The Soviet Union and Nuclear Proliferation

Slavic Review ◽  
1985 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 468-488 ◽  
Author(s):  
William C. Potter
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Export ◽  
Control Policy ◽  
Nuclear Nonproliferation ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Export Policy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Test Ban

Prevention of the spread of nuclear weapons has long been a theme of the Soviet! Union's declaratory arms control policy. It has also found concrete expression in Moscow's endorsement of the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963, the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons in Latin America of 1967 (Treaty of Tlatelolco), the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968, and, since 1958, in the stringent nuclear export policy of the Soviet Union. Although much of Moscow's nonproliferation rhetoric and elements of its nonproliferation behavior can be explained in terms of narrow self-interest (namely, prevention of access to nuclear weapons by traditional adversaries), the range and consistency of its nonproliferation efforts, as well as certain specific actions, indicate that the Soviet leadership appreciates the dangers posed by the diffusion of nuclear weapons.

scholarly journals The Carter Administration and the Evolution of American Nuclear Nonproliferation Policy, 1977–1981

2002 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 261-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Michael Martinez
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Nuclear Nonproliferation ◽  
Nuclear Testing ◽  
Energy Agency ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Subsequent Response ◽  
The World ◽  
Uncertain Time ◽  
First Time

In the wake of India's May 1998 decision to resume nuclear testing for the first time since 1974, as well as arch-rival Pakistan's subsequent response, the attention of the world again has focused on nuclear nonproliferation policy as a means of maintaining stability in politically troubled regions of the world. The 1990s proved to be an uncertain time for nonproliferation policy. Pakistan acquired nuclear capabilities. Iraq displayed its well-known intransigence by refusing to allow International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arms inspectors access to facilities suspected of manufacturing nuclear weapons. North Korea maintained a nuclear weapons program despite opposition from many Western nations. Troubling questions about nuclear holdings persisted in Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa. New nuclear powers were created in Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia, and Ukraine after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. Even the renewal of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in 1995 failed to assuage the concerns of Western powers fearful of aggressive measures undertaken by rogue nuclear proliferants.

Rational Superiority, Crises, and Arms Control, 1961–1963

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Cameron
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Rhetoric ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Test Ban

Chapter 1 describes how John F. Kennedy rose to power by articulating his own new nuclear strategy, which would use the latest advances in social and organizational sciences, combined with US superiority in nuclear weapons, to defend the United States’ national security interests. The foremost exponent of this strategy of “rational superiority” was Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara. The chapter then explains how this scheme was dealt a series of blows by Kennedy’s experiences during the Berlin and Cuban missile crises, which disabused him of the idea that nuclear superiority could be used to coerce the Soviet Union. Nevertheless, the Kennedy administration used the rhetoric of rational superiority to advance the Limited Test Ban Treaty and was planning to employ it as part of the president’s reelection campaign in 1964. Kennedy had not reconciled this gap between his public rhetoric and personal doubts at the time of his death.

Communist China's Attitude Towards Nuclear Tests

1965 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 96-107
Author(s):  
Hungdah Chiu
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Foreign Minister ◽  
Western China ◽  
Technical Data ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The People ◽  
The World ◽  
Communist China ◽  
Test Ban

On October 15, 1957, Communist China and the Soviet Union signed an agreement on new defence technology according to which the Soviet Union would supply China with technical data for manufacturing nuclear weapons. In May 1958 Foreign Minister Ch'en Yi told German correspondents in Peking that China would make atomic bombs. On June 20, 1959, the Soviet Union, according to China, unilaterally abrogated the 1957 agreements on weapons development. On July 31, 1963, China issued a statement denouncing the Moscow Partial Test Ban Treaty as “a big fraud to fool the people of the world.” On October 16, 1964, China announced that an atomic device had been exploded in western China and proposed that “a summit conference of all the countries of the world be convened to discuss the question of the complete prohibition and thorough destruction of nuclear weapons.”

Tilting Toward Thanatos: America's “Countervailing” Nuclear Strategy

1981 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-46 ◽  
Author(s):  
Louis René Beres
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Alternative Strategy ◽  
Current Policy ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
Nuclear Strategy ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Comprehensive Test ◽  
The Right ◽  
Test Ban

America's current nuclear strategy seeks to improve deterrence with a counterforce targeting plan that exceeds the requirements of mutual assured destruction. This “countervailing” nuclear strategy codifies an enlarged spectrum of retaliatory options. The author argues, however, that the countervailing strategy is based upon a number of implausible and contradictory assumptions, and that it actually degrades the overriding objective of genuine security. For many reasons, the Soviet Union is not apt to assign a higher probability of fulfillment to American counterforce threats; under certain conditions, current policy confronts our adversary with a heightened incentive to pre-empt. The conclusion identifies an alternative strategy for the avoidance of nuclear war, a network of doctrines and obligations that calls for a return to minimum deterrence, a comprehensive test ban, and a joint renunciation of the right to the first use of nuclear weapons.

A Sacred Space Is Never Empty

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria Smolkin
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Sacred Space ◽  
Russian Revolution ◽  
Mikhail Gorbachev ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
Sacred Spaces ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Communist Ideology ◽  
History Of ◽  
Soviet Experiment

When the Bolsheviks set out to build a new world in the wake of the Russian Revolution, they expected religion to die off. Soviet power used a variety of tools—from education to propaganda to terror—to turn its vision of a Communist world without religion into reality. Yet even with its monopoly on ideology and power, the Soviet Communist Party never succeeded in overcoming religion and creating an atheist society. This book presents the first history of Soviet atheism from the 1917 revolution to the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The book argues that to understand the Soviet experiment, we must make sense of Soviet atheism. It shows how atheism was reimagined as an alternative cosmology with its own set of positive beliefs, practices, and spiritual commitments. Through its engagements with religion, the Soviet leadership realized that removing religion from the “sacred spaces” of Soviet life was not enough. Then, in the final years of the Soviet experiment, Mikhail Gorbachev—in a stunning and unexpected reversal—abandoned atheism and reintroduced religion into Soviet public life. The book explores the meaning of atheism for religious life, for Communist ideology, and for Soviet politics.

RESTORATION OF THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF YALTA IN 1944

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (72) (4) ◽  
pp. 24-36
Author(s):  
N. D. Borshchik
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Food Industry ◽  
Southern Coast ◽  
Recreational Facilities ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Social ◽  
Health Resorts ◽  
Post War ◽  
Short Time

The article considers little-studied stories in Russian historiography about the post-war state of Yalta — one of the most famous health resorts of the Soviet Union, the «pearl» of the southern coast of Crimea. Based on the analysis of mainly archival sources, the most important measures of the party and Soviet leadership bodies, the heads of garrisons immediately after the withdrawal of the fascist occupation regime were analyzed. It was established that the authorities paid priority attention not only to the destroyed economy and infrastructure, but also to the speedy introduction of all-Union and departmental sanatoriums and recreation houses, other recreational facilities. As a result of their coordinated actions in the region, food industry enterprises, collective farms and cooperative artels, objects of cultural heritage and the social and everyday sphere were put into operation in a short time.

Hitler's Antarctic base: the myth and the reality

Polar Record ◽  
2007 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-21 ◽  
Author(s):  
Colin Summerhayes ◽  
Peter Beeching
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
Background Knowledge ◽  
The Arctic ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Navy ◽  
Dronning Maud Land ◽  
Do So

In January-February 1939, a secret German expedition visited Dronning (or Queen) Maud Land, Antarctica, apparently with the intention inter alia of establishing a base there. Between 1943 and 1945 the British launched a secret wartime Antarctic operation, code-named Tabarin. Men from the Special Air Services Regiment (SAS), Britain's covert forces for operating behind the lines, appeared to be involved. In July and August 1945, after the German surrender, two U-boats arrived in Argentina. Had they been to Antarctica to land Nazi treasure or officials? In the southern summer of 1946–1947, the US Navy appeared to ‘invade’ Antarctica using a large force. The operation, code-named Highjump, was classified confidential. In 1958, three nuclear weapons were exploded in the region, as part of another classified US operation, code-named Argus. Given the initial lack of information about these various activities, it is not, perhaps, surprising that some people would connect them to produce a pattern in which governments would be accused of suppressing information about ‘what really happened’, and would use these pieces of information to construct a myth of a large German base existing in Antarctica and of allied efforts to destroy it. Using background knowledge of Antarctica and information concerning these activities that has been published since the early 1940s, it is demonstrated: that the two U-Boats could not have reached Antarctica; that there was no secret wartime German base in Dronning Maud Land; that SAS troops did not attack the alleged German base; that the SAS men in the region at the time had civilian jobs; that Operation Highjump was designed to train the US Navy for a possible war with the Soviet Union in the Arctic, and not to attack an alleged German base in Antarctica; and that Operation Argus took place over the ocean more than 2000 km north of Dronning Maud Land. Activities that were classified have subsequently been declassified and it is no longer difficult to separate fact from fancy, despite the fact that many find it attractive not to do so.

Introduction: Reflections on Baltic Exceptionalism

1989 ◽  
Vol 17 (02) ◽  
pp. 156-163 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrejs Penikis
Keyword(s):  
Soviet Union ◽  
Panel Discussion ◽  
Columbia University ◽  
Soviet Leadership ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Key Points ◽  
The Status ◽  
New Thinking ◽  
The Baltic ◽  
Independence Movements

On October 20, 1989 the Harriman Institute's Nationalities and Siberian Studies Program of Columbia University sponsored a panel discussion entitled, “The Baltic Republics Fifty Years After the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.” The panel, consisting of Dr. Allen Lynch, Dr. Stephan Kux, Mr. Jenik Radon and Mr. William Hough, analyzed the current situation in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania as well as in the other republics from a variety of perspectives, and debated the motivations and appropriateness of the response of the Western powers to the growing strength of the various independence movements in the Baltic republics. The following edited transcript of those proceedings points up the complex and contentious nature of the status of the Baltic republics in the era of Gorbachev, in both the domestic (Soviet) and international contexts. Nationalist leaders within the Soviet Union debate the appropriate tactics and pace to pursue their goals. The Soviet leadership dabates the extent to which autonomy may be granted to the nationalities. Western leaders consider their options in responding to the changes in the Soviet Union, changes which necessitate an overhaul of policies nearly a half-century old as well as some “new thinking” on their parts. The discussion centered on two issues: (1) What in general has been the response of the West to nationalist movements in the USSR and how appropriate has that response been? (2) Is there any validity to claims of Baltic “exceptionalism”? The following introduction comments briefly on these issues and places them into perspective by drawing on the discussion and exploring several key points.

Trial Balloons

2020 ◽  
pp. 84-105
Author(s):  
Simon Miles
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
State Legislatures ◽  
Balance Of Power ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Force ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
East And West ◽  
General Secretary

This chapter is devoted to Konstantin Chernenko' efforts to shift superpower relations back to a détente-like footing during his time as a General Secretary of the Soviet Union. It examines attempts on the part of various Western leaders to carve out a role for themselves as the superpowers' chosen intermediary. It also investigates the balance of power between East and West, including how and why leaders in Washington and Moscow perceived and responded to each other as they did. The chapter analyzes the nuclear freeze movement, which has remained a political force to be reckoned with as the movement called for both superpowers to halt the construction and deployment of nuclear weapons. It talks about the freeze activists in the United States who shepherded the passage of nonbinding resolutions that support their cause in four state legislatures, the House, and the Senate.

The continuing threat of nuclear war

2008 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph Cirincione
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Nuclear War ◽  
The North ◽  
The Earth ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The World ◽  
Nuclear Winter

The American poet Robert Frost famously mused on whether the world will end in fire or in ice. Nuclear weapons can deliver both. The fire is obvious: modern hydrogen bombs duplicate on the surface of the earth the enormous thermonuclear energies of the Sun, with catastrophic consequences. But it might be a nuclear cold that kills the planet. A nuclear war with as few as 100 hundred weapons exploded in urban cores could blanket the Earth in smoke, ushering in a years-long nuclear winter, with global droughts and massive crop failures. The nuclear age is now entering its seventh decade. For most of these years, citizens and officials lived with the constant fear that long-range bombers and ballistic missiles would bring instant, total destruction to the United States, the Soviet Union, many other nations, and, perhaps, the entire planet. Fifty years ago, Nevil Shute’s best-selling novel, On the Beach, portrayed the terror of survivors as they awaited the radioactive clouds drifting to Australia from a northern hemisphere nuclear war. There were then some 7000 nuclear weapons in the world, with the United States outnumbering the Soviet Union 10 to 1. By the 1980s, the nuclear danger had grown to grotesque proportions. When Jonathan Schell’s chilling book, The Fate of the Earth, was published in 1982, there were then almost 60,000 nuclear weapons stockpiled with a destructive force equal to roughly 20,000 megatons (20 billion tons) of TNT, or over 1 million times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. President Ronald Reagan’s ‘Star Wars’ anti-missile system was supposed to defeat a first-wave attack of some 5000 Soviet SS-18 and SS-19 missile warheads streaking over the North Pole. ‘These bombs’, Schell wrote, ‘were built as “weapons” for “war”, but their significance greatly transcends war and all its causes and outcomes. They grew out of history, yet they threaten to end history. They were made by men, yet they threaten to annihilate man’.

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