Nuclear News

The first systematic look at the different strategies that states employ in their pursuit of nuclear weapons Much of the work on nuclear proliferation has focused on why states pursue nuclear weapons. The question of how states pursue nuclear weapons has received little attention. Seeking the Bomb is the first book to analyze this topic by examining which strategies of nuclear proliferation are available to aspirants, why aspirants select one strategy over another, and how this matters to international politics. Looking at a wide range of nations, from India and Japan to the Soviet Union and North Korea to Iraq and Iran, Vipin Narang develops an original typology of proliferation strategies—hedging, sprinting, sheltered pursuit, and hiding. Each strategy of proliferation provides different opportunities for the development of nuclear weapons, while at the same time presenting distinct vulnerabilities that can be exploited to prevent states from doing so. Narang delves into the crucial implications these strategies have for nuclear proliferation and international security. Hiders, for example, are especially disruptive since either they successfully attain nuclear weapons, irrevocably altering the global power structure, or they are discovered, potentially triggering serious crises or war, as external powers try to halt or reverse a previously clandestine nuclear weapons program. As the international community confronts the next generation of potential nuclear proliferators, Seeking the Bomb explores how global conflict and stability are shaped by the ruthlessly pragmatic ways states choose strategies of proliferation.

The first accessible book to discuss all aspects of nuclear power to help combat climate change and lethal air pollution.

Hiroshima is the story of six people—a clerk, a widowed seamstress, a physician, a Methodist minister, a young surgeon, and a German Catholic priest—who lived through the greatest single manmade disaster in history. In vivid and indelible prose, Pulitzer Prize–winner John Hersey traces the stories of these half-dozen individuals from 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, when Hiroshima was destroyed by the first atomic bomb ever dropped on a city, through the hours and days that followed. Almost four decades after the original publication of this celebrated book, Hersey went back to Hiroshima in search of the people whose stories he had told, and his account of what he discovered is now the eloquent and moving final chapter of Hiroshima.

The book considers the implications of the nuclear energy revival for global governance in the areas of safety, security and non-proliferation. Increased global warming, the energy demands of China, India and other emerging economic powerhouses and the problems facing traditional and alternative energy sources have lead many to suggest that there will soon be a nuclear energy ‘renaissance’. This book examines comprehensively the drivers of and constraints on the revival, its nature and scope and the possibility that nuclear power will spread significantly beyond the countries which currently rely on it. Of special interest are developing countries which aspire to have nuclear energy and which currently lack the infrastructure, experience and regulatory structures to successfully manage such a major industrial enterprise. Of even greater interest are countries that may see in a nuclear energy program a ‘hedging’ strategy for a future nuclear weapons option. Following on from this assessment, the author examines the likely impact of various revival scenarios on the current global governance of nuclear energy, notably the treaties, international organizations, arrangements and practices designed to ensure that nuclear power is safe, secure and does not contribute to the proliferation of nuclear weapons. The book concludes with recommendations to the international community on how to strengthen global governance in order to manage the nuclear energy revival prudently. This book will be of much interest to students of energy security, global governance, security studies and IR in general.