Global Politics of Nuclear Weapons UoY Year 3 FULL NOTES

Global Politics of Nuclear Weapons


Year 3
2019 – 2020

,GLOBAL POLITICS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS




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,GLOBAL POLITICS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS




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, GLOBAL POLITICS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS


TABLE OF CONTENTS


LECTURE 1: NUCLEAR REVOLUTION – NUCLEAR AGE................................................................5

SEMINAR 1: HAS THERE BEEN A ‘NUCLEAR REVOLUTION’? ....................................................12

LECTURE 2: INTRODUCTION TO NUCLEAR DETERRENCE ........................................................19

SEMINAR 2: WHAT CAN YOU DO WITH ‘THE BOMB’? DID NUCLEAR DETERRENCE WORK IN
THE CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS? ....................................................................................................25

LECTURE 3: LIMITS OF NUCLEAR DETERRENCE .......................................................................35

SEMINAR 3: WILL NUCLEAR DETERRENCE WORK? ..................................................................40

LECTURE 4: WHY STATES WANT NUCLEAR WEAPONS – THE ROLE OF CULTURE AND IDENTITY

..................................................................................................................................................49

SEMINAR 4: WHY THE UK DECIDED TO RETAIN NUCLEAR WEAPONS .....................................52

LECTURE 5: NUCLEAR CONTROL – NPT AND NON-PROLIFERATION .......................................64

SEMINAR 5: WHAT ROLE DID NPT NORMS PLAY IN UKRAINE’S DECISION TO RELINQUISH

NUCLEAR WEAPONS?....69

LECTURE 6: NUCLEAR CONTROL – COUNTER-PROLIFERATION AND ARMS CONTROL ...........80

SEMINAR 6: WHY IRAQ CANNOT HAVE THE BOMB.................................................................86

LECTURE 7: INTRODUCTION TO NUCLEAR ETHICS AND EFFECTS ............................................92

SEMINAR 7: ARE NUCLEAR WEAPONS ETHICAL? ....................................................................97

LECTURE 8: THE POSSIBILITY OF NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT ..................................................107

SEMINAR 8: CAN/SHOULD WE EVER ELIMINATE NUCLEAR WEAPONS?...............................111



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, GLOBAL POLITICS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS


07/10/2019
GLOBAL POLITICS OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS
LECTURE 1: NUCLEAR REVOLUTION – NUCLEAR AGE

Outline of the module
• Purpose of the module
• Developing your own thinking; finding your analytical voice
• Engaging with the module and its contestations
• Developing your knowledge and using the teaching materials
• Expectations for your essay
• Gender and scholarship
• VLE: for the module outline; seminar details, reading list, learning resources,
formative assessment, and summative assessment

How many states do have nuclear weapons?
1. USA
2. Russia
3. China
4. UK
5. France
6. India
7. Pakistan
8. Israel
• South Africa (the first to voluntarily give up all of its mass destruction weapons in the
1990s)
• Many more have nuclear programmes, but not yet fully developed one

Background briefing for lecture 1: The Nuclear Age
• What is a nuclear weapon?
o Split atom, releasing neutrons (uranium or plutonium), resulting fission =
nuclear fission, chain reaction, Uranium-235
o Thermonuclear weapon, or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb, fusion bomb) fusing
together of atomic nuclei of hydrogen
• The Manhattan project
o Project of developing a mass killer weapon
o First atomic bomb test 1945, New Mexico (‘Trinity’ test)
o Hiroshima and Nagasaki were tests as well

Just a bigger bomb?
• Arrival of ‘the bomb’ and what it meant… was it ‘revolutionary’?
o It is vital to understand the violent context into which atomic bombs arrived
o World War II, where mass killing became a central military tactic
• WWII: Strategic bombing decimates German and Japanese war fighting capacity



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• Incendiary firebombing in UK, China, Germany and Japan (especially Dresden and
Tokyo)
• Fear that Germany might develop a bomb first


Strategic Bombing of Japan
• Firebombed cities of Japan




o In this context, the new atomic bomb is just a bigger bomb, nothing
revolutionary
o But the effects of this bomb made it exceptional

Strategic shock: Material Effects of the bomb’s detonation
• Devastated Hiroshima (150,000) and Nagasaki (75,000) with a single bomb and a
single bomber (total now around 400,000)
• Effects of an atomic bomb
1. Thermal effects: massive heat and firestorms
2. Blast effects from the shock wave (mushroom cloud accelerates then sucks in
everything, then all that falls down already with radiation, all people, animals,
buildings go with it)
3. Radiation: initial dose and residual radiation from fall out
o Survivors/Hibakusha (https://hibakushastories.org/) and Setsuko Thurlow’s
testimony (https://vimeo.com/52049769)
• Book: Hiroshima by John Hersey

Video: The Hiroshima and Nagazaki Bombings
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qLjb2dEHhN4
• Little Boy bomb in Hiroshima




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