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Nuclear non-use: constructing a Cold War history

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 November 2010

Abstract

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Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2010

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References

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3 Ibid., p. 1.

4 The official British history of the Falklands War suggests that nuclear use may have ‘appeared in a very early draft of the main options paper, only to be taken out almost immediately’. It concludes that British nuclear use ‘was never taken seriously as a realistic possibility’. Indeed, the government would have preferred to remove the nuclear weapons from its warships before dispatching the maritime Task Force to the Falklands: in the event, this would have caused an unacceptable delay, and instead the nuclear weapons were concentrated in secure storage on the two task force aircraft carriers. SirFreedman, Lawrence, The Official History of the Falklands Campaign, Volume II: War and Diplomacy (Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2005), pp. 5860Google Scholar .

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6 Ibid., pp. 56–7.

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28 Ibid., pp. 64–6.

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55 I am grateful to an anonymous reviewer for this point.

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58 Ibid., pp. 15–6.

59 Jeffrey Lantis, ‘Norm Decline and Proliferation Pessimism’, unpublished Manuscript (July 2009).

60 Rudra Chaudhuri, ‘Recovering Indian Strategic Culture: A Revisionist Account of India-US Strategic Relations 1947–2009’, PhD thesis, King's College London (2009).

61 Other significant works include Legro, Jeffrey W., Cooperation Under Fire: Anglo-German Restraint During World War II (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1995)Google Scholar ; Price, Richard, The Chemical Weapons Taboo (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997)Google Scholar ; Thomas, Ward, The Ethics of Destruction: Norms and Force in International Relations (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2001)Google Scholar ; Finnemore, Martha, The Purpose of Intervention: Changing Beliefs about the Use of Force (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2003)Google Scholar ; Farrell, , The Norms of WarGoogle Scholar .

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63 Such a rethinking is offered in Freedman, Lawrence, Deterrence (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2004)Google Scholar .

64 Transnational social networks and normative power politics similarly operated to de-legitimise and eventually outlaw land mines. See, Price, Richard, ‘Reversing the Gun Sights: Transnational Civil Society Targets Land Mines’, International Organization, 52 (1998), pp. 627631CrossRefGoogle Scholar .