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

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
1948-09-10	NSC-30, "United States Policy on Atomic Warfare"	PDF
1963-08-31	DDRS, Comments on Department of Defense Draft Memorandum: Strategic Striking Forces	PDF
1975-12-01	CRS, "Authority to order the use of nuclear weapons"	PDF
1982-04-21	Soviet Command and Control for Warfighting	PDF
1982-07	A Historical Study of Strategic Connectivity	PDF

Bibliographies

Blair, Bruce G. The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 1993.

Burr, William. Presidential Control of Nuclear Weapons: The "Football." Briefing Book #632. Washington, D.C.: National Security Archive, 2018. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2018-07-09/presidential-control-nuclear-weapons-football.

Burr, William. U.S. Nuclear War Plan Option Sought Destruction of China and Soviet Union as “Viable” Societies. Briefing Book #638. Washington, D.C.: National Security Archive, 2018. https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/nuclear-vault/2018-08-15/us-nuclear-war-plan-option-sought-destruction-china-soviet-union-viable-societies.

Congressional Research Service. Authority to order the use of nuclear weapons (United States, United Kingdom, France, Soviet Union, People's Republic of China). Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 1975. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/003216700/Home.

Curry, Dan. Always/Never: The Quest for Safety, Control & Survivability. Documentary. Sandia National Laboratories, 2010.

Ford, Daniel F. The Button: The Pentagon’s Strategic Command and Control System. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1985.

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

Hoffman, David E. "The Russian Nuclear Button: New questions about the Soviet legacy of three briefcases." Foreign Policy. May 27, 2010. https://foreignpolicy.com/2010/05/27/the-russian-nuclear-button-2/.

Kohn, Richard H. and Joseph P. Harahan. "U.S. Strategic Air Power, 1948-1962: Excerpts from an Interview with Generals Curtis E. LeMay, Leon W. Johnson, David A. Burchinal, and Jack J. Catton." International Security 12, no. 4 (Spring, 1988): 78-95.

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.

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

Podvig, Pavel. "History and the Current Status of the Russian Early-Warning System." Science and Global Security 10 (2002): 21-60. https://cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/publications/history_and_the_current_status_of_the_russian_earlywarning_system.

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.

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

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

Wilson, Edward. "Thank you Vasili Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear war." The Guardian. October 27, 2012. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili-arkhipov-stopped-nuclear-war.

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.