Preview

article review Micheal Mandelbaum

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
673 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
article review Micheal Mandelbaum
Article Review Taimoor Abbasi Why do states built nuclear weapons? “Scott Douglas Sagan”
Scott Douglas Sagan is the Caroline S.G. Munro professor of Political Science at Stanford University and co-director of Stanford's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). He also is one of the leading pessimist scholars about nuclear proliferation, and his co-authored book with Kenneth Waltz, "The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed", is widely read and cited in the literature on nuclear weapons.
Sagan a nuclear pessimist discussed in this article why states go nuclear? , most of the literature and realists believe that it is due to security states go nuclear, but Sagan challenged this simplistic view and explained it considering three models namely: “the security model,” “the domestic politics model,” and “the norms model.”
In security model states go nuclear due to the foreign threats especially nuclear threats. Stronger states mostly go for their own nuclear programmes while the weaker states form alliances with the stronger nuclear states. States like United Kingdom and France built their nuclear weapons due to growing soviet threat and due to decrease in the credibility of US extended deterrence. China built its nuclear weapons because it was threatened by US during Korean War and Taiwan straits crises, India built its nuclear programme due to security threats from china after china tested its nukes in 1964 just after the Sino India war in 1962.
Contrary to nuclear Proliferation State like South Africa destroyed its nuclear weapons in 1991 due to reduction in its security threats. This shows that states may give up their nuclear weapons if their security threats are eliminated.
In domestic politics model nuclear weapons are used to gain limited political and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Best Essays

    In both cases, protagonists were influenced by the particular events, their domestic and geo-political state of affairs and the signals delivered and counter offers made from parties involved. This essay analyses the scenario, role of actors, and description of the outcomes of the two crises. The paper argues that the advent of the nuclear age, following World War II in 1945, shaped contemporary international relations. What makes the Cuban Missile Crisis fundamentally different was precisely because it occurred during nuclear age. This essay will outline some of the concepts such as deterrence, mutual assured destruction doctrine, and the concept of balance of terror to justify why the nuclear age has shaped events after World War II. The essay concludes by affirming the need to rethink and revisit the role of nuclear weapons in the 21st century.…

    • 2601 Words
    • 11 Pages
    Best Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    Hanley, Charles J. "Abolishing Nukes: Flicker of Hope to Global Cause." Msnbc.com. The Associated Press, 2010. Web. 10 Aug. 2014.…

    • 684 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Better Essays

    I clearly recognize that defensive systems have limitations and raise certain problems and ambiguities. If paired with offensive systems, they can be viewed as fostering an aggressive policy, and no one wants that. But with these considerations firmly in mind, I call upon the scientific community in our country, those who gave us nuclear weapons, to turn their great talents now to the cause of mankind and world peace, to give us the means of rendering these nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete.…

    • 5226 Words
    • 21 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nuclear powers biggest threat is from the public’s perception of it. As seen in Germany as well as throughout Europe, if the public deems something too unsafe and does not want to live near it, the governments will have no choice but to shut down the plants and look for different sources of energy. Compared to biofuels and solar power, nuclear power is already extremely established and generates a large share of the worlds’ power, and faces most of its issues in the political realm instead of the practical…

    • 730 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The advent of nuclear weapons dawned a new and terrifying era in human history. The destructive power of the atomic bomb, demonstrated at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ushered in a global climate of fear. Emerging from the rubble of the Second World War, the U.S. and Soviet Union became the two most dominant economic, political, and military superpowers in the global arena. Upholding fundamental ideological differences, the U.S. and Soviet Union became entrenched in their respective camps of capitalism and communism. Having acquired nuclear weapons, and illustrated their ability to use them, the U.S challenged the Soviet Union’s military might. The Soviet Union promptly accepted this challenge by successfully acquiring nuclear capabilities on par with the U.S. In effect, a nuclear arms race ensued and the Cold War began. Fear of nuclear annihilation ultimately swept across the globe and into the homes of American citizens.…

    • 2478 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Scare

    • 866 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Since the 1980’s, the two superpowers have reduced their nuclear weapons by almost 70%. Today, we still have more nuclear weapons than any military purpose could justify. Unfortunately, the command and control system in Russia has deteriorated further.…

    • 866 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    President, Dwight D. Eisenhower, gave a speech on the issues of nuclear weapons in his speech, “Atoms for Peace” (1953). This speech was given at the United Nation General Assembly. Eisenhower’s purpose in this speech is to inform the people of the United States and the United Nations, that they want a peaceful outcome with other countries that are building nuclear weapons. Throughout his speech he gives a sense of peace. He explains that the United States government will do whatever they can so that all of us can live in peace. Eisenhower gives caution and concern, as he was worried for the U.S. safety.…

    • 540 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    Pessimists argue that the growth of nuclear weapon states will most likely lead to a complex international setting with dangerously unstable tensions between states. Even a simple ignition of a single state can lead to a chain reaction of nuclear attacks ultimately leading to an all-out nuclear world war. I disagree with this claim because no responsible state will launch a nuclear attack against a state possessing nuclear weapons knowing that it will face an immediate nuclear counter threat by the targeted state and its…

    • 581 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The nuclear resources of the United States and the Soviet Union are larger, better equipped, and deadlier than at any other time in history. This incisive book contends that the superpowers, while exhibiting…

    • 408 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Bibliography: 1. Sanger, David E., Baker, Peter. “Obama Limits When U.S. Would Use Nuclear Arms”. The New York Times. The New York Times Company, April 5, 2010. Web. January 23, 2014.…

    • 1791 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Lettow, Paul Vorbeck. 2010 Strengthening the nuclear nonproliferation regime. New York Council on forgein Relations. Print…

    • 1450 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Millions killed in nuclear disaster, thousands left homeless, countries left in peril! These are some of the many consequences that are faced in a nuclear dependent world. Day after day people live in fear that one tiny mistake, one wrong word can cripple our world and leave the survivors living in rubble. The world has discovered that despite the enormous precautions taken, disasters and destruction still constantly resurface themselves through our short, but eventful nuclear history. During World War II, Albert Einstein sent a letter to President Dwight Eisenhower that has shaped mankind from that moment on. It described a weapon that would release enough energy to destroy an entire city("USA weapons of mass destruction." ). Now nearly four score ago the consequences we face for this technology has been detrimental to our society. Scientific discoveries also yielded the idea of using this extraordinary power as an energy source and a extraordinary threat.Due to these undeniable risks, the world needs to remove all sources of nuclear weaponry and power.…

    • 741 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Iran's Nuclear Program

    • 1439 Words
    • 5 Pages

    “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds,” (Oppenheimer, 1965, 0:47). So said Julius Robert Oppenheimer, one of the men credited with creating the atomic bomb, when describing the first test detonation of a nuclear weapon on July 16, 1945, at the Alamogordo Bomb Range in New Mexico ( Sublette, 1999), as he quotes the Hindu holy text, the Bhagavad Vita. Nuclear weapons have only been used in warfare twice, both times by the United States during World War I, when the United States dropped the ‘Fat Man’ and ‘Little Boy’ bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945 (Sublette, 1999). In the 60 intervening years, a number of other nations have since developed nuclear weapons of their own. Because of nuclear proliferation, and the unparalleled destructive power of atomic weapons, nuclear non-proliferation has become an international concern, with the United States leading the charge. The past decade, however, has seen new nations try to enter the ‘nuclear club’ the most recent country being Iran. A nuclear armed Iran poses many concerns to the United States. In this paper, I will discuss the history of Iran’s nuclear program, what steps have been taken to curb the Iranians efforts, and where the two major political parties of the United States stand on the issue.…

    • 1439 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Many people wonder about the future of the world as more powerful nuclear weapons are developed. The U.S. should learn from the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and discontinue the development and production of nuclear weapons because the bombs will create unforeseen damage, prompt other countries to produce…

    • 1057 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    The Nuclear Paradox

    • 1533 Words
    • 7 Pages

    60 years and some 23,000 nuclear warheads later, since the bombing of Hiroshima, the question that faces the U.S and their allies alike “is less how a nation might array its nuclear forces and more how to stop the proliferation of nuclear weapons from spinning out of control”. The very nuclear weapons created to deter attack and ultimately bring about peace are also the cause for ambiguity among world nations, the hole in which millions of tax payers dollars are cast, and the heart of unease felt worldwide by those who fear their amazing destructive power in the wrong hands. The national vision of peace has been misconstrued and wrapped the Americas in a paradoxical ideology of safety that has allowed us to live in “a peace that is no peace”, trapped in the middle of a world wide “Mexican Standoff”.…

    • 1533 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays