Weapons of Mass Destruction

Joseph M. Siracusa is professor in human security and international diplomacy at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, in Melbourne, Australia, and president of Australia’s Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS).Aiden Warren is senior lecturer in the School of Global, Urban and Social Studies and researcher in the Centre for Global Research (CGR) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT) University, in Melbourne, Australia.

• Abbreviations/Acronyms IntroductionChapter 1. World War II and the Race for the A-BombChapter 2. The Cold War Part a: The Nuclear Arms Race and NSC 68Part b: Reagan, Gorbachev and the end of the Cold WarChapter 3. UN Security Council Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) – United Kingdom, France and ChinaChapter 4. Non-UN Security Council Nuclear Weapon States – Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea (and Iran)Chapter 5. The Global Nuclear Non-proliferation RegimeChapter 6. The Modern Era: The Post-Cold War and BeyondChapter 7. Biological and Chemical Weapons, and Nuclear TerrorismConclusionBibliography

Comprehensive and timely, Weapons of Mass Destruction is focused firmly upon the security challenges that WMD, nuclear and non-nuclear, pose to the 21st century. It presents a finely-judged account of the successive phases of nuclear history, blending well-grounded historical summaries with acute policy commentary. Writing with admirable clarity, Siracusa and Warren document how the road from 1945 led us to where we are today, with nuclear terror compounded by the insidious threats of chemical and biological attack. They show how the knife-edge stability of the Cold War was seceded by the emergence of new players and new threats which together transform the global security threat.