This book looks at the prospects for international cooperation over nuclear weapons proliferation in the 21st century. Nuclear weapons served as stabilizing forces during the Cold War, or the First Nuclear Age, on account of their capability for destruction, the fear that this created among politicians and publics, and the domination of the nuclear world order by two superpowers: the United States and the Soviet Union. The end of the Cold War, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the potential for nuclear weapons acquisition among revisionist states, or even non-state actors including terrorists, creates the possibility of a 'wolves eat dogs' phenomenon in the present century. In the 21st century, three forces threaten to undo or weaken the long nuclear peace and fast-forward states into a new and more dangerous situation: the existence of large US and Russian nuclear weapons arsenals; the potential for new technologies, including missile defenses and long-range, precision conventional weapons, and a collapse or atrophy of the nuclear nonproliferation regime, and the opening of the door for nuclear weapons to spread among more than the currently acknowledged nuclear states. This book explains how these three 'weakening' forces interact with one another and with US and Russian policy-making in order to create an environment of large possibilities for cooperative security - but also of considerable danger. Instead, the choices made by military planners and policy-makers will create an early twenty-first century story privileging nuclear stability or chaos. The US and Russia can, and should, make incremental progress in arms control and nonproliferation. This book will be of much interest to students of nuclear proliferation and arms control, strategic studies, international security and IR in general. Stephen J. Cimbala is Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of numerous works in the fields of international security, defense studies, nuclear arms control and other topics. He has consulted for various US government agencies and defense contractors.

Worldwide political changes have presented a unique opportunity for forging a new basis of international security relations. The end of the cold war, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the ascending role of the United Nations in regional security affairs have transformed the driving issues of international security. These changes both heighten the demand and offer the potential for global cooperation on an unprecedented scale. Traditional security preoccupations and the foundations of past strategy—based on preparation for massive military confrontation—are no longer appropriate. Now world leaders must find alternative strategies to ensure international safety. This book brings together a prominent group of experts, including several recently appointed government officials, to examine an alternative form of security, one that emphasizes collaborative rather than confrontational relationships among national military establishment. Global Engagement offers a complete analysis of the concept of cooperative security, which seeks to establish international agreements to regulate the size, technical composition, investment patterns, and operational practices of all military forces for mutual benefit. It explains how cooperative security also aims to create mechanisms to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and regional conflict. The contributors identify the trends motivating the movement toward cooperative security and analyze the implications for practical policy action. They examine the problem of controlling advanced conventional munitions, analyze an integrated control arraignment, discuss international principles of equity and their relationship to problems of security, and offer regional political perspectives while considering social regional security problems. With the altered security environment, cooperation has clearly become the new strategic imperative. Policymakers are challenged to dispose of large arsenals of conventional and nuclear weapons and redirect their efforts to support preventative management of security conditions. Leading the discussion of the security challenges ahead, the authors of this volume debate the utility of cooperative engagement for future strategy.

“An excellent contribution to the debate on the future role of nuclear weapons and nuclear deterrence in American foreign policy.” ―Contemporary Security Policy This book is a counter to the conventional wisdom that the United States can and should do more to reduce both the role of nuclear weapons in its security strategies and the number of weapons in its arsenal. The case against nuclear weapons has been made on many grounds—including historical, political, and moral. But, Brad Roberts argues, it has not so far been informed by the experience of the United States since the Cold War in trying to adapt deterrence to a changed world, and to create the conditions that would allow further significant changes to U.S. nuclear policy and posture. Drawing on the author’s experience in the making and implementation of U.S. policy in the Obama administration, this book examines that real-world experience and finds important lessons for the disarmament enterprise. Central conclusions of the work are that other nuclear-armed states are not prepared to join the United States in making reductions, and that unilateral steps by the United States to disarm further would be harmful to its interests and those of its allies. The book ultimately argues in favor of patience and persistence in the implementation of a balanced approach to nuclear strategy that encompasses political efforts to reduce nuclear dangers along with military efforts to deter them. “Well-researched and carefully argued.” ―Foreign Affairs

This volume evaluates the impact of coercive arms control efforts to curb the spread of weapons of mass destruction in the twenty-first century. A new paradigm in arms control is gradually replacing the idea that mutually agreed restrictions on armaments can improve international security. Thus, Hedley Bull’s classic definition of arms control as the "cooperation between antagonistic pairs of states in military affairs" needs to be amended by a new notion of coercive arms control as the set of non-cooperative and non-reciprocal measures to restrict the weapons or military capabilities of certain states. This volume addresses the topic of how this ongoing paradigmatic shift will affect the effectiveness of arms control as a conflict management instrument.While some argue that new instruments can complement and strengthen traditional, multilateral and inclusive arms control regimes, others maintain that conflicts and contradictions between coercive and cooperative arms control regimes will severely limit their effectiveness. This volume provides a forum for academics and practitioners from around the globe to discuss these developments in depth and to assess the specific strengths and weaknesses of these new instruments of arms control. This book will be of much interest to students of arms control, global governance, foreign policy and IR/Security Studies in general.

This open access volume surveys the state of the field to examine whether a fifth wave of deterrence theory is emerging. Bringing together insights from world-leading experts from three continents, the volume identifies the most pressing strategic challenges, frames theoretical concepts, and describes new strategies. The use and utility of deterrence in today’s strategic environment is a topic of paramount concern to scholars, strategists and policymakers. Ours is a period of considerable strategic turbulence, which in recent years has featured a renewed emphasis on nuclear weapons used in defence postures across different theatres; a dramatic growth in the scale of military cyber capabilities and the frequency with which these are used; and rapid technological progress including the proliferation of long-range strike and unmanned systems. These military-strategic developments occur in a polarized international system, where cooperation between leading powers on arms control regimes is breaking down, states widely make use of hybrid conflict strategies, and the number of internationalized intrastate proxy conflicts has quintupled over the past two decades. Contemporary conflict actors exploit a wider gamut of coercive instruments, which they apply across a wider range of domains. The prevalence of multi-domain coercion across but also beyond traditional dimensions of armed conflict raises an important question: what does effective deterrence look like in the 21st century? Answering that question requires a re-appraisal of key theoretical concepts and dominant strategies of Western and non-Western actors in order to assess how they hold up in today’s world. Air Commodore Professor Dr. Frans Osinga is the Chair of the War Studies Department of the Netherlands Defence Academy and the Special Chair in War Studies at the University Leiden. Dr. Tim Sweijs is the Director of Research at The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies and a Research Fellow at the Faculty of Military Sciences of the Netherlands Defence Academy in Breda.

This collection examines the extent to which nuclear weapons modernization has become a significant point of concern and consideration in international security. Recent statements and substantial investments by nuclear weapon possessor states in the upkeep and modernization of their nuclear postures – particularly the United States, Russia and China – illustrate a return of primacy and the salience of nuclear forces in international politics. The upgrading of systems, the introduction of new capabilities, the intermingling of new technologies, and the advancement of new strategic models, are all indicative of their elevation in importance and reliance. With contributions from leading thinkers in the nuclear weapons domain, this book elucidates the global strategic and policy implications such modernization efforts by the above-mentioned states will have on international security. In unpacking and conceptualizing this developing source of potential (in)security and tension, the collection not only provides a technical context, but also frames the likely effects modernization could have on the relations between these nuclear weapon powers and the larger impact upon efforts to curb nuclear weapons – both in terms of horizontal and vertical proliferation. The chapters have been arranged so as to inform a variety of stakeholders, from academics to policy-makers, by connecting analytical and normative insights, and thereby, advancing debates pertaining to where nuclear modernization sits as a point of global security consternation in the 21st century.