It's time to scrap the NPT

Due to persisting demand-side factors and crumbling supply-side controls, the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will probably be unable to prevent a likely proliferation rate of one or two additional nuclear weapons states per decade into the foreseeable future. Beyond being ineffective, I argue that the NPT will make this proliferation much more dangerous. The NPT is a major cause of opaque proliferation, which is both highly destabilising and makes use of transnational smuggling networks which are much more likely than states to pass nuclear components to terrorists. However, abandoning the NPT in favour of a more realistic regime governing the possession of nuclear weapons would help put transnational nuclear smuggling networks out of business and stabilise the inevitable spread of nuclear weapons.     

The economics of UK nuclear weapons policy

The Trident replacement decision has an economic aspect that cannot be ignored, namely, its costs. This article presents a cost-benefit framework for assessing the replacement decision and its alternatives. The replacement decision is presented against the background of the defence economics problem showing the opportunities for substitution and the need for difficult defence choices in a world of uncertainty. A framework for choices is outlined showing the range and type of information needed for sensible decision-making in this area. A range of conventional force alternatives is estimated as well as alternative civil spending. The impact of the replacement decision on the UK submarine industrial base is assessed, including the challenges of reaching a partnering agreement and negotiating an incentive contract with a UK monopoly supplier. The cost figures used for the Trident replacement are illustrative only and show how the programme can be evaluated.     

Waiting for Kant: devaluing and delegitimizing nuclear weapons

Expectations of significant progress towards a nuclear weapons‐free world continue to shape global nuclear politics. Progress towards nuclear disarmament will require diminishing the value of nuclear weapons to the point where it becomes politically, strategically and socially acceptable for nuclear‐armed states to relinquish permanently their nuclear arsenals. Key to this are the concepts and processes of ‘devaluing’ and ‘delegitimizing’ nuclear weapons that have steadily coalesced in global nuclear discourse since the mid‐1990s. This article builds on current research by developing three images of nuclear disarmament under the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty (NPT): ‘surface’ devaluing, ‘deep’ devaluing, and delegitimizing nuclear weapons. The first represents codification by the nuclear‐weapon states of the transformation of the Cold War environment through reductions in the size and role of nuclear arsenals that leaves the logic of nuclear deterrence and nuclear prestige largely unchanged. Deep devaluing is framed as a reconceptualization of the political, strategic and military logics that underpin nuclear‐weapons policies and practices. Delegitimizing represents a more radical normative project to transform collective meanings assigned to nuclear weapons. The analysis examines conceptions of devaluing nuclear weapons from the perspective of non‐nuclear weapon states and the relationship between devaluing nuclear weapons and the idea of a spectrum of nuclear deterrence. It concludes by highlighting the tension between surface and deep devaluing, the emergence of a delegitimizing agenda, and the political implications for the current NPT review cycle set to culminate in the next quinquennial Review Conference in 2015.     

Relinquishing nuclear weapons: identities,networks and the British bomb

Recent analysis on the prospects for achieving a world free of nuclear weapons has tended to focus on a set of largely realist strategic security considerations. Such considerations will certainly underpin future decisions to relinquish nuclear weapons, but nuclear disarmament processes are likely to involve a more complex mix of actors, issues and interests. The article examines this complexity through a sociological lens using Britain as a case‐study, where relinquishing a nuclear capability has become a realistic option for a variety of strategic, political and economic reasons. The article examines the core ideational and organizational allies of the UK nuclear weapon ‘actor‐network’ by drawing upon social constructivist accounts of the relationship between identity and interest, and historical sociology of technology analysis of Large Technical Systems and the social construction of technology. It divides the UK actor‐network into three areas: the UK policy elite's collective identity that generates a ‘national interest’ in continued deployment of nuclear weapons; defence–industrial actors that support and operationalize these identities; and international nuclear weapons dynamics that reinforce the network. The article concludes by exploring how the interests and identities that constitute and reproduce the ‘actor‐network’ that makes nuclear armament possible might be transformed to make nuclear disarmament possible. The purpose is not to dismiss or supplant the importance of strategic security‐oriented analysis of the challenges of nuclear disarmament but to augment its understanding by dissecting some of the socio‐political complexities of nuclear disarmament processes.     

Humanitarian reframing of nuclear weapons and the logic of a ban

The achievement of past international treaties prohibiting anti‐personnel mines and cluster munitions showed that unpropitious political situations for dealing with the effects of problematic weapons could be transformed into concrete, legally binding actions through humanitarian‐inspired initiatives. Although there is now renewed concern about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons, some policy makers dispute the relevance of these past processes. This article examines how and why cluster munitions became widely reframed as unacceptable weapons, and the nature and significance of functional similarities with contemporary efforts of civil society activists to instigate humanitarian reframing of nuclear weapons and promote the logic of a ban treaty in view of its norm‐setting value among states. In the case of cluster munitions, the weapon in question was signified as unacceptable in moral and humanitarian law terms because of its pattern of harm to civilians with reference to demonstrable evidence of the consequences of use. Ideational reframing was instigated by civil society actors, and introduced doubts into the minds of some policy‐makers about weapons they had previously considered as unproblematic. This is relevant to the current discourse on managing and eliminating nuclear weapons in the Nuclear Non‐Proliferation Treaty, in which there is dissonance between the rhetoric of those states claiming to be responsible humanitarian powers and their continued dependence on nuclear weapons despite questions about the utility or acceptability of these arms.     

The future of United Kingdom nuclear weapons: shaping the debate

Britain has been a nuclear-weapon state since the 1950s, mostly in extensive cooperation with the United States in equipment procurement, though (contrary to the aims of anti-nuclear campaigners) full freedom of operational action has been kept. The current force of four nuclear-powered submarines armed with Trident D.5 missiles is not expected to be dependably sustainable beyond the early or middle 2020s in key respects, and lead times mean that initial decisions on whether and if so how to maintain capability thereafter need to be taken by about 2010. The open debate for which the government has called will have to consider international obligations and likely repercussions, strategic and ethical arguments, options for renewal (including at reduced scale), the amount and incidence of costs, and opportunity costs. The government has not yet published enough information to underpin firm conclusions about continuance other than for 'true believers' either pro or con.     

British nuclear weapons and NATO in the Cold War and beyond

NATO has been a source of influence on British nuclear policy and strategy since the 1950s. The nature and extent of its influence has, however, been kept limited by successive British governments. This article considers how and why this has happened. It discusses evolving British attitudes towards NATO command and planning, and shows how these were reflected with regard to strategic nuclear issues from the late 1950s. The evolution of the key notion that the United Kingdom is a second centre of nuclear decision within NATO is traced, and both its utility and contradictions are examined. Overall it is argued that, both during and since the Cold War, NATO has neither been a central factor in shaping British nuclear strategy and policy, nor have British nuclear weapons been other than of limited importance and relevance for most NATO members.     

宿务太平洋航空:每一个人都可以乘坐飞机

有一个地方,让人魂牵梦绕,她就是菲律宾长滩岛,被誉为世界上最好的海滩之一,这里,热带岛屿惯有的碧海、蓝天、白沙、椰林一样也不少。不怕你玩不到、吃不到,只怕你没有足够的时间来享受。 那么,坐上菲律宾最大的国内航空公司,飞过来玩吧。     

Three visions of the bomb: Australian thinking about nuclear weapons and strategy

This article argues that, over the decades, Australians have held three different, coherent, long-lived ‘visions’ of nuclear weapons and strategy. Those visions—which we have labelled Menzian, Gortonian and disarmer—compete on four grounds: the role that nuclear weapons play in international order; the doctrine of deterrence; the importance of arms control; and the relevance of nuclear weapons to Australia's specific needs. We believe this ‘textured’ framework provides a richer, more satisfying, and more accurate understanding of Australian nuclear identity, both past and present, than previous scholarship has yielded. Moreover, the competition between the three visions might not be at an end. Changes in international norms, in proliferation rates, in regional strategic dynamics, or even in the deterrence doctrines of the major powers could easily reawaken some old, enduring debates. Australian nuclear identity faces an uncertain future.     

Nuclear Iran is Not an Option: A new negotiating strategy to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons

The negotiations between Iran and the P5+1¹ over Tehran's nuclear enrichment activities have not only failed to reach an agreement but have brought Iran much closer to the threshold of mastering the technology to produce nuclear weapons. There are many factors that precipitated this breakdown, including the West's inability to understand and deal with the Iranian psychological disposition, the failure to present to Iran the severity of the punitive measures that could be inflicted as a consequence of their defiance, and the US administration's misleading policy that gave Iran the room to maneuver. There is an urgent need to adopt a distinctively new strategy toward Iran consisting of three tracks of separate but interconnected negotiations: The first should focus on the current negotiations on Iran's enrichment program and the economic incentive package; the second should concentrate on regional security and the consequences of continued Iranian defiance; and the third track should address Iran's and the United States' grievances against each other. The United States must initiate all three tracks without which future talks will be as elusive as the previous negotiations, except this time the West and Israel will be facing the unsettling prospect of a nuclear Iran.     

地方综合年鉴贵在综合

本文结合编纂实践,指出目前地方综合年鉴存在着有用资料大量缺失的问题,并指出其原因主要在于综合不到位。针对这一原因作者提出了五点改进意见:一是强化对年鉴资料综合加工的责任意识,克服任务观点,纠正从组稿到编纂过程中的随意性;二是建立约束管理机制;三是加强队伍培训;四是解决好志鉴统筹运作的问题;五是多举办一些专题研讨活动。     

China's weapons trade: from ships of shame to the ethics of global resistance

China is among the largest exporters of arms to the developing world and is often criticized for exacerbating violent conflicts in Africa. This article examines geopolitical tensions surrounding some of China's most controversial weapons alliances, rethinking the role of the global media, state leaders and non-state actors in forming fragmentary movements of 'resistance'. Focusing on the tensions around a shipment of Chinese arms to Zimbabwe during a period of mid-election repression and violence in 2008, this article is a media content analysis on the debates about diplomacy, arms embargoes, regime violence, protests against the Beijing Olympics, and efforts by China to counter western critics. The article argues that more rigorous diplomatic efforts to block the weapons were required and that the moral and political hazards of unreflexive foreign policy analysis emboldened the Chinese authorities' denial of their responsibilities. Beyond the case of Zimbabwe, we suggest that a deeper and wider understanding of 'geopolitical resistance' against violence is vital.     

出一套边疆译著丛书

自新时期以来,特别是近10年来,在中国社会科学院的组织、指导下,中国边疆研究取得的成就是真正的辉煌,为学界、政界所一致公认。单就基本建设来说,已出了多种资料,为今后学科发展、深入研究打下了坚实的基础。“面向21世纪的中国边疆研究”——主编给出的主题,我想提一个建议：由中国社会科学院组织、领导出一套边疆译丛书。