274800 [email protected] 2014 – 2015 www.st-annes.ox.ac.uk St Anne’s College St Anne’s College Alumnae log-in area Development Office Contacts: Lost alumnae Register for the log-in area of our website Over the years the College has lost touch (available at https://www.alumniweb.ox.ac. Jules Foster with some of our alumnae. We would very uk/st-annes) to connect with other alumnae, Director of Development much like to re-establish contact, and receive our latest news and updates, and +44 (0)1865 284536 invite them back to our events and send send in your latest news and updates. -
Neoconservatism: Origins and Evolution, 1945 – 1980
Neoconservatism: Origins and Evolution, 1945 – 1980 Robert L. Richardson, Jr. A dissertation submitted to the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Department of History. Chapel Hill 2009 Approved by, Michael H. Hunt, Chair Richard Kohn Timothy McKeown Nancy Mitchell Roger Lotchin Abstract Robert L. Richardson, Jr. Neoconservatism: Origins and Evolution, 1945 – 1985 (Under the direction of Michael H. Hunt) This dissertation examines the origins and evolution of neoconservatism as a philosophical and political movement in America from 1945 to 1980. I maintain that as the exigencies and anxieties of the Cold War fostered new intellectual and professional connections between academia, government and business, three disparate intellectual currents were brought into contact: the German philosophical tradition of anti-modernism, the strategic-analytical tradition associated with the RAND Corporation, and the early Cold War anti-Communist tradition identified with figures such as Reinhold Niebuhr. Driven by similar aims and concerns, these three intellectual currents eventually coalesced into neoconservatism. As a political movement, neoconservatism sought, from the 1950s on, to re-orient American policy away from containment and coexistence and toward confrontation and rollback through activism in academia, bureaucratic and electoral politics. Although the neoconservatives were only partially successful in promoting their transformative project, their accomplishments are historically significant. More specifically, they managed to interject their views and ideas into American political and strategic thought, discredit détente and arms control, and shift U.S. foreign policy toward a more confrontational stance vis-à-vis the Soviet Union. -
Appendix I Lunar and Martian Nomenclature
APPENDIX I LUNAR AND MARTIAN NOMENCLATURE LUNAR AND MARTIAN NOMENCLATURE A large number of names of craters and other features on the Moon and Mars, were accepted by the IAU General Assemblies X (Moscow, 1958), XI (Berkeley, 1961), XII (Hamburg, 1964), XIV (Brighton, 1970), and XV (Sydney, 1973). The names were suggested by the appropriate IAU Commissions (16 and 17). In particular the Lunar names accepted at the XIVth and XVth General Assemblies were recommended by the 'Working Group on Lunar Nomenclature' under the Chairmanship of Dr D. H. Menzel. The Martian names were suggested by the 'Working Group on Martian Nomenclature' under the Chairmanship of Dr G. de Vaucouleurs. At the XVth General Assembly a new 'Working Group on Planetary System Nomenclature' was formed (Chairman: Dr P. M. Millman) comprising various Task Groups, one for each particular subject. For further references see: [AU Trans. X, 259-263, 1960; XIB, 236-238, 1962; Xlffi, 203-204, 1966; xnffi, 99-105, 1968; XIVB, 63, 129, 139, 1971; Space Sci. Rev. 12, 136-186, 1971. Because at the recent General Assemblies some small changes, or corrections, were made, the complete list of Lunar and Martian Topographic Features is published here. Table 1 Lunar Craters Abbe 58S,174E Balboa 19N,83W Abbot 6N,55E Baldet 54S, 151W Abel 34S,85E Balmer 20S,70E Abul Wafa 2N,ll7E Banachiewicz 5N,80E Adams 32S,69E Banting 26N,16E Aitken 17S,173E Barbier 248, 158E AI-Biruni 18N,93E Barnard 30S,86E Alden 24S, lllE Barringer 29S,151W Aldrin I.4N,22.1E Bartels 24N,90W Alekhin 68S,131W Becquerei