Suchergebnisse

The United States continues to maintain a large nuclear arsenal guided by a deterrence strategy little changed since the collapse of the Warsaw Pact. Notwithstanding changes in the size and composition of nuclear forces brought about since 1991, the fundamental rationales and planning principles which informed U.S. nuclear policy for decades remain in place--despite the disappearance of a superpower nuclear enemy. In this work, Janne E. Nolan traces the effort to articulate a post-cold war nuclear doctrine through decisions taken in the Bush and Clinton administrations, focusing on the leadership styles of presidents, bureaucratic politics, and broader foreign policy objectives. Based on in-depth interviews with policy participants, this study illuminates in detail the dynamics by which the U.S. government has tried to reflect the dramatically altered international arena in its nuclear policies. In two major policy developments--the 1994 Nuclear Posture Review and the decision to sign the African Nuclear Weapons Free Zone Treaty--U.S. policy makers sought to define the utility of nuclear weapons after the cold war and to gain broad-based consensus. For many reasons, these efforts were largely unsuccessful in developing coherent policies, with the absence of sustained presidential leadership proving most decisive.

Since the beginning of the crisis precipitated by Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, the threat posed by Iraq's arsenal of ballistic missiles has been the focus of international attention. In the opening days of the U.S.-led military counteroffensive beginning on January 16, 1992, Iraq launched ballistic missiles against population centers in Israel and military bases in Saudi Arabia. The attacks intensified the terror of the war and prompted renewed efforts by the multinational force to destroy Saddam Hussein's military machine. The countries aligned against Iraq were prepared for attacks by chemically armed missiles, but Iraq's missile force proved to be of little military consequence. The missiles that survived the opening hours of Operation Desert Storm were conventionally armed, inaccurate and unreliable. Most of those that were actually launched either were intercepted by American antimissile defenses or failed to hit vital targets. But the political impact of the missiles was inestimable. The strikes symbolized Iraq's determination to prosecute the war no matter what the cost. By threatening to involve Israel, they created severe tensions and posed the risk that multinational military coalition would be dissolved, and they underscored the potential vulnerability of all the states in the region to Iraqi aggression. In this book, Janne E. Nolan argues that the use of missiles is a harbinger of the altered international security environment confronting the Untied States and its allies in the late twentieth century. Long believed to be a distant prospect, the adoption of technological resources to missile development is already occurring in over a dozen developing countries, many of them long-standing regional antagonists. These capabilities present complicated challenges to American interests and foreign policy, challenges that have