Discussions of key domestic and international aspects of missile defense, arms control, and arms races.

Om den nukleare afskrækkelses dalende troværdighed, og med forfatterens diskussion af mulige alternativer, her f.eks konventionelle styrker, politiske forhandlingsløsninger, nedrustning og våbenkontrol.

Following the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, the twentieth century was haunted by the specter of nuclear annihilation. Locked in a hostile embrace, the U.S. and the USSR engaged in a ruinous arms race preparing for the kind of war no one wanted and no one could win. Though the Cold War ended, the dangers of nuclear proliferation remain, with poorly secured nuclear weapons and materials vulnerable to theft, sale, accident, or misuse. The many debates over the years surrounding the arms race, proliferation, deterrence, and security are collected here to provide readers with a fine-grained sense of the international tensions, political urgency, diplomatic strategies, and global fears that have long underlined the effort to build and maintain nuclear arsenals.

The volume contains papers presented to the Eleventh Course of the International School on Disarmament and Research on Conflicts (ISODARCO) held in August 1986 at San Miniato, Italy. Attention was focused on the international aspects of arms control and disarmament.

Since the U.S. presidential elections of 1980, debate has intensified between those who believe that nuclear weapons can only deter a war not intended to be fought and those who see nuclear weapons as an advancement in weaponry that allows for the waging and winning of a nuclear war. At the focal point of this debate is the rise of the “counterforc