Topic Explorer

The Topic Explorer uses the same search and topic filters for all of the different resources on this site. It is meant to allow easy cross-examination of different issues.

Topics

1940s (29) 1950s (32) 1960s (43) 1970s (21) 1980s (17) 1990s (8) 2000s (5) 2010s (24) Bush, George W. (1) Carter, James (6) Chain of command (15) Civilian-military divide (22) Clinton, William J. (2) Congress (21) Congressional Research Service (4) Constitutionality (6) Custody (22) Cybersecurity (3) Directives (6) Doctrine (20) Early warning systems (17) Eisenhower, Dwight D. (20) Ford, Gerald R. (2) France (12) India (11) Israel (7) Johnson, Lyndon B. (11) Kennedy, John F. (24) Law of war (9) Missiles (6) NATO (21) News Media (18) Nixon, Richard M. (11) Non-Use (8) North Korea (10) Nuclear accidents (17) Nuclear football (17) Nuclear launch procedure (32) Nuclear safety (34) Nuclear war plans (31) Obama, Barack (8) Oral history (1) Overseas deployment (19) Pakistan (17) People's Republic of China (15) Permissive Action Links (23) Predelegation (17) Presidential nuclear control (57) RAND Corporation (4) Reagan, Ronald (8) Remedies (5) Russian Federation (16) South Africa (1) Soviet Union (23) Succession (3) Truman, Harry S. (21) Trump, Donald J. (18) Two-man rule (9) United Kingdom (19) United States of America (126) US Air Force (21) US Atomic Energy Commission (15) US Department of Defense (28) US Department of Energy (5) US Joint Chiefs of Staff (17) US National Security Council (7) US Secretary of Defense (11) US Strategic Air Command (15) US Strategic Command (15) World War II (8)

Primers

Presidential unilateral nuclear use authority under Truman: In the United States, the authority to use nuclear weapons is vested in the President of the United States.
Nuclear launch process: The nuclear launch process of the United States is a topic of high interest and importance but is also subject to considerable misunderstanding.

Documents

Date ▼	Title	File
2017-11-18	Halifax International Security Forum Transcript	PDF
2017-11-14	DOD Instruction 5210.42: DOD Nuclear Weapons Personnel Reliability Assurance	PDF
2017-11-14	Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on Nuclear Weapons Authority	PDF
2016-12	DOD Law of War Manual, June 2015 (updated December 2016)	PDF
2016-09-22	The Nuclear Necessity Principle	PDF
2015-05-19	USAF, Annex 3-72 Nuclear Operations	PDF
2014-10-02	USAF, Air Force Instruction 13-550 ("Air Force Nuclear Command, Control, and Communications")	PDF
2013-04-23	USAF, Air Force Instruction 91-104 (Two-Person Concept)	PDF
2010-04-08	New START	PDF
2010-04-06	2010 Nuclear Posture Review	PDF
1996-02-12	USJCS, "Nuclear Supplement to Joint Strategic Capabilities Plan For FY 1996"	PDF
1995-06-20	Written Statement of the Government of the United States (on the legality of nuclear weapons)	PDF
1987-08-21	National Security Decision Directive 281	PDF
1985-01	The Command and Control of Nuclear War	PDF
1978-02	OASOD, "History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons, July 1945 through September 1977"	PDF
1975-12-01	CRS, "Authority to order the use of nuclear weapons"	PDF
1975-06	IDA, "The Evolution of U.S. Strategic Command and Control and Warning, 1945-1972"	PDF
1975	NSA, Categories of DOE designed PAL systems	PDF
1969-08-26	DOD, WSEG Report 148 - Strategic Offensive Weapons Employment in the Time Period About 1975	PDF
1968-06	DOD, Strategic Offensive Weapons Employment in the Presence of Defenses (WEPS)	PDF
1964-12-01	DDRS, Briefing to the Gilpatric Committee by William J. Howard	PDF
1964-07-22	DDRS, Letter to McGeorge Bundy from the Deputy Secretary of Defense regarding the modified installation of permissive action link (PAL) devices on various weapons systems.	PDF
1963-08-31	DDRS, Comments on Department of Defense Draft Memorandum: Strategic Striking Forces	PDF
1963-08-10	NSA, Permissive Link for Minuteman	PDF
1963-05-29	NSA, Secret Memorandum from Jerome Bert Wiesner, Science Adviser to President Kennedy	PDF
1963-03-22	NSA, Assignment of Highest National Priority to Project PAL (Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO)	PDF
1962-06-2	NSA, Permissive Links for Nuclear Weapons in NATO Memorandum No. 160	PDF
1961-07-16	Atomic Stockpiles Memorandum	PDF
1961-01-25	DDRS, Memorandum for the record by Brigadier Gen. A.J. Goodpaster outlines his meeting with President-elect Kennedy to inform Kennedy of procedures to be used in the event of a national emergency.	PDF
1958-10-15	Ikle (RAND), "On the Risk of an Accidental or Unauthorized Nuclear Detonation"	URL

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Bibliographies

Young, Ken. "No Blank Cheque: Anglo-American (Mis)Understandings and the Use of the English Airbases." The Journal of Military History 71, no. 4 (October 2007): 1133-1167.

Woolf, Amy F. and James D. Werner. The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex: Overview of Department of Energy Sites. CRS Report No. R45306. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2018. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/nuke/R45306.pdf.

Woolf, Amy F. Command and Control of Nuclear Forces. Defense Primer 7-5700. Washington, D.C.: Congressional Research Service, 2016. https://fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/IF10521.pdf.

Woolf, Amy F. "Congress and US Nuclear Weapons: Review and Oversight of Policies and Programs." Nonproliferation Review 14, no. 3 (November 2007): 499-516,

Wellerstein, Alex and Avner Cohen. "If Trump wants to use nuclear weapons, whether it’s ‘legal’ won’t matter." Washington Post, November 22, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2017/11/22/if-trump-wants-to-use-nuclear-weapons-whether-its-legal-wont-matter/?utm_term=.b893af9d38d5.

Wellerstein, Alex. "No one can stop President Trump from using nuclear weapons. That's by design." Washington Post, December 1, 2016. https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/no-one-can-stop-president-trump-from-using-nuclear-weapons-thats-by-design/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.05b5b6a7fe06.

Wellerstein, Alex. "The President and the Bomb." The Nuclear Secrecy Blog. November 18th, 2016. http://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/2016/11/18/the-president-and-the-bomb/.

Twigge, Stephen and Len Scott. Planning Armageddon: Britain, the United States, and the Command of Western Nuclear Forces, 1945-1964. Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000.

Trachtenberg, Marc. A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1953. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Tannenwald, Nina. The Nuclear Taboo: The United States and the Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.

Tannenwald, Nina. "Nuclear Weapons and the Vietnam War." Journal of Strategic Studies 29, no. 4 (August 2006): 675-722,

Stein, Peter and Peter Feaver. Assuring Control of Nuclear Weapons: The Evolution of Permissive Action Links. Cambridge, MA: Center for Science and International Affairs, Harvard University, 1987.

Snyder, Don, Sarah A. Nowak, Mahyar A. Amouzegar, Julie Kim, and Richard Mesic. Sustaining the U.S. Air Force Nuclear Mission. Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2013. https://www.rand.org/pubs/technical_reports/TR1240.html.

Smith, Alice K. A Peril and a Hope: The Scientists' Movement in America: 1945-47. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965.

Slocombe, Walter B. Democratic Civilian Control of Nuclear Weapons. Policy Paper no. 12. Geneva: Geneva Centre for the Democratic Control of Armed Forces (DCAF), 2006. https://www.dcaf.ch/sites/default/files/publications/documents/pp12_democratic_civilian_control_nuclear_weapons.pdf.

Singh, Robert S. "The United States Congress and Nuclear War Powers: Explaining Legislative Nonfeasance." The Journal of Legislative Studies 24, no. 3 (2018): 298-314.

Schlosser, Eric. Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. New York: The Penguin Press, 2013.

Sagan, Scott D. Moving Targets, Nuclear Strategy, and National Security. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1989.

Sagan, Scott D. "SIOP-62: The Nuclear War Plan Briefing to President Kennedy." International Security 12, no. 1 (Summer, 1987): 22-51.

Sagan, Scott D. "Nuclear Alerts and Crisis Management," International Security 9, no. 4 (Spring 1985): 99-139.

Rubel, John H. Doomsday Delayed: USAF Strategic Weapons Doctrine and SIOP-62, 1959-1962. Lanham, Maryland: Hamilton Books, 2008.

Rosenberg, David A. "The Origins of Overkill: Nuclear Weapons and American Strategy, 1945-1960." International Security 7, no. 4 (Spring 1983): 3-71.

Rosenbaum, Ron. "An Unsung Hero of the Nuclear Age: Maj. Harold Hering and the forbidden question that cost him his career." Slate, February 28, 2011. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/the_spectator/2011/02/an_unsung_hero_of_the_nuclear_age.single.html.

Rogoway, Tyler. "Pentagon May Replace Its Doomsday Planes And 'Air Force Two' With One New Type." The Drive. June 24, 2017. http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/11207/pentagon-may-replace-its-doomsday-planes-and-air-force-two-with-one-new-type.

Raven-Hansen, Peter. "Nuclear War Powers." The American Journal of International Law 83, no. 4 (October 1989): 786-795.

Podvig, Pavel. "Risks of Nuclear Command and Control Accidents." In Understanding Nuclear Risks, edited by John Borrie, Tim Caughley, and Wilfred Wan, 53-59. Geneva, Switzerland: United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), 2017. http://www.unidir.org/files/publications/pdfs/understanding-nuclear-weapon-risks-en-676.pdf.

Pearson, David E. The World Wide Military Command and Control System: Evolution and Effectiveness. Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama: Air University Press, 2000.

Pearson, David E. "Strategic Command and Control in the 1990s." Defense Analysis 7, no. 4 (1991): 373—399.

Paul, T.V. The Tradition of Non-Use of Nuclear Weapons. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009.

Paul, Septimus H. Nuclear Rivals: Anglo-American Atomic Relations, 1941-1952. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2000.

Nuño, Frank and Vaughn Standley. "Bolt Out of the Blue: Nuclear Attack Warning in the Era of Information and Cyber Warfare." War on the Rocks. June 14, 2018. https://warontherocks.com/2018/06/bolt-out-of-the-blue-nuclear-attack-warning-in-the-era-of-information-and-cyber-warfare/.

Nolan, Janne E. Guardians of the Arsenal: The Politics of Nuclear Strategy. New York: Basic Books, 1989.

Mecklin, John. "Duke’s Peter Feaver on the president and US nuclear command and control." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. November 30, 2017. https://thebulletin.org/2017/11/dukes-peter-feaver-on-the-president-and-us-nuclear-command-and-control/.

MacDonald, Eryn. "Whose Finger Is on the Button? Nuclear Launch Authority in the United States and Other Nations." Union of Concerned Scientists. October, 2017. https://www.ucsusa.org/sites/default/files/attach/2017/11/Launch-Authority.pdf.

Ludacer, Rob. "Here's how easy it is for the US president to launch a nuclear weapon." Business Insider. November 14, 2018. https://www.businessinsider.com/nuclear-bomb-launch-procedure-us-government-president-2017-11.

Lewis, Patricia, Heather Williams, Benoît Pelopidas and Sasan Aghlani. Too Close for Comfort: Cases of Near Nuclear Use and Options for Policy. London: Chatham House, 2014. https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/field/field_document/20140428TooCloseforComfortNuclearUseLewisWilliamsPelopidasAghlani.pdf.

Lewis, Jeffrey. "Our Nuclear Procedures Are Crazier Than Trump." Foreign Policy. August 5, 2016. https://foreignpolicy.com/2016/08/05/our-nuclear-procedures-are-crazier-than-trump/.

Lamothe, Dan. "If Trump wants a nuclear attack against North Korea, his military advisers have few other options." Washington Post. August 10, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/2017/08/10/if-trump-wants-a-nuclear-attack-against-north-korea-his-military-advisers-have-few-other-options/?utm_term=.924fe6b2f5e5#comments.

Krugler, David F. This Is Only a Test: How Washington D.C. Prepared for Nuclear War. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Kristensen, Hans M. & Robert S. Norris. "A history of US nuclear weapons in South Korea." Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 73, no. 6 (2017): 349-357.

Knipp, Delores J., et al. "The May 1967 Great Storm and Radio Disruption Event: Extreme Space Weather and Extraordinary Responses." Space Weather 14 (2016): 614–633. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/2016SW001423.

Kimball, Jeffrey P. and William Burr. Nixon's Nuclear Specter: The Secret Alert of 1969, Madman Diplomacy, and the Vietnam War. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 2015.

Kaplan, Fred. The Wizards of Armageddon. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1983.

Kaku, Michio and Daniel Axelrod. To Win a Nuclear War: The Pentagon's Secret War Plans. Boston: South End Press, 1999.

Johnson, Tim. "Trump’s finger soon will hover over the nuclear button. Will he be ready?" McClatchy DC. November 25, 2016. https://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-government/white-house/article117054908.html.

Jackson, Michael Gordon. "Beyond Brinkmanship: Eisenhower, Nuclear War Fighting, and Korea, 1953-1968." Presidential Studies Quarterly 35, no. 1 (March 2005): 52-75.

Hosenball, Mark and Phil Stewart. "Pentagon to lease privately owned Trump Tower apartment for nuclear 'football': letter." Reuters. May 5, 2017. https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-pentagon-trumptower/pentagon-to-lease-privately-owned-trump-tower-apartment-for-nuclear-football-letter-idUSKBN1812B5.

Hoffman, David E. The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race and Its Dangerous Legacy. New York: Doubleday, 2009.

Hewlett Richard G., and Francis Duncan. Atomic Shield: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Volume II, 1947-1952. Washington, DC: United States Atomic Energy Commission, 1969.

Hewlett, Richard G. and Oscar E. Anderson. The New World: A History of the United States Atomic Energy Commission, Volume I, 1939–1946. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1962.

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