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"I find hope in the work of long-established groups such as the Arms Control Association...[and] I find hope in younger anti-nuclear activists and the movement around the world to formally ban the bomb."

– Vincent Intondi
Professor of History, Montgomery College
July 1, 2020
Books of Note
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Latest ACA Resources

Pakistan’s Nuclear Future: Worries Beyond War
Edited by Henry D. Sokolski, U.S. Army War College, 2008, 378 pp.

The contributing authors of this volume examine a range of security challenges stemming from Pakistan’s nuclear weapons and energy programs. They first examine the history of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons program and explore whether the experience of nuclear proliferation from Pakistan through the black market network of Pakistani nuclear official Abdul Qadeer Khan may be repeated in the future. The volume then turns to questions regarding Pakistan’s nuclear force requirements and how Islamabad intends to match these requirements with its vague nuclear-use doctrine. In particular, the authors examine India’s nuclear and conventional superiority and consider how the impact of this imbalance may contribute to the size of Pakistan’s arsenal and the country’s reliance on nuclear deterrence. The last three authors focus on the issue of nuclear security, highlighting the risk that Pakistani nuclear facilities—housing nuclear and radioactive materials, or nuclear weapons—may be subject to attack. They stress the need for regulatory oversight and physical protection as precautionary measures.


Nuclear Logics: Contrasting Paths in East Asia and the Middle East
By Etel Solingen, Princeton University Press, 2007, 420 pp.

This book examines why nine countries in two regions have decided to pursue or renounce nuclear weapons. In East Asia, the author finds that a priority on economic openness and state continuity, rather than the fate of individual leaders, prompted Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan’s decision to ultimately refrain from building nuclear weapons. North Korea, a country that has acquired nuclear weapons, is the notable anomaly in the region. In the Middle East, a region whose leaders generally emphasize their own survival and who are less likely to support economic integration, pursuit of or ambiguity regarding nuclear weapons is more common, as evidenced in Iran, Iraq, Israel, and Libya. Here, Egypt is the anomaly, but the author warns that Egypt’s internationalizing model may be under strain. Solingen explicitly discounts the value of other theories that focus heavily on international considerations to explain nuclear behavior. Instead, she offers a set of policy implications that touch on the role of democracy, preventing inward-looking regimes from concentrating power, rewarding internationalization, and paying attention to energy resources in crafting sanctions and other nonproliferation mechanisms.

Banning Landmines: Disarmament, Citizen Diplomacy, and Human Security
Edited by Jody Williams, Stephen D. Goose, and Mary Wareham, Rowman & Littlefield, 2008, 348 pp.

Edited by Nobel Peace Prize winner Jody Williams and two other leading antilandmine activists, Banning Landmines chronicles progress in curbing the use of landmines since the implementation of the 1997 Ottawa Convention, or Mine Ban Treaty, which banned anti-personnel landmines. The book includes contributions from diplomatic negotiators, grassroots activists, arms experts, and mine survivors. Although some of the authors broaden the scope of the text at points to comment more generally on human security in a changing world, the driving focus of the book is on the evolution of landmine policy.


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