Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb

Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945
Erscheinungsjahr 1999
ISBN: 978-0-19-829468-9
Verlag: OUP Oxford

Buch, Englisch, 408 Seiten, Print PDF, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 781 g

Cold War Statesmen Confront the Bomb: Nuclear Diplomacy Since 1945 is a path-breaking work that uses biographical techniques to test one of the most important and widely debated questions in international politics: Did the advent of the nuclear bomb prevent the Third World War?

Many scholars and much conventional wisdom assumes that nuclear deterrence has prevented major power war since the end of the Second World War; this remains a principal tenet of US strategic policy today. Others challenge this assumption, and argue that major war would have been `obsolete' even without the bomb.

This book tests these propositions by examining the careers of ten leading Cold War statesmen--Harry S Truman; John Foster Dulles; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy; Josef Stalin; Nikita Krushchev; Mao Zedong; Winston Churchill; Charles De Gaulle; and Konrad Adenauer--and asking whether they viewed war, and its acceptability, differently after the advent of the bomb. The book's authors argue almost unanimously that nuclear weapons did have a significant effect on the thinking of these leading statesmen of the nuclear age, but a dissenting epilogue from John Mueller challenges this thesis.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Gaddis, John

Gordon, Philip

May, Ernest

Rosenberg, Jonathan

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Militärwesen Ausrüstung & Waffen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Weltgeschichte
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Militärwesen Nationale und Internationale Sicherheits- und Verteidigungspolitik
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Konflikt- und Friedensforschung, Rüstungskontrolle, Abrüstung
• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Internationale Beziehungen Diplomatie
• Interdisziplinäres Wissenschaften Wissenschaften Interdisziplinär Friedens- und Konfliktforschung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

- Introduction by Ernest May

- 1: Andrew P. N. Erdman: `War No Longer Has Any Logic Whatever': Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Thermonuclear Revolution

- 2: S. David Broscious: Longing for International Control, Banking on American Superiority: Harry S Truman's Approach to Nuclear Energy

- 3: Vladislav M. Zubok: Stalin and the Nuclear Age

- 4: Neil Rosendorf: John Foster Dulles' Nuclear Schizophrenia

- 5: Philip Nash: Bear Any Burden?: John F. Kennedy and Nuclear Weapon

- 6: Vladislav M. Zubok and Hope M. Harrison: The Nuclear Education of Nikita Khrushchev

- 7: Jonathan Rosenberg: Before the Bomb and After: Winston Churchill and the Use of Force

- 8: Shu Guang Zhang: Between `Paper' and `Real' Tigers: Mao's View of Nuclear Weapons

- 9: Philip H. Gordon: Charles De Gaulle and the Nuclear Revolution

- 10: Annette Messemer: Konrad Adenauer: Defence Diplomat on the Backstage

- Conclusion. Nuclear Statesmen

- Epilogue

Über Autor(innen)

PROFESSOR JOHN GADDIS is Professor of History at Yale

DR PHILIP GORDON is Director for European Affairs, National Security Council, Washington

PROFESSOR ERNEST MAY is Professor of History at Harvard

PROFESSOR JONATHAN ROSENBERG is Assistant Professor of History at Florida Atlantic University