Deterrence

This paper revisits William James's 1906 speech, "The Moral Equivalent of War," to look at the relationship of religion, particularly Christianity, to war and violence. Beginning with an anthropological update concerning "biological or sociological necessity," which confirms James's anti-mystical view of war, this paper then offers a case that monotheism, including Christianity, has an extremely ambiguous relationship with war and violence. There is evidence both that doing away with monotheism would have little effect on the prevalence of war and that (...) monotheism supports war in post-neolithic cultures. Finally, it seems the contribution James makes cannot be seen until the distinction between religion and philosophy is put aside. Only then can we see his suggestion that the proper role of intellectual leaders is to offer persons with politico-military power informed advice concerning actions that will result in fewer actual wars. (shrink)

This article responds to Anh Le’s critique of my Journal of Military Ethics article entitled “The Morality of Retributive Targeted Killing.” Le argues that while retribution can in theory function...

Measures aimed at general deterrence are often thought to be problematic on the basis that they violate the Kantian prohibition against sacrificing the interests of some as a means of securing a greater good. But even if this looks like a weak objection because deterrence can be justified as a form of societal self-defence, such measures may be regarded as problematic for another reason: Harming in self-defence is only justified when it’s necessary, i.e., when there are no relatively harmless alternatives. (...) While there are few harmless ways to remove the threat posed by dangerous individuals, there are many relatively harmless methods for preventing crime. We can bracket off our preventative failings when we think of present threats, but we cannot do so when contemplating alternative preventative measures. (shrink)

La première chose que nous devons garder à l’esprit est que lorsque nous disons que la Chine dit ceci ou la Chine fait cela, nous ne parlons pas du peuple chinois, mais des sociopathes qui contrôlent le PCC -- Parti communiste chinois, c’est-à-dire, les sept tueurs en série sociopathes seniles (SSSSK) du Comité permanent du PCC ou des 25 membres du Politburo etc. Les plans du PCC pour la Seconde Guerre mondiale et la domination totale sont énoncés très clairement dans (...) les publications et les discours du gouvernement chinois et c’est le « rêve chinois » de Xi Jinping. C’est un rêve seulement pour la petite minorité (peut-être quelques dizaines à quelques centaines) qui gouvernent la Chine et un cauchemar pour tout le monde (y compris 1,4 milliard de Chinois). Les 10 milliards de dollars par an leur permettent, à eux ou à leurs marionnettes, de posséder ou de contrôler des journaux, des magazines, des chaînes de télévision et de radio et de placer des fausses nouvelles dans la plupart des grands médias partout dans le monde chaque jour. En outre, ils ont une armée (peut-être des millions de personnes) qui troll tous les médias de placer plus de propagande et de noyer des commentaires légitimes (l’armée de 50 centimes). En plus de dépouiller le monde des ressources de 3rd, une poussée majeure de l’initiative de des centaines de milliards de dollars Belt and Road est la construction de bases militaires dans le monde entier. Ils forment le monde libre dans une course aux armements massive de haute technologie qui fait la guerre froide avec l’Union soviétique ressembler à un pique-nique. Bien que le SSSSK, et le reste de l’armée mondiale, dépensent des sommes énormes sur le matériel avancé, il est très probable que WW3 (ou les petits engagements qui l’ont précédé) sera dominé par les logiciels. Il n’est pas hors de question que le SSSSK, avec probablement plus de pirates (codeurs) travaillant pour eux, puis tout le reste du monde combiné, va gagner de futures guerres avec un minimum de conflit physique, juste en paralysant leurs ennemis via le net. Pas de satellites, pas de téléphones, pas de communications, pas de transactions financières, pas de réseau électrique, pas d’Internet, pas d’armes de pointe, pas de véhicules, de trains, de navires ou d’avions. Il n’y a que deux voies principales pour enlever le PCC, libérer 1,4 milliard de prisonniers chinois, et mettre fin à la marche lunatique à la Seconde Guerre mondiale. Le pacifique est de lancer une guerre commerciale tous avare pour dévaster l’économie chinoise jusqu’à ce que l’armée en ait marre et démarre le PCC. Une alternative à la fermeture de l’économie chinoise est une guerre limitée, comme une frappe ciblée par dire 50 drones thermobares sur le 20e Congrès du PCC, lorsque tous les membres supérieurs sont en un seul endroit, mais qui n’aura pas lieu avant 2022 afin que l’on puisse frapper la réunion plénière annuelle. Les Chinois seraient informés, au fur et à mesure de l’attaque, qu’ils devaient déposer les armes et se préparer à organiser des élections démocratiques ou à être regroupés dans l’âge de pierre. L’autre alternative est une attaque nucléaire tous anch, une attaque nucléaire. La confrontation militaire est inévitable compte tenu de la voie actuelle du PCC. Il se produira probablement sur les îles de la mer de Chine méridionale ou Taiwan dans quelques décennies, mais comme ils établissent des bases militaires dans le monde entier, il pourrait se produire n’importe où (voir Tigre accroupi, etc.). Les conflits futurs auront des aspects difficiles et souples avec les objectifs déclarés du PCC de mettre l’accent sur la cyberguerre par le piratage et le paralysage des systèmes de contrôle de toutes les communications militaires et industrielles, l’équipement, les centrales électriques, les satellites, Internet, les banques, et tout appareil ou véhicule connecté au net. Les SS sont lentement sur le terrain d’un éventail mondial de sous-marins ou de drones sous-marins habités et autonomes capables de lancer des armes conventionnelles ou nucléaires qui peuvent rester dormants en attendant un signal de la Chine ou même à la recherche de la signature de navires ou d’avions américains. Tout en détruisant nos satellites, éliminant ainsi la communication entre les États-Unis et nos forces dans le monde entier, ils utiliseront les leurs, en conjonction avec des drones pour cibler et détruire nos forces navales actuellement supérieures. Bien sûr, tout cela se fait de plus en plus automatiquement par l’IA. De loin le plus grand allié du PCC est le parti démocrate des États-Unis. Le choix est d’arrêter le PCC maintenant ou regarder comme ils prolongent la prison chinoise sur le monde entier. Ceux qui s’intéressent à d’autres détails sur le chemin fou de la société moderne peuvent consulter mes autres œuvres telles que Suicide by Democracy-an Obituary for America and the World th Edition 2020 et Suicidal Utopian Delusions in the 21st Century: Philosophie, Nature Humaine et l’effondrement de la civilisation 4e ed (2020) . (shrink)

我们必须记住的第一件事是，当说中国这样说或中国这样做时，我们不是说中国人民，而是控制中国共产党的社会路径者，即七大社会病态连环杀手。中共常务委员会或中央政治局委员等25人。 中共对三战和全面统治的计划在中国政府的出版物和演讲中已经非常明确地阐述了，这就是习近平的"中国梦"。只有统治中国的少数人（也许只有几十到几百人）的梦想，也是其他人（包括14亿中国人 ）的噩梦。每年100亿美元使他们或他们的傀儡拥有或控制报纸、杂志、电视和广播频道，每天在世界各地的大多数主要媒体上放置假新闻。 此外，他们有一支军队（也许有数百万人），他们滚动所有媒体进行更多的宣传，淹没合法的评论（50美分的军队）。 除了剥夺第三世界的资源外，数万亿美元的"一带一路"倡议的主要主旨是在全世界建立军事基地。他们迫使自由世界陷入大规模的高科技军备竞赛，使得与苏联的冷战看起来像是野餐。 尽管SSSSK和世界上其他的军事国家都在高级硬件上花费巨资，但WW3（或导致它的小型交战）很可能以软件为主。SSSSK，可能有更多的黑客（编码器）为他们工作，然后世界其他国家加起来，通过通过网络瘫痪他 们的敌人，以最小的物理冲突赢得未来的战争。"没有卫星，没有电话，没有通讯，没有金融交易，没有电网，没有互联网，没有先进的武器，没有车辆，火车，船舶和飞机。 罢免中共只有两条主要途径，即释放14亿中国囚犯，结束向第三次世界大战的疯狂进军。 和平的一个方案是发动一场全面的贸易战来摧毁中国经济，直到军方受够了，把中共赶出去。 关闭中国经济的替代方案是一场有限的战争，比如在中共第20届大会上，50架热压无人机进行有针对性的打击，当时所有高层成员都在一个地方，但这种情况要到2022年才会发生。一个可以击中年度全体会议。 袭击发生后，中国人将被告知，他们必须放下武器，准备举行民主选举，否则就要进入石器时代。另一种选择是全面核攻击。 鉴于中共目前的路线，军事对抗是不可避免的。 几十年后，这种情况可能会发生在南中国海或台湾的岛屿上，但随着它们在世界各地建立军事基地，它可能发生在任何地方（见"卧虎藏"等）。 未来的冲突将有硬性与软性方面与中共的既定目标，强调网络战争，通过黑客和瘫痪控制系统的所有军事和工业通信，设备，发电厂，卫星，互联网，银行，以及连接到网络的任何设备或车辆。 SS正在缓慢地部署一系列全球载人和自主水面和水下潜艇或无人驾驶飞机，这些潜艇或无人机能够发射可能处于休眠状态，等待中国发出信号，甚至寻找美国船只或飞机的签名。 在摧毁我们的卫星，从而消除美国和我们全球部队之间的通信的同时，他们将使用他们的卫星，与无人机一起瞄准和摧毁我们目前优越的海军部队。 当然，所有这一切都是越来越多地由AI自动完成的。 到目前为止，中共最大的盟友是美国民主党。 选择是现在停止中共，或者看着他们把中国监狱扩展到全世界。 当然，对我们的生活进行普遍监控和数字化是不可避免的。任何不这么认为的人，都是极度脱节的。 当然，正是那些期待中国社会路径者统治世界的人，而悲观主义者（他们认为自己是现实主义者）则期望AI的社会病态 （或我称之为"假愚蠢"或"人造社会病态"）的选择性。）接管，也许到2030年。 那些有兴趣在现代社会的疯狂道路的进一步细节可能会参考我的其他作品，如自杀的民主-美国和世界第三版2019年和自 杀乌托邦幻想在21日世纪：哲学、人性与文明的崩溃（2019）.

Первое, что мы должны иметь в виду, что, говоря, что Китай говорит это или Китай делает это, мы говорим не о китайском народе, но социопатов, которые контролируют КПК - Коммунистическая партия Китая, т.е. семь senile sociopathic серийных убийц (SSSSK) Из Постоянного комитета КПК или 25 членов Политбюро и т.д. Планы CCP для WW3 и полного доминирования lay out довольно ясно в китайских изданиях и речи правительства и это «мечта Кита» Си Цзиньпина. Это мечта только для крошечного меньшинства (возможно, от нескольких (...) десятков до нескольких сотен), которые правят Китаем и кошмар для всех остальных (в том числе 1,4 миллиарда китайцев). 10 миллиардов долларов ежегодно позволяет им или их марионеткам владеть или контролировать газеты, журналы, телевизионные и радиоканалы и размещать поддельные новости в большинстве крупных средств массовой информации во всем мире каждый день. Кроме того, у них есть армия (может быть, миллионы людей), которые троллят все средства массовой информации размещения больше пропаганды и заглушая законные комментарии (50 центов армии). В дополнение к зачистке3-й мир ресурсов, основной направленноймноготриллионной инициативы «Пояс и путь» является строительство военных баз по всему миру. Они вынуждают свободный мир врезаться в массовую гонку вооружений для высоких технологий, которая делает холодную войну с Советским Союзом похожей на пикник. Хотя SSSSK, и остальные военные мира, тратят огромные суммы на передовое оборудование, весьма вероятно, что WW3 (или меньше обязательств, ведущих к нему) будет доминировать программного обеспечения. Это не может быть и речи, что SSSSK, с, вероятно, больше хакеров (кодеров), работающих на них, то весь остальной мир вместе взятые, победит будущих войн с минимальным физическим конфликтом, просто парализовав своих врагов через сеть. Ни спутников, ни телефонов, ни связи, ни финансовых операций, ни электросети, ни интернета, ни современного оружия, ни транспортных средств, ни поездов, кораблей, ни самолетов. Есть только два основных пути к удалению КПК, освобождение 1,4 миллиарда китайских заключенных, и окончание сумасшедшего марша к WW3. Мирный одно начать тотаку торговую войну для того чтобы опустошить китайскую экономию до тех пор пока воискаа получает надоеденными вверх и загружает вне CCP. Альтернативой закрытию экономики Китая является ограниченная война, такая как целенаправленный удар, скажем, 50 термобарических дронов на 20-мth конгрессе КПК, когда все высшие члены находятся в одном месте, но это не состоится до 2022 года, чтобы можно было попасть на ежегодное пленарное заседание. Китайцы будут проинформированы, как нападение произошло, что они должны сложить оружие и подготовиться к проведению демократических выборов или быть nuked в каменном вене. Другой альтернативой является тотавлёневая ядерная атака. Военная конфронтация неизбежна, учитывая нынешний курс КПК. Это, скорее всего, произойдет над островами в южно-китайском море или Тайваня в течение нескольких десятилетий, но, как они создают военные базы по всему миру это может произойти в любом месте (см. Крадущийся тигр и т.д.). Будущие конфликты будут иметь hardkill и softkill аспекты с заявленными целями CcP, чтобы подчеркнуть кибервойны путем взлома и парализующих систем управления всех военных и промышленных коммуникаций, оборудования, электростанций, спутников, Интернет, банки, и любое устройство или транспортное средство, подключенное к сети. СС медленно высаживают во всем мире множество пилотируемых и автономных надводных и подводных подводных подводных подводных и подводных подводных подводных аппаратов или беспилотных летательных аппаратов, способных запускать обычное или ядерное оружие, которое может находиться в состоянии покоя в ожидании сигнала из Китая или даже искать подпись американских кораблей или самолетов. Уничтожая наши спутники, тем самым устраняя связь между США и нашими силами по всему миру, они будут использовать их, совместно с беспилотниками, чтобы нацелить и уничтожить наши в настоящее время превосходящие военно-морские силы. Конечно, все это все чаще делается автоматически ИИ. На сегодняшний день крупнейшим союзником КПК является Демократическая партия США. Выбор остановить CCP теперь или наблюдать по мере того как они расширяют китайскую тюрьму над всем миром. Те, кто заинтересован в более подробной информации о сумасшедшем пути современного общества могут проконсультироваться с другими моими работами, такими как Самоубийство демократии-некролог для Америки и мира 3-е издание 2019 и суицидальных утопических заблуждений в 21-мst веке: Философия, человеческая природа и крах цивилизации 4-й ред (2019). (shrink)

まず心に留めておくべきことは、中国がこれを言うか、中国がそうすると言うとき、我々は中国の人々の話ではなく、中国共産党を支配する社会学者、すなわち、7人の老人社会病的連続殺人犯(SSSSK)の話だという ことです。e 中国共産党常任委員会、または政治局員25名等 -/- 中国共産党の第三次世界大戦と総支配の計画は、中国政府の出版物や演説で非常に明確に示されており、これは習近平の「チャイナ・ドリーム」である。中国を支配する少数派(おそらく数十人から数百人)だけが夢であり 、他の全ての人(14億人の中国人を含む)にとっては悪夢だ。年間100億ドルは、彼らまたはその人形が新聞、雑誌、テレビ、ラジオチャンネルを所有または制御し、毎日どこでもほとんどの主要メディアに偽のニュー スを配置することを可能にします。 さらに、彼らはすべてのメディアをより多くのプロパガンダを配置し、正当な解説(50セントの軍隊)をかき消す軍隊(おそらく何百万人もの人々)を持っています。 -/- 資源の第3の世界を取り除くことに加えて、数兆ドルのベルトとロードイニシアチブの主要な推進力は、世界中の軍事基地を構築しています。彼らは、ソ連との冷戦をピクニックのように見せる大規模なハイテク軍拡競争に 自由な世界を強制しています。 -/- SSSSKと世界の他の軍隊は、高度なハードウェアに巨額を費やしていますが、WW3(またはそれに至る小規模な関与)がソフトウェア支配される可能性が非常に高いです。SSSSKは、おそらくより多くのハッカー (コーダー)が彼らのために働いて、世界の残りの部分を組み合わせることで、ネットを介して敵を麻痺させるだけで、最小限の物理的な紛争で将来の戦争に勝つことは問題外ではありません。衛星、電話なし、通信なし、 金融取引なし、送電網なし、インターネットなし、高度な武器なし、車両、列車、船舶、飛行機なし。 -/- 中国共産党を排除し、14億人の中国人囚人を解放し、第三次世界大戦への狂気の行進を終わらせる主な道は2つしかない。 平和的な一つは、軍がうんざりして中国共産党を追い出すまで、中国経済を荒廃させるために全面的な貿易戦争を開始することです。 -/- 中国経済を閉鎖する代わりに、中国共産党の第20回会議で50機の熱圧ドローンによる標的ストライキなど、限定的な戦争が起こるが、それは2022年まで行われないだろう。年次総会に当たる可能性がある。 中国人は、攻撃が起こったように、彼らが武器を置き、民主的な選挙を開催する準備をしなければならない、または石器時代に裸にされなければならないことを知らされるだろう。もう一つの選択肢は、全面的な核攻撃です 。 中国共産党の現在の進路を考えると、軍事的対立は避けられない。 数十年以内に南シナ海や台湾の島々で起こる可能性が高いが、世界中に軍事基地を設立すれば、どこでも起こりうる(しゃがむ虎など)。 将来の紛争は、すべての軍事および産業通信、機器、発電所、衛星、インターネット、銀行、およびすべての軍事および産業通信の制御システムをハッキングし、麻痺することによってサイバー戦争を強調するために、中国 共産党の明記された目的とハードキルとソフトキルの側面を持つことになります。ネットに接続されている任意のデバイスまたは車両。 SSは、中国からの信号を待っているか、さらには米国の船や飛行機の署名を探して休眠しているかもしれない従来または核兵器を発射することができる有人および自律的な表面と水中潜水艦や無人機の世界的な配列をゆっ くりとフィールドにしています。 我々の衛星を破壊し、世界中の米軍との通信を排除する一方で、彼らはドローンと組み合わせて、我々の現在の優れた海軍を標的にし、破壊するために、彼ら(彼ら)を使用します。 もちろん、これらすべてがAIによって自動的に行われるようになりました。 -/- 中国共産党の最大の同盟国はアメリカの民主党である。 選択は、今CCPを停止するか、彼らが世界中に中国の刑務所を拡張するのを見てです。 -/- もちろん、私たちの生活の普遍的な監視とデジタル化は、どこでも避けられません。そう思わない人は、深く接触していない。 -/- もちろん、中国の社会パスが世界を支配することを期待する楽観主義者であり、悲観主義者(現実主義者と見なす)は、おそらく2030年までにAI社会病(または私が呼ぶAS)が引き継ぐことを期待している。 現代社会の狂気の道の詳細に興味がある人は、アメリカのための民主主義による自殺、2019年第3版、21stの自殺ユートピアの妄想など、私の他の作品を参照してください。世紀:哲学、人間性と文明崩壊5位(2 019年) .

There were five kinds of cyber deterrence presented at the workshop on Landscaping strategic cyber deterrence, hosted at the Oxford Internet Institute. They were the well-studied areas of deterrence by ‘punishment’ and ‘denial’, and the novel concepts of deterrence by ‘association’, ‘norms and taboos’, and finally, ‘entanglement’. In the following workshop commentary, I present these five kinds of deterrence and explain them in light of recent developments in the academy and industry. I argue for analytical congruence between all three novel (...) concepts, since they aim to alter the behaviour of actors by adding a social cost in response to breaking norms and conventions. Throughout, I argue that we are beginning to understand how cyber deterrence works, both in theory and practice, and when all concepts are taken together, they become more than the sum of their parts. Finally, I point out an omission of the workshop, where computational modelling and simulation could be added to the landscape of strategic cyber deterrence. (shrink)

Why do states persist in using force to enhance their deterrent posture, even though it is not clear that it is effective? This book develops an innovative framework to answer this question, viewing deterrence as an idea. This allows the author to explain how countries institutionalize deterrence strategy, and how this internalization affects policy. He argues that the US and Israel have both internalized deterrence ideas and become attached to these practices. For them, deterrence is not just a means to (...) advance 'physical' security, but it constitutes their very selves as deterring actors. As a result, being unable to deter becomes a threat to their identity, evoking strong emotional responses. In recognizing these dynamics, the book provides a fresh perspective on the US war in Iraq and the Israeli war in Lebanon, both of which can be seen as attempts to repair each country's shaken sense of self. (shrink)

I address a foundational problem with accounts of the morality of war that are derived from the Just War Tradition. Such accounts problematically focus on ‘the moment of crisis’: i.e. when a state is considering a resort to war. This is problematic because sometimes the state considering the resort to war is partly responsible for wrongly creating the conditions in which the resort to war becomes necessary. By ignoring this possibility, JWT effectively ignores, in its moral evaluation of wars, certain (...) types of past wrongdoing. I argue that we can address this problem by incorporating an account of compensatory liability into an account of the morality of war. Doing so yields the view that, if we have culpably failed to compensate victims for past wrongs, we might be morally required to weigh the well-being of those victims more heavily in our calculation of proportionality when determining the permissibility of a defensive act that harms the victim as a side-effect. This, in turn, makes satisfying t. (shrink)

This book advocates for the United States to abolish nuclear weapons, arguing its necessity in terms of the harmful consequences of nuclear deterrence. Kultgen's argument is based on conceptions of human rights and is couched in terms accessible to the disciplines that address human affairs in the social sciences, history, arts, and humanities.

This chapter addresses the morality of two types of national security electronic surveillance (SIGINT) programs: the analysis of communication “metadata” and dragnet searches for keywords in electronic communication. The chapter develops a standard for assessing coercive government action based on respect for the autonomy of inhabitants of liberal states and argues that both types of SIGINT can potentially meet this standard. That said, the collection of metadata creates opportunities for abuse of power, and so judgments about the trustworthiness and competence (...) of the government engaging in the collection must be made in order to decide whether metadata collection is justified in a particular state. Further, the moral standard proposed has a reflexive element justifying adversary states’ intelligence collection against one another. Therefore, high-tech forms of SIGINT can only be justified at the cost of justifying cruder versions of signals intelligence collection practiced by a state’s less-advanced adversaries. (shrink)

This paper analyzes the criminalization and medicalization of homosexuality during the early twentieth century in Canada. Through court records and medical texts the discourse of homosexuality as a threat to the family unit and to the nation is contextualized within Cold War rhetoric. A Foucaultian conceptualization of power and discipline helps frame questions regarding homosexuality as a criminal offense and as a mental illness. It is argued that both state control and societal pressures constructed the homosexual as criminal, the homosexual (...) as mental patient and, as a result, the homosexual as Communist threat. (shrink)

In order to address whether states can ever have the proper authority to militarily punish other international agents, I examine three attempts to justify punitive warfare from Augustine, Grotius and Locke for their relevance to both our contemporary international legal and political order and our contemporary security threats from sporadic terrorist or militant violence. Once a plausible model for a state’s valid authority to punish international agents is found, I will consider what punitive aims it can support and what challenges (...) such punitive warfare would have in satisfying the remaining jus ad bellum conditions. (shrink)

This paper surveys the most important recent debates within the ethics of war. Sections 2 and 3 examine the principles governing the resort to war (jus ad bellum) and the principles governing conduct in war (jus in bello). In Section 4, we turn to the moral guidelines governing the ending and aftermath of war (jus post bellum). Finally, in Section 5 we look at recent debates on whether the jus ad bellum and the jus in bello can be evaluated independently (...) of each other. (shrink)

Journalistic representations of a suicide pact in 1957 encapsulated wider popular assumptions on, and anxieties over, nuclear technology. Through an exploration of British nuclear culture in the late 1950s, this article suggests that knowledge of nuclear danger disrupted broader conceptions of self, nationhood and existence in British life. Building on Hecht's use of the term ‘nuclearity’, the article offers an alternative definition of the term whereby nuclearity is understood to mean the collection of assumptions held by individual citizens on the (...) dangers of nuclear technology: assumptions that were rooted firmly in context and which circulated in, and were shaped by, national discourse. The article will argue that nuclearity was an active component in the formation of British identity by the late 1950s. The article is intended as a starting point for extended reflections on the ways in which nuclearity can add to our understanding of individual experience, nuclear anxiety and Cold War culture in post-war Britain. (shrink)

In the extended introduction to this special issue on British nuclear culture, the guest editors outline the main historiographical and conceptual contours of British nuclear scholarship, and explore whether we can begin to define ‘British nuclear culture’ before introducing the contributors to this special issue, whose work we have organized into three broad areas. The first part is devoted to three articles that offer explicit and extended attempts to reconceptualize British nuclear culture, illuminating the complex links between nuclear science, the (...) state and the individual citizen. The second part of this issue is devoted to three articles that concentrate on aspects of the history of nuclear science – focusing particularly on intellectuals, nuclear scientists and enthusiasts – alongside analysis of the popularization of nuclear science as well as the relationship between the state and nuclear science and its practitioners. In the third part, four articles examine the diverse ways in which ‘official’ narratives of the atomic age can be questioned, disrupted or enhanced by analysing the significance of journalistic, anti-nuclear and fictional narratives to the development of nuclear culture in Britain. (shrink)

This article explores British ‘nuclear culture’ by examining how individuals and groups within British government tried to comprehend nuclear weapons after the advent of the hydrogen bomb in 1952. It argues that thinking about nuclear weaponry was not uniform, and there was no monolithic ‘nuclear culture’ in government. Instead, political and social habits interacted with Cold War experience to create views of the nuclear weapon – nuclear cultures – that varied across government to create a diverse, and shifting, set of (...) ideas – nuclear cultures – about what the nuclear weapon meant in British hands, and the role it played in providing military power and political influence. (shrink)

Since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, tens of thousands of nuclear weapons manufactured by governments around the world. None have been used so far, and the absence of nuclear war among armed nations is a mystery. Caplow considers this and other questions in his study of nuclear weaponry.

Bicchieri (The grammar of society: The nature and dynamics of norms, 2006, xi) presents a formal analysis of norms that answers the questions of "when, how, and to what degree" norms affect human behavior in the play of games. The purpose of this paper is to apply a variation of the Bicchieri norms analysis to generate a model of norms-based play of the traditional deterrence game (Zagare and Kilgour, Int Stud Q 37: 1-27, 1993; Morrow, Game theory for political scientists, (...) 1994), the paradigmatic model of conflict initiation in International Relations. The deterrence game is modeled here as a sequential decision problem. As such, our analysis is an adaptation of Bicchieri's game-theoretic formalization of norms to what we will call the norms account of the game. We find that the standard account of the traditional deterrence game is a special case of the norms account of the game. We also show that the adaptation of Bicchieri's analysis of social norms yields new and interesting claims regarding when, how, and to what degree norms operate as a constraint on risk-related behavior in the traditional deterrence game. Moreover, we discuss how the results of the model provide testable propositions of relevance to the role of norms in international interactions. (shrink)

Recent indictments of sitting heads of state and rebel leaders engaged in ongoing conflicts are radically altering our conception of international criminal justice. But contrary to the mantra that justice delayed is justice denied, the most promising way to promote justice may be to postpone it.

STS research has devoted relatively little attention to the promotion and reception of science and technology by non-scientific actors and institutions. One consequence is that the relationship of science and technology to political power has tended to remain undertheorized. This article aims to fill that gap by introducing the concept of sociotechnical imaginaries. Through a comparative examination of the development and regulation of nuclear power in the US and South Korea, the article demonstrates the analytic potential of the imaginaries concept. (...) Although nuclear power and nationhood have long been imagined together in both countries, the nature of those imaginations has remained strikingly different. In the US, the state’s central move was to present itself as a responsible regulator of a potentially runaway technology that demands effective containment. In South Korea, the dominant imaginary was of atoms for development which the state not only imported but incorporated into its scientific, technological and political practices. In turn, these disparate imaginaries have underwritten very different responses to a variety of nuclear shocks and challenges, such as Three Mile Island (TMI), Chernobyl, and the spread of the anti-nuclear movement. (shrink)

This paper will address the moral implications of non-coercive interrogations in intelligence contexts. U.S. Army and CIA interrogation manuals define non-coercive interrogation as interrogation which avoids the use of physical pressure, relying instead on oral gambits. These methods, including some that involve deceit and emotional manipulation, would be mostly familiar to viewers of TV police dramas. As I see it, there are two questions that need be answered relevant to this subject. First, under what circumstances, if any, may a state (...) agent use deception or manipulation in the course of his or her duties? Second, if there are classes of persons who, by their activities, lose a legitimate expectation for honest-dealing, how are state agents to proceed when the identity of such persons is unclear? (shrink)

In my 'A Deterrence Theory of Punishment', I argued that a deterrence system of punishment can avoid the charge that it illegitimately uses offenders if its punishments are carried out 'quasiautomatically': threats are issued by a legislature for deterrent purposes, but those who carry out the punishments have no authority to take deterrent considerations into account. Sprague has objected that under such a system, those who carry out punishments will be unable to justify their actions. I reply that if it (...) is justifiable to set up the system in this way in the first place, then this justification will transmit to all actions carried out under it; and that it is justifiable to set up an institution of punishment in this way. (shrink)

John Canaday, The Nuclear Muse: Literature, Physics, and the First Atomic Bombs. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2000. Pp. xviii+310. ISBN 0-299-16854-9. £19.50.Septimus H. Paul, Nuclear Rivals: Anglo-American Atomic Relations 1941–1952. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000. Pp. ix+266. ISBN 0-8142-0852-5. £31.95.Peter Bacon Hales, Atomic Spaces: Living on the Manhattan Project. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1997. Pp. 448. ISBN 0-252-02296-3. £22.00.A decade after the end of the Cold War, the culture and technology of nuclear weapons had lost (...) much of the overt sense of dread they once inspired. The decline in international tension following the end of the communist regimes of the Soviet bloc produced a massive shift in the ideology of the nuclear in the 1990s. The de-targeting and dismantling of large numbers of nuclear weapons and the demise of the threat of nuclear annihilation created new conditions both for international security and for the writing of nuclear history. With the declassification and release of large quantities of official documentation from the former adversaries, as well as the fiftieth anniversary of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1995, a burst of histories of various aspects of the nuclear age have appeared over the last ten years, exploring not just the technopolitics, strategy and operational logistics of the Cold War and the arms race, but the cultural history of the nuclear age, its imagery, its architecture, its oppositional politics and its effects on the landscape, national and regional economies and cultures and indeed everyday life. At a time of global economic and political uncertainty and the emergent threat of capricious international terrorism and new nuclear proliferation, the apparent certainties of the Cold War now even evoke a certain nostalgia, and its artefacts and structures are being recast as ‘heritage’. (shrink)

Anthony Ellis argues that institutional punishment occurs automatically in a way analogous to mechanical deterrents, and given that issuing real threats is justified for self-defence, institutional punishment, intended to protect society via deterrence, can be justified without violating the Kantian constraint against using persons as means only. But institutional punishments are not in fact executed automatically: they must be carried out by moral agents. Ellis fails to provide a basis for those agents to justify the performance of their legal duties.