Thomas M. Nichols

the coming age of preventive war

Eve of destruction

Asiantuntemuksen kuolema 

Douglas T. Stuart

Jeffrey D. McCausland

Is understudied, both inside and outside of government. Tactical weapons, although less awesome than their strategic siblings, carry significant security and political risks, and they have not received the attention that is commensurate to their importance. Second, it is clear that whatever the future of these arms, the status quo is unacceptable. It is past the time for NATO to make more resolute decisions, find a coherent strategy, and formulate more definite plans about its nuclear status. Consequently, decisions about the role of nuclear weapons within the Alliance and the associated supporting analysis are fundamental to the future identity of NATO. At the Lisbon Summit in Portugal in November 2010, the Alliance agreed to conduct the Deterrence and Defense Posture Review (DDPR). This effort is designed to answer these difficult questions prior to the upcoming NATO Summit in May 2012.

Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO

Why has Russian democracy apparently survived and even strengthened under a presidential system, when so many other presidential regimes have decayed into authoritarian rule? And what are the origins of presidential power in modern Russia? Thomas M. Nichols argues that the answer lies in the relationship between political institutions and trust: where society, and consequently politics, is fractious and divided, structural safeguards inherent in presidentialism actually serve to strengthen democratic behavior. The Russian presidency is not the cause of social turmoil in Russia, but rather a successful response to it. This book's emphasis on the social origins of Russian politics explains not only the unexpected survival of Russian democracy, but encourages a reconsideration of the relationship between institutions, social conditions, and democracy. This revised and expanded edition also includes new sections on the election and presidency of Vladimir Putin, and considers the question of how the arrival of the Putin era will affect the futher consolidation of the Russian democracy.

Society and Politics in the Second Russian Republic

The Russian Presidency

In an age of new threats to international security, the old rules of war are rapidly being discarded. The great powers are moving toward norms less restrictive of intervention, preemption, and preventive war. This evolution is taking place not only in the United States but also in many of the world's most powerful nations, including Russia, France, and Japan, among others. As centuries of tradition and law are overturned, will preventive warfare push the world into chaos? Eve of Destruction is a provocative contribution to a growing international debate over the acceptance of preventive military action. In the first work to identify the trends that have led to a coming age of preventive war, Thomas M. Nichols uses historical analysis as well as interviews with military officials from around the world to trace the anticipatory use of force from the early 1990s—when the international community responded to a string of humanitarian crises in Somalia, Bosnia, and Kosovo—to today's current and potential actions against rogue states and terrorists. He makes a case for a bold reform of U.S. foreign policy, and of the United Nations Security Council itself, in order to avert outright anarchy.

The Coming Age of Preventive War

Eve of Destruction

For more than forty years, the United States has maintained a public commitment to nuclear disarmament, and every president from Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama has gradually reduced the size of America's nuclear forces. Yet even now, over two decades after the end of the Cold War, the United States maintains a huge nuclear arsenal on high alert and ready for war. The Americans, like the Russians, the Chinese, and other major nuclear powers, continue to retain a deep faith in the political and military value of nuclear force, and this belief remains enshrined at the center of U.S. defense policy regardless of the radical changes that have taken place in international politics. In No Use, national security scholar Thomas M. Nichols offers a lucid, accessible reexamination of the role of nuclear weapons and their prominence in U.S. security strategy. Nichols explains why strategies built for the Cold War have survived into the twenty-first century, and he illustrates how America's nearly unshakable belief in the utility of nuclear arms has hindered U.S. and international attempts to slow the nuclear programs of volatile regimes in North Korea and Iran. From a solid historical foundation, Nichols makes the compelling argument that to end the danger of worldwide nuclear holocaust, the United States must take the lead in abandoning unrealistic threats of nuclear force and then create a new and more stable approach to deterrence for the twenty-first century.

Thomas M. Nichols

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