Anzus In Revision Changing Defense Features Of Australia And New Zealand In The Mid 1980s

Colonel Donnini analyzes the demise of the ANZUS alliance and shifts in Australian and New Zealand defense features. He addresses many questions and issues dealing with changing the political situation and the impact of those changes on defense and security conditions in the South and Southwest Pacific regions.

For more than 35 years a successful part of the post-World War II collective security network was ANZUS a defense alliance between Australia, New Zealand and the United States. The Alliance worked well for many years. However, in the mid-1980's events cause the alliance to revise in such a way that a return to its former state became doubtful. Also, Australia and New Zealand wanted their defense forces more self-reliant and increasingly focused own their own region, The author has helped increase awareness in this volume and he discusses many of the issues.

The rise of China is profoundly altering the balance of power in the Asia-Pacific region, and this shift will accelerate as China’s economy grows to rival that of the United States during the next two decades. This report examines these issues and suggests the course that New Zealand should chart to ensure that its interests in the peace and stability of the Asia Pacific are maintained.

The rise and fall of the concept of nuclear winter, played out in research activity, public relations, and Reagan-era politics. The nuclear winter phenomenon burst upon the public's consciousness in 1983. Added to the horror of a nuclear war's immediate effects was the fear that the smoke from fires ignited by the explosions would block the sun, creating an extended “winter” that might kill more people worldwide than the initial nuclear strikes. In A Nuclear Winter's Tale, Lawrence Badash maps the rise and fall of the science of nuclear winter, examining research activity, the popularization of the concept, and the Reagan-era politics that combined to influence policy and public opinion. Badash traces the several sciences (including studies of volcanic eruptions, ozone depletion, and dinosaur extinction) that merged to allow computer modeling of nuclear winter and its development as a scientific specialty. He places this in the political context of the Reagan years, discussing congressional interest, media attention, the administration's plans for a research program, and the Defense Department's claims that the arms buildup underway would prevent nuclear war, and thus nuclear winter. A Nuclear Winter's Tale tells an important story but also provides a useful illustration of the complex relationship between science and society. It examines the behavior of scientists in the public arena and in the scientific community, and raises questions about the problems faced by scientific Cassandras, the implications when scientists go public with worst-case scenarios, and the timing of government reaction to startling scientific findings.