The Future of the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force

The Future of the U.S. Intercontinental Ballistic Missile Force
Author: Lauren Caston
Publisher: Rand Corporation
Total Pages: 185
Release: 2014-02-04
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 0833076264

The authors assess alternatives for a next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) across a broad set of potential characteristics and situations. They use the current Minuteman III as a baseline to develop a framework to characterize alternative classes of ICBMs, assess the survivability and effectiveness of possible alternatives, and weigh those alternatives against their cost.

Inventing Accuracy

Inventing Accuracy
Author: Donald MacKenzie
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 484
Release: 1993-01-29
Genre: Science
ISBN: 9780262631471

"Mackenzie has achieved a masterful synthesis of engrossing narrative, imaginative concepts, historical perspective, and social concern." Donald MacKenzie follows one line of technology—strategic ballistic missile guidance through a succession of weapons systems to reveal the workings of a world that is neither awesome nor unstoppable. He uncovers the parameters, the pressures, and the politics that make up the complex social construction of an equally complex technology.

The Second Nuclear Age

The Second Nuclear Age
Author: Colin S. Gray
Publisher: Lynne Rienner Publishers
Total Pages: 212
Release: 1999
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781555873318

The author takes issue with the complacent belief that a happy mixture of deterrence, arms control and luck will enable humanity to cope adequately with weapons of mass destruction, arguing that the risks are ever more serious.

Intelligence Revolution 1960

Intelligence Revolution 1960
Author: Ingard Clausen
Publisher:
Total Pages: 260
Release: 2012
Genre: Astronautics, Military
ISBN:

Overview: Provides a history of the Corona Satellite photo reconnaissance Program. It was a joint Central Intelligence Agency and United States Air Force program in the 1960s. It was then highly classified.

Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice

Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice
Author:
Publisher: DIANE Publishing
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2004
Genre:
ISBN: 1428910336

Nearly 40 years after the concept of finite deterrence was popularized by the Johnson administration, nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) thinking appears to be in decline. The United States has rejected the notion that threatening population centers with nuclear attacks is a legitimate way to assure deterrence. Most recently, it withdrew from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, an agreement based on MAD. American opposition to MAD also is reflected in the Bush administration's desire to develop smaller, more accurate nuclear weapons that would reduce the number of innocent civilians killed in a nuclear strike. Still, MAD is influential in a number of ways. First, other countries, like China, have not abandoned the idea that holding their adversaries' cities at risk is necessary to assure their own strategic security. Nor have U.S. and allied security officials and experts fully abandoned the idea. At a minimum, acquiring nuclear weapons is still viewed as being sensible to face off a hostile neighbor that might strike one's own cities. Thus, our diplomats have been warning China that Japan would be under tremendous pressure to go nuclear if North Korea persisted in acquiring a few crude weapons of its own. Similarly, Israeli officials have long argued, without criticism, that they would not be second in acquiring nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Indeed, given that Israelis surrounded by enemies that would not hesitate to destroy its population if they could, Washington finds Israel's retention of a significant nuclear capability totally "understandable."

Weapons of Mass Destruction [2 Volumes]

Weapons of Mass Destruction [2 Volumes]
Author: Eric A. Croddy
Publisher: ABC-CLIO
Total Pages: 1122
Release: 2005
Genre: History
ISBN: 1851094903

The first accessible reference to cover the history, context, current issues, and key concepts surrounding biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons.

Presidential Commissions & National Security

Presidential Commissions & National Security
Author: Kenneth Kitts
Publisher:
Total Pages: 214
Release: 2006
Genre: History
ISBN:

Kenneth Kitts offers entry into the highly political, behind-closed-doors world of blue-ribbon investigative commissions convened in the aftermath of national security crises. Ranging from Pearl Harbor to the September 11 terrorist attacks, Kitts takes the reader into the backroom to watch as presidents, their advisers, and commission members confront an armory of pressures. With rich detail and accounts of political intrigue, he reveals just how and when presidents reach for the blue-ribbon option to try to defuse crises, deflect criticism, and maintain control of national security policy - and how presidential expectations are sometimes unmet, as commissions issue damning reports with unforeseen and explosive consequences.