Abstract
The end of the Cold War saw the major powers cut back their forces, nuclear as well as conventional, providing a modest ‘peace dividend’. The numbers were insufficient to impress disarmament campaigners. Instead of the challenge of dealing with the fragility of the balance of terror, there were now opportunities made possible by the obsolescence of the balance. The issue of a nuclear-free world appeared again on the agenda, potentially as a matter of practical politics.
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Notes
- 1.
Regina C Karp. Security without Nuclear Weapons? Different Perspectives on Non-Nuclear Security (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992); Joseph Rotblat, Jack Steinburger, and Babalchandra Udgaonkar, A Nuclear Weapon-Free World. Desirable? Feasible? (Boulder, Colo: Westview, 1993).
- 2.
The term appears in Lawrence Freedman, ‘Eliminators and Marginalists’, Survival 1997 but this is not the only reference. See for example, Eric Mlyn, “U.S. Nuclear Policy and the End of the Cold War.” In T. V. Paul, Richard J. Harknett and James J. Wirtz, eds. The Absolute Weapon Revisited: Nuclear Arms and the Emerging International Order (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1998). Mlyn, however, sees this stance as being the most liberal, to be contrasted with the more pro-nuclear traditionalists whereas Freedman’s contrast was with eliminators. See also Patrick Garrity and Steven Cambone. “The Future of US Nuclear Policy.” Survival. (Winter 1994/95). A later argument for concentrating on reducing the risk of nuclear war rather than pressing for abolition can be found in Francis J. Gavin, Nuclear Statecraft: History and Strategy in America’s Atomic Age (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2012).
- 3.
Glenn Buchan, US Nuclear Strategy for the Post Cold-War Era (Santa Monica, CA: RAND, 1994), p. 49.
- 4.
Michael Mazarr, ‘Virtual Nuclear Arsenals’, Survival (Autumn 1995). Bruce Blair, Harold Feivson, and Frank von Hippel. ‘Taking Nuclear Weapons Off Hair-Trigger Alert.’ Scientific American, November 1997.
- 5.
Steven Lee, Morality, Prudence and Nuclear Weapons (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 1996, pp. 327–8.
- 6.
Michael Quinlan, ‘The future of nuclear weapons: policy for Western possessors’. International Affairs, 69.3 (1993), pp. 485–96.
- 7.
International Court of Justice, Legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, 8 July 1996.
- 8.
Philip Shenon, ‘France, Despite Wide Protests, Explodes a Nuclear Device’, New York Times, 6 September 1995.
- 9.
The Gorbachev, Raja Gandhi and Rockefeller Foundations, as well as the Carnegie Corporation, backed the project on the elimination of nuclear weapons of the State of the World Foundation. http://www.arq.co.uk/worldforum. See also the interview with Butler and other nuclear disarmers in Jonathan Schell, The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons (New York: Metropolitan Books: Henry Holt and Company, 1998).
- 10.
Cathleen Fisher, Preface to Steve Fetter, Verifying Nuclear Disarmament The Henry L. Stimson Center, October 1996 (Occasional Paper no. 290.). See An Evolving US Nuclear Posture: Second Report of the Steering Committee: Project on Eliminating Weapons of Mass Destruction (Washington DC: The Henry L. Stimson Center, December 1995).
- 11.
Schell, op. cit., p. 13. Schell acknowledged that many of his subjects were rather old. He returned to the issue later in Jonathan Schell. The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of Nuclear Danger (New York: Henry Holt & Company, 2007), stressing the psychological hold of the weapons on policy-makers (‘The Bomb in the Mind’).
- 12.
Michael MccGwire, ‘Is there a Future for Nuclear Weapons?’, International Affairs, Vol.70: no. 2 (April 1994).
- 13.
Report of the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons (Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade: August 1996), p. 24.
- 14.
For a critique which also takes in the marginalists see Robert G. Joseph, and John F. Reichart. “The Case for Nuclear Deterrence Today.” Orbis. (Winter 1998).
- 15.
Canberra op. cit., p. 10. The Commission avoided setting a firm timetable for its goal being achieved (p. 15).
- 16.
Committee on International Security and Arms Control, National Academy of Sciences. The Future of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy (Washington DC: National Academy Press, 1997).
- 17.
George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, ‘A World Free of Nuclear Weapons’, The Wall Street Journal, January 4, 2007. Several follow-on articles elaborated on their ideas: Henry A. Kissinger, George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, and Sam Nunn, ‘How to Protect Our Nuclear Deterrent’, The Wall Street Journal, January 20, 2010; George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger, and Sam Nunn, ‘Toward a Nuclear-Free World’, The Wall Street Journal, January 15, 2008.
- 18.
Catherine McArdle Kelleher & Judith Reppy, Getting to Zero: the Path to Nuclear Disarmament (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011), p. 404.
- 19.
Emphasis added.
- 20.
Paul Meyer and Tom Sauer, ‘The Nuclear Ban Treaty: A Sign of Global Impatience’, Survival, 60: 2, 2018, pp. 61–72.
- 21.
For instance, see: Somini Sengupta and Rick Gladstone, ‘United States and Allies Protest UN Talks to Ban Nuclear Weapons’, The New York Times, March 27, 2017.
- 22.
David Holloway, ‘The Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons’ and Randy Rydell, ‘Advocacy for Nuclear Disarmament: A Global Revival?’ in Catherine McArdle Kelleher & Judith Reppy, Getting to Zero: The Path to Nuclear Disarmament (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011); Ray Acheson, Beyond the 2010 NPT Review Conference: What’s Next for Nuclear Disarmament? Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 66, No. 6, 2010, pp. 77–87; Tom Sauer and Joelien Pretorius, Nuclear Weapons and the Humanitarian Approach, Global Change, Peace & Security, Vol. 26, No. 3, 2014, pp. 233–250; Hans M. Kristensen and Robert S. Norris, Slowing Nuclear Weapon Reductions and Endless Nuclear Modernizations: A Challenge to the NPT, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 70, No. 4, 2014, pp. 94–107.
- 23.
Arbatov, 2016, op. cit., p. 165.
- 24.
See for instance: US Department of State, Bureau of Arms Control, Verification and Compliance, ‘Factsheet—INF Treaty: At a Glance’, December 8, 2017. Available at: https://www.state.gov/t/avc/rls/2017/276361.htm
- 25.
David E. Sanger and William J. Broad, ‘US to Tell Russia It Is Leaving Landmark INF Treaty’, The New York Times, October 19, 2018.
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Freedman, L., Michaels, J. (2019). Elimination or Marginalization. In: The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-57350-6_38
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