Waging Nuclear Peace

The Technology and Politics of Nuclear Weapons

By Robert Ehrlich

Subjects: Peace
Paperback : 9780873959209, 397 pages, June 1985
Hardcover : 9780873959193, 397 pages, June 1985

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Table of contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

I Introduction to the Issues

1 The Nuclear Debate

2 Public Opinion and the Media

II Nuclear Arms and Nuclear War

3 Nuclear Weapons and Nuclear Strategy

4 The Continuing Arms Race

5 Limited Nuclear War

III The Effects of Nuclear War

6 Nuclear-Weapons Effects

7 The Effects of Nuclear War on the United States and the Soviet Union

8 Long-Term Worldwide Effects of a Nuclear War

IV Policy Options and Objectives

9 Effectiveness of Civil Defense

10 Arms Control and Disarmament

11 Nuclear-Weapons Proliferation

Appendix A: The Physical Principles of Nuclear Energy and Radiation

Appendix B: Survival after Nuclear War

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Description

Waging Nuclear Peace is a clear and informative interdisciplinary survey of the issues surrounding nuclear war. It raises and attempts to answer questions that often go unasked. How can we measure the risk of nuclear war? Will slowing the arms race reduce the risk of war? Is disarmament desirable or undesirable in this respect?

Robert Ehrlich has succeeded in being as objective as possible, while at the same time taking well-defined positions on a wide range of subjects. Yet the book does not purport to have the answers to the nuclear dilemma. Instead, it assists the reader in thinking through the issues and in coming to a personal conclusion.

Comprehensive in its scope, Waging Nuclear Peace encompasses both technical issues, such as the effects of nuclear weapons, and policy issues, such as arms control, the nature of the arms race, and the feasibility of civil defense. It includes material on new findings concerning "nuclear winter" — the catastrophic change in global climate that might follow a nuclear war.

Robert Ehrlich chairs the Department of Physics at George Mason University, Virginia.