Nuclear Decisions

Download or read book Nuclear Decisions written by Lisa Langdon Koch and published by . This book was released on 2023 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nuclear Decisions: Changing the Course of Nuclear Weapons Programs investigates state leaders' decisions to accelerate or reverse nuclear weapons development. The paths states take toward the bomb are rarely linear because they are shaped and interrupted by nuclear decisions. This book examines the political information environment in which leaders form and reconsider their beliefs and preferences about nuclear weapons. Leaders weigh the security benefits nuclear weapons may provide against drawbacks like domestic resource tradeoffs, potential damage to strategic international relationships, and the likelihood of program success. This book discusses two key mechanisms that shape leaders' understandings of the costs and benefits of their nuclear pursuits. The internal mechanism is the intervention of domestic experts in key scientific and military organizations. If the conditions are right, those experts may be able to influence a leader's nuclear decision-making, including how the leader thinks about the value of nuclear weapons in relation to the security environment. The external mechanism emerges from the international system. The book identifies three different proliferation eras, in which changes to international political and structural conditions have constrained or freed states pursuing nuclear weapons development. The book tests the mechanisms through case studies of nine states across the three proliferation eras. Through this global approach to studying nuclear proliferation, this book pushes back against the conventional wisdom that determined states pursue a straight path to the bomb. Instead, nuclear decisions define a state's nuclear pursuits"--