Nuclear Weapons

• An accessible and eye-opening background to the most deadly weapon ever invented
• Examines important and recurring questions about the role of nuclear weapons in modern-day international relations
• Explores the history of the early arms races, through the dawn of nuclear deterrence politics, the Cold War, to what may lie ahead for us in the future
• Takes a thoroughly up-to-date view, examining contemporary controversies such as the US National Missile Defence system and Star Wars, and the threat and role of nuclear weapons in global terrorism
• The author`s background in international relations puts some of the most important and enduring problems of nuclear weapons policy over the past 60 years into an historical and global context

Despite not having been used in anger since Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Bomb is still the biggest threat that faces us in the 21st century. As Bill Clinton`s first secretary of defence, Les Aspin, aptly put it: `The Cold War is over, the Soviet Union is no more. But the post-Cold War world is decidedly not post-nuclear`. For all the effort to reduce nuclear stockpiles to zero, it seems that the Bomb is here to stay. This Very Short Introduction reveals why.
The history, and politics of the bomb are explained: from the technology of nuclear weapons, to the revolutionary implications of the H-bomb, and the politics of nuclear deterrence. The issues are set against a backdrop of the changing international landscape, from the early days of development, through the Cold War, to the present-day controversy of George W. Bush`s National Missile Defence, and the threat and role of nuclear weapons in the so-called Age of Terror.