Risk Of Nuclear War Research Articles

Psychological defence mechanisms and the nuclear arms race: An interactive model

Concern about the risk of nuclear war has sparked interest in the psychology of the nuclear arms race. This paper reviews recent work in this area and develops a model linking the threat of nuclear weaponry, resultant anxiety, and psychological defence mechanisms employed by the managers of the arms race. The role of psychological defences implicit in military and political social systems is emphasized. Primitive or narcissistic defences found at both individual and group levels are maladaptive as they increase rather than decrease the risk of nuclear conflict. Psychological approaches to crisis management and conflict resolution require development and application to this problem.

Can Psychology Help Reduce the Risk of Nuclear War?

Nuclear psychology, which began with the very best of intentions is, according to this article, doomed to failure and perpetual irrelevance unless it begins to take what the author refers to as a phenomenological approach to the subject. So far, too much attention has been given to "off-the-shelf' models derived from the psychological clinic and laboratory, and too little attention has been given to the actual perspective of nuclear policy makers, who are the people psychologists must influence if they hope to reduce the risk of a catastrophic nuclear war. The author attributes this trend to positivism, the belief that psychology is a natural science rather than one of the humanities. In his view, if psychologists wish to reduce nuclear risks, they must get more fully inside the viewpoints of policymakers, they must assume policymakers' roles at least in their imaginations, and only then will they come up with proposals that will make sense to the policy-making community. There are two requirements: (1) to obtain a greater understanding of what policymakers' thoughts and feelings are about during nuclear crises-those episodes when nuclear risks have been greatest, and (2) to know what it actually is like to have such thoughts and feelings at moments when the fate of the world is believed to be at stake. Importantly, this leads, or ought to lead, psychologists to the study of the Cuban missile crisis, the closest call by far to nuclear war between the superpowers. There is a great deal to be learned about the psychological reality of that moment of maximum nuclear danger in October, 1962. The author illustrates his argument with a literary metaphor drawn from John LeCarre 's The Little Drummer Girl. "She's panicked," Litvak announced suddenly to Becker's back. Puzzled, Becker turned and glanced at him. "She's gone over to them," Litvak insisted. His voice had a throaty instability. Becker returned to the window. "Part of her has gone over, part has stayed," he replied. "That is what we asked of her." "She's gone over!" Litvak repeated, rising on the swell of his own provocation. "It's happened with agents before. It's happened now... So what's her motivation? She's not Jewish. She's not anything. She's theirs. Forget her..." From the shallows of his sparse camp bed, Kurtz offered drowsy consolation. "Germany makes you jumpy Shimon. Ease off. What does it matter who she belongs to, so long as she keeps showing us the way?" (LeCarre, 1983)

"How Might Psychology Contribute to Reducing the Risk of Nuclear War?"

"How Might Psychology Contribute to Reducing the Risk of Nuclear War?"

Reducing the Risk of Nuclear War: Is Star Wars the Answer?

Reducing the Risk of Nuclear War: Is Star Wars the Answer?

Reducing the Risk of Nuclear War

Reducing the Risk of Nuclear War

The myth of rationality in situations of crisis.

The likelihood of a nuclear war being self‐activated owing to technical error may be lower than it was but the risk of nuclear war from human error has increased considerably. In an acute East‐West crisis that could escalate out of control because of a misperception or an accident, the features that are particularly dangerous are psychological stress due to the urgency to make a decision, the material values at stake, and the uncertainty of the outcome. The behaviour of people generally in crisis situations, both as individuals and in groups, is discussed. Examples illustrate the likelihood of irrational decision‐making in a situation of military and political crisis, even in favourable circumstances. Human beings are not machines, but individuals with personal problems and a potential to act irrationally.

Hawks, Doves and Owls: An Agenda for Avoiding Nuclear War

This book explores five paths toward nuclear conflict, concentrating on how changes in forces, technology, and political life affect the way events might travel down each path. The authors suggest ways to move the world back from danger. Their agenda is an extensive list of detailed policy recommendations to reduce the risk of nuclear war.

Reducing the risk of nuclear war

Reducing the risk of nuclear war

Next steps in the creation of an accidental nuclear war prevention center

In early 1983, members of Stanford University's Center for International Security and Arms Control met to discuss ideas on the establishment of a joint U.S.‐U.S.S.R. center to support cooperative efforts to prevent accidental nuclear war. William Perry (former Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering) began the discussion by outlining several measures he felt could help to reduce the risk of nuclear war by accident or miscalculation. Calling attention to the earlier proposals of Senators Gary Hart, Sam Nunn, and Henry Jackson, he endorsed the concept of a joint accidental nuclear war prevention center as a mechanism to support efforts of the two superpowers to prevent or reduce the likelihood of the outbreak of nuclear war. Most notable in this regard was his personal experience of an erroneous warning of a large‐scale Soviet missile attack on the U.S., which resulted from a NORAD computer malfunction. Information exchanges and consultation to clarify circumstances surrounding an accident ‐...

Reducing Short-Range Nuclear Systems in Europe: An Opportunity for Stability in the Eighties

Assumptions about European security that have sustained the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) alliance since the 1950s are coming apart. Although steady Soviet force improvements continue, many European observers no longer see the Warsaw Pact as an overwhelming conventional force. Some think new conventional weapons technologies could hold the line; others just worry less about the danger of invasion. Strategic parity among superpowers has called NATO's flexible-response strategy into question, just as growing minorities have begun to ask whether nuclear weapons have become more menace than deterrent, thereby inhibiting nuclear weapon modernization plans. Arms control has lost credibility as a solution because there has been so little in contrast to the pace of weapons development and deployment. Some new, orderly pattern that restores support for NATO defense and credibility to the arms control process is badly needed. One way to begin is to draw down tactical nuclear arsenals on both sides, which could reduce the risk of nuclear war in Europe, enhance conventional strength, and support the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks and intermediate-range nuclear forces negotiations.

Common Sense and Nuclear Peace

The authors note that arms control, arms limitation, and arms reduction, though moving in the right direction, are not sufficient. Possible escalation of a small-scale war between nuclear superpowers or of an accident into a major conflagration is our greatest worry, they think, even though there is no justification for ever resorting to nuclear weaponry. We must find new ways to prevent and resolve conflict among nations other than military solutions. Further, the stakes are too high to leave the settling of international disputes in the hands of the world's military establishments, or even its anti-military establishments. To reduce and then eliminate the risk of nuclear war will require a profound change in attitude, both here and in the Soviet Union. The authors feel we must both learn to bargain and barter about the things that really matter. We must realize that we cannot compete on both economic and military trufs simultaneously, because they require different attitudes and policies. Good treaties based on commonality of interest make good neighbors, and can lead to a less-belligerent world. 17 references.

The Dangers of Nuclear War

In recent years, the American and Canadian Pugwash groups have met each summer in Pugwash, Nova Scotia to plan international symposia on issues of arms control and development. Among the publications resulting from these symposia is a collection of essays on the problems of command and control over nuclear weaponry, the spread of nuclear weapons and the likelihood of nuclear terrorism, future weapons development, and the risk of nuclear war between the superpowers. The following is an abridged version of the final chapter of The Dangers of Nuclear War, edited by Franklyn Griffiths and John C. Polanyi and published by the University of Toronto Press (1979).

The dangers of nuclear war

In recent years, the American and Canadian Pugwash groups have met each summer in Pugwash, Nova Scotia to plan international symposia on issues of arms control and development. Among the publications resulting from these symposia is a collection of essays on the problems of command and control over nuclear weaponry, the spread of nuclear weapons and the likelihood of nuclear terrorism, future weapons development, and the risk of nuclear war between the superpowers. The following is an abridged version of the final chapter of The Dangers of Nuclear War, edited by Franklyn Griffiths and John C. Polanyi and published by the University of Toronto Press (1979).

The Terrorist Threat to World Nuclear Programs

Terrorism in the global setting has become the predominant form of confrontation between differing subcategories of societies that seek to overcome each other, regardless of size. In the case of nuclear terrorism, the consequences of failure are potentially catastrophic. While the logic of our strategic nuclear policy is clear, the same clarity does not hold for policies directed at nuclear terrorism. In the former case, a prevailing view is that the risk of nuclear war is low because the United States responds vigilantly to nuclear threats posed by other nations. In the latter case, there is no terrorist prevention doctrine, nor is there an institutional focus for preventing terrorism that is even remotely commensurate with that which exists for deterring nuclear war. We here consider the dimensions of the nuclear terrorism problem, discuss these with respect to the Minuteman Intercontinental Ballistic Missile system, consider the capabilities and objectives of potential terrorist groups, and formulate some basic recommendations for improving the current state of affairs.

Negotiating Arms Control

'Patience is the art of hoping/ it has been said. Nothing requires more patience or practice in the art of hoping than disarmament. For the ideal negotiator in theory, one might well turn to St Paul and accept his advice to the apostle Timothy, when he said: 'And the servant of the Lord must not strive, but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach, patient, in meekness instructing those that oppose themselves/ In practice, disarmament negotiations are orchestrated and conducted by the most heavily armed powers, in the interests of the most heavily armed powers, and have more to do with horse trading than with St Paul. Even the most powerful, however, cannot be heedless of the requirements of survival, and the necessity of avoiding the appalling destructiveness of resort to nuclear war. The realization of the growing unacceptability of the risks involved in the use of the ultimate force provided by modern technology, together with the serious risks of unfettered proliferation of nuclear weapons, has resulted in a great deal of activity in negotiations on disarmament, even though the extent of achievement in reducing the risks of nuclear war is still clearly inadequate. In fact, in the whole postwar period, only one disarmament measure (ie, the abolition or reduction of armaments or armed forces) has been agreed to by the principal military powers the prohibition of the development, production, and stockpiling of bacteriological and toxin weapons in 1972, a form of warfare regarded as particularly impracticable because of its uncontrollable boomerang effects.

Text of agreement between Soviet Union and United States on reducing risk of nuclear war

Text of agreement between Soviet Union and United States on reducing risk of nuclear war