Download or read book Stalin and the Bomb written by David Holloway and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-01 with total page 507 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The classic and “utterly engrossing” study of Stalin’s pursuit of a nuclear bomb during the Cold War by the renowned political scientist and historian (Foreign Affairs). For forty years the U.S.-Russian nuclear arms race dominated world politics, yet the Soviet nuclear establishment was shrouded in secrecy. Then, shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, David Holloway pulled back the Iron Curtain with his “marvelous, groundbreaking study” Stalin and the Bomb (The New Yorker). How did the Soviet Union build its atomic and hydrogen bombs? What role did espionage play? How did the American atomic monopoly affect Stalin's foreign policy? What was the relationship between Soviet nuclear scientists and the country's political leaders? David Holloway answers these questions by tracing the dramatic story of Soviet nuclear policy from developments in physics in the 1920s to the testing of the hydrogen bomb and the emergence of nuclear deterrence in the mid-1950s. This magisterial history throws light on Soviet policy at the height of the Cold War, illuminates a central element of the Stalinist system, and puts into perspective the tragic legacy of this program―environmental damage, a vast network of institutes and factories, and a huge stockpile of unwanted weapons.
Download or read book The Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program written by Charles River Editors and published by . This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: *Includes pictures *Includes a bibliography for further reading Tens of millions died during World War II as the warring powers raced to create the best fighter planes, tanks, and guns, and eventually that race extended to bombs which carried enough power to destroy civilization itself. While the war raged in Europe and the Pacific, a dream team of Nobel Laureates was working on the Manhattan Project, a program kept so secret that Vice President Harry Truman didn't know about it until he took the presidency after FDR's death in April 1945. The Manhattan Project would ultimately yield the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" bombs that released more than 100 Terajoules of energy at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but weeks earlier, on July 16, 1945, the first detonation of a nuclear device took place in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The first bomb was nicknamed the "gadget," to avoid espionage attempts to discover that it was, indeed, a bomb. In some sense, the device detonated in July was not really a "bomb" anyway; it was not a deployable device, though it was a detonatable one. With this success, word reached President Truman, who was then attending the Potsdam Conference, and while there, he presented the news to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. Stalin feigned surprise; in an ironic twist of fate, espionage missions had revealed American nuclear research to the Soviets before it had even reached Vice President Truman. The attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, along with the Cold War-era tests and their accompanying mushroom clouds, would demonstrate the true power and terror of nuclear weapons, but in the late 1930s these bombs were only vaguely being thought through, particularly after the successful first experiment to split the atom by a German scientist. Despite the fact the Nazis' quest for a nuclear weapon began in earnest in 1939, no one really had a handle on how important nuclear weapons would prove to war and geopolitics, so the Germans were hesitant to expend resources on it. Moreover, they were hampered by the fact their policies had compelled Jewish scientists like Liz Meitner and Albert Einstein to flee before the war. For their part, Stalin's regime had been working on a nuclear weapons program since 1942, relying greatly upon successful Soviet espionage to help lead the way. With intelligence sources connected to the Manhattan Project, Stalin was able to keep abreast of the Allies' progress toward creating an atomic bomb, so that by 1945, the Soviets already had a working blueprint of America's first atomic bombs. On August 29, 1949, the Soviets successfully tested an atomic bomb, and with that, the Soviet Union became the second nation after the U.S. to develop and possess nuclear weapons. The nuclear age itself was still in its infancy, but within a few short years the advent of nuclear war loomed over the world and the prospect of a malign dictatorship possessing nuclear superiority kept Western leaders awake at night. The Soviet Nuclear Weapons Program: The History and Legacy of the USSR's Efforts to Build the Atomic Bomb examines the Soviets' race to reach the ultimate goal during and after World War II, and how they went about their objectives. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Nazi Germany's nuclear weapons program like never before.
Download or read book Red Cloud at Dawn written by Michael D. Gordin and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2009-09-29 with total page 417 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITORS' CHOICE Following the trail of espionage and technological innovation, and making use of newly opened archives, Michael D. Gordin provides a new understanding of the origins of the nuclear arms race and fresh insight into the problem of proliferation. On August 29, 1949, the first Soviet test bomb, dubbed "First Lightning," exploded in the deserts of Kazakhstan. This surprising international event marked the beginning of an arms race that would ultimately lead to nuclear proliferation beyond the two superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States. With the use of newly opened archives, Michael D. Gordin follows a trail of espionage, secrecy, deception, political brinksmanship, and technical innovation to provide a fresh understanding of the nuclear arms race.
Download or read book The Soviet Biological Weapons Program written by Milton Leitenberg and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2012-06-29 with total page 956 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the first attempt to understand the full scope of the USSR’s offensive biological weapons research, from inception in the 1920s. Gorbachev tried to end the program, but the U.S. and U.K. never obtained clear evidence that he succeeded, raising the question whether the means for waging biological warfare could be present in Russia today.
Download or read book Seeking the Bomb written by Vipin Narang and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-01-11 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first systematic look at the different strategies that states employ in their pursuit of nuclear weapons Much of the work on nuclear proliferation has focused on why states pursue nuclear weapons. The question of how states pursue nuclear weapons has received little attention. Seeking the Bomb is the first book to analyze this topic by examining which strategies of nuclear proliferation are available to aspirants, why aspirants select one strategy over another, and how this matters to international politics. Looking at a wide range of nations, from India and Japan to the Soviet Union and North Korea to Iraq and Iran, Vipin Narang develops an original typology of proliferation strategies—hedging, sprinting, sheltered pursuit, and hiding. Each strategy of proliferation provides different opportunities for the development of nuclear weapons, while at the same time presenting distinct vulnerabilities that can be exploited to prevent states from doing so. Narang delves into the crucial implications these strategies have for nuclear proliferation and international security. Hiders, for example, are especially disruptive since either they successfully attain nuclear weapons, irrevocably altering the global power structure, or they are discovered, potentially triggering serious crises or war, as external powers try to halt or reverse a previously clandestine nuclear weapons program. As the international community confronts the next generation of potential nuclear proliferators, Seeking the Bomb explores how global conflict and stability are shaped by the ruthlessly pragmatic ways states choose strategies of proliferation.
Download or read book Atomic Diplomacy Hiroshima and Potsdam written by Gar Alperovitz and published by New York : Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1965 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Assessment of the influence of the atomic factor on U.S.-Russian relations since the Hiroshima bombing under the Truman administration.
Download or read book Restricted Data written by Alex Wellerstein and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2021-04-09 with total page 558 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--
Download or read book The Nuclear Spies written by Vince Houghton and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did the US intelligence services fail so spectacularly to know about the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities following World War II? As Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, shows us, that disastrous failure came just a few years after the Manhattan Project's intelligence team had penetrated the Third Reich and knew every detail of the Nazi 's plan for an atomic bomb. What changed and what went wrong? Houghton's delightful retelling of this fascinating case of American spy ineffectiveness in the then new field of scientific intelligence provides us with a new look at the early years of the Cold War. During that time, scientific intelligence quickly grew to become a significant portion of the CIA budget as it struggled to contend with the incredible advance in weapons and other scientific discoveries immediately after World War II. As Houghton shows, the abilities of the Soviet Union's scientists, its research facilities and laboratories, and its educational system became a key consideration for the CIA in assessing the threat level of its most potent foe. Sadly, for the CIA scientific intelligence was extremely difficult to do well. For when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, no one in the American intelligence services saw it coming.
Download or read book Target America written by Steve Zaloga and published by Presidio Press. This book was released on 1993 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the development of the A-bomb and the role of espionage surrounding it to the dire environmental consequences of its nuclear power program, the development of nuclear technology and weaponry in the former Soviet Union is impressively researched in this important, pioneering study. Photographs. Maps.
Download or read book Atomic Audit written by Stephen I. Schwartz and published by Brookings Inst Press. This book was released on 1998 with total page 680 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on four years of extensive research, Atomic Audit is the first book to document the comprehensive costs of U.S. nuclear weapons, assembling for the first time anywhere the actual and estimated expenditures for the program since its creation in 1940. The authors provide a unique perspective on U.S. nuclear policy and nuclear weapons, tracking their development from the Manhattan Project of World War II to the present day and assessing each aspect of the program, including research, development, testing, and production; deployment; command, control, communications, and intelligence; and defensive measures. They also examine the costs of dismantling nuclear weapons, the management and disposal of large quantities of toxic and radioactive wastes left over from their production, compensation for persons harmed by nuclear weapons activities, nuclear secrecy, and the economic implications of nuclear deterrence. Atomic Audit concludes with recommendations for strengthening atomic accountability and fostering greater public understanding of nuclear weapons programs and policies.
Download or read book Making The Russian Bomb written by Thomas B. Cochran and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2019-04-15 with total page 313 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Natural Resources Defense Council once again provides the definitive account of the current status of Russian nuclear weapons. Taking advantage of previously unavailable information the authors describe the origins, growth, and decline of the massive Soviet nuclear weapons production complex-the places involved in the recent headline-making epi
Download or read book Nonproliferation and Threat Reduction Assistance written by Amy F. Woolf and published by DIANE Publishing. This book was released on 2010-06 with total page 64 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Congress passed the Nunn-Lugar amendment, authorizing U.S. threat reduction assistance to the former Soviet Union, in Nov. 1991, after a failed coup in Moscow and the disintegration of the Soviet Union raised concerns about the safety and security of Soviet nuclear weapons. The annual program has grown from $400 million to over $1 billion/year across 3 agencies. It has also evolved from an emergency response to impending chaos in the Soviet Union, to a more comprehensive threat reduction and non-proliferation effort, to a broader program seeking to keep nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons from leaking into the hands of rogue nations or terrorists. This report discusses issues related to U.S. non-proliferation and threat reduction assistance. Illus.
Download or read book The Cambridge History of the Cold War written by Melvyn P. Leffler and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2010-03-25 with total page 663 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This volume examines the origins and early years of the Cold War in the first comprehensive historical reexamination of the period. A team of leading scholars shows how the conflict evolved from the geopolitical, ideological, economic and sociopolitical environments of the two world wars and interwar period.
Download or read book Shooting Down a Star Program 437 the US Nuclear ASAT System and Present Day Copycat Killers written by Clayton K. S. Chun and published by . This book was released on 2022 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Future of the U S Soviet Nuclear Relationship written by National Academy of Sciences and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 1991-02-01 with total page 76 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The United States and the Soviet Union could drastically reduce their nuclear arsenals below the levels prescribed by the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START). The end of the Cold War and the transformation of international security now under way present the United States with opportunities to develop new policies based on greater international cooperation with the Soviet Union and other major powers. This new book describes two lower levels of nuclear forces that could be achieved, as well as other related measures to improve international security.
Download or read book India s Nuclear Bomb written by George Perkovich and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1999 with total page 676 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Publisher Fact Sheet The definitive history of India's long flirtation with nuclear capability, culminating in the nuclear tests that surprised the world in May 1998.
Download or read book The Case for U S Nuclear Weapons in the 21st Century written by Brad Roberts and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2015-12-09 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “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
