Nuclear Weapons and Disarmament

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2011:

This subject provides an advanced introduction and critical review of the development and spread of nuclear weapons, the challenges they present, and approaches to their control and to disarmament. This will include a critical examination of strategies for the use of nuclear weapons, measures to reduce their numbers, proliferation and risk of use (including an examination of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty), and whether complete nuclear disarmament is possible and how it might be achieved.

A feature of this subject is that most of the lectures will be delivered by visiting experts including Professor Gareth Evans, Professor Jim Falk, Assoc. Prof. Michael Hamel-Green, Dr. Ron Huisken, Assoc. Prof. Tilman Ruff and Professor Richard Tanter.

• Enabling students to gain thorough knowledge of major aspects of the history of nuclear weapons.
• Strengthening analytical capacity about the complexities of competing nuclear strategies such as deterrence.
• Increasing understanding of the consequences of the existence and potential use of nuclear weapons.
• Reviewing possibilities and requirements for and the potential process of nuclear disarmament.

Written work totalling 5000 words comprising a 1000 word essay (20%) to be submitted in week 4, a 2000 word essay (40%) due in week eight, and a reflective essay on a set topic of 2000 words (40%) to be submitted during the examination period.

Hurdle Requirement: Students are required to attend a minimum of 75% of classes in order to qualify to have their written work assessed. Students who fail to meet this hurdle requirement will be deemed ineligible to submit the final piece of assessment for this subject. Regular participation in class is required.

Assessment submitted late without an approved extension will be penalised at 2% per working day. In-class tasks missed without approval will not be marked. All pieces of written work must be submitted to pass this subject.

Joseph Cirincione, Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons, Columbia UP, New York, 2007.

The Weapons of Mass destruction Commission, final report, Weapons of Terror: Freeing the World of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Arms, (the Blix Report) Stockholm, Sweden, 1 June 2006.

George Perkovich and James M Acton, Abolishing Nuclear Weapons, Adelphi Paper 396, IISS, London, 2008.

SIPRI, SIPRI Yearbook 2008: Armaments, Disarmament and International Security, OUP, Oxford, 2008.

United Nations, The United Nations Disarmament Yearbook, Vol 32 (Part I): 2007, Disarmament Resolutions and Decisions of the Sixty-Second Session of the UN General Assembly.

This subject is not available as a breadth subject.

• Increasing capacity for contemporary historical analysis of international relations.
• Strengthening analytical capacity for national and international political and strategic review.
• Strengthening personal capacity to identify crucial factors influencing issues, analyse them logically and develop persuasive arguments about them.
• Further development of eloquence as a writer.