Search

"The Life-Death Instinct: Feeling through Creative-Clinical Moments" by Neil Maizels is a book that explores the concept of the life and death instincts and their equal importance. The author argues that a balance between these instincts is necessary for a sense of balance and nourishment. The book covers various topics such as the relationship between sleep and death, the intertwining of life and death in daily functions, and the paradoxical nature of the death instinct. The author also discusses the role of the therapist as a mediator and the need to tap into the death instinct for regrowth and rebirth. While the book has some errors and lacks a clear structure, it provides valuable insights into the complexities of the life and death instincts and their impact on human behavior. The text consists of a series of letters between two individuals, Helena and Maaike, who engage in a respectful and thoughtful dialogue about the book's content, discussing topics such as the role of intelligence in therapy, the concept of disidentification, and the importance of staying lively and creative. [Extracted from the article]

Julie McDowall's book "Attack Warning Red! How Britain Prepared for Nuclear War" delves into the preparations and societal impact of a potential nuclear war in Great Britain. McDowall extensively explores archival sources to analyze various aspects of nuclear defense, including evacuation plans, government communications, and the role of organizations like the Royal Observer Corps. The book provides a detailed account of how British society grappled with the looming threat of nuclear conflict during the Cold War era, offering valuable insights for researchers interested in this historical period. [Extracted from the article]

"AI and the Bomb: Nuclear Strategy and Risk in the Digital Age" by James Johnson explores the potential dangers of military artificial intelligence (AI) in the context of nuclear weapons. The book highlights six reasons to fear the use of AI in military settings. These include the possibility of diagnostic errors, time pressure on decision-making, increased uncertainty about other states' capabilities, exacerbation of the security dilemma, new disinformation opportunities, and the risk of catalytic war. The author suggests that better cyber-defenses, dialogue, and human oversight over key systems can help mitigate these risks, but acknowledges the challenges in achieving these goals. The book emphasizes the importance of understanding and addressing the potential risks associated with AI in the context of nuclear weapons. [Extracted from the article]

"Striking Asymmetries: Nuclear Transitions in Southern Asia" by Ashley J. Tellis delves into the complex nuclear dynamics in South Asia, focusing on India, China, and Pakistan. The book analyzes the strategic motivations behind the development and modernization of nuclear weapons in the region, highlighting the differing approaches of the three countries. Tellis emphasizes the role of nuclear weapons as political instruments and suggests that strategic stability in the region is more robust than the expanding arsenals would suggest. The book offers valuable insights for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers interested in nuclear geopolitics in Southern Asia." [Extracted from the article]

"Road to Surrender: Three Men and the Countdown to the End of World War II" by Evan Thomas is a book that explores the American decision to use the nuclear bomb and Japan's decision to surrender in World War II. The author had access to the diaries of three key figures involved in these events: United States Secretary of War Henry Stimson, General Carl Spaatz, and Japanese Foreign Minister Shigenori Togo. The book presents a conventional view that the atomic bombs saved lives by averting a greater catastrophe and argues that the bomb was necessary to overcome Japanese intransigence and avoid a protracted conventional invasion. The author also raises questions about the long-term consequences of deficit spending and the management of nuclear weapons. [Extracted from the article]

As Alex Wellerstein says, by the mid-1960s the secrecy regime "had become so embedded in the fabric of American bureaucracy, and the American security mindset, that it is difficult to imagine anything different at this point" (p. 287). Having worked with classified information on and off for most of my adult life and spent more than a decade chairing the Historical Review Panel (HRP) of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), I am painfully familiar with the classification and declassification system. For me, therefore, it was eye-opening to read Wellerstein's deeply researched and thoughtful account of the evolution of the classification of information related to nuclear weapons, labeled Restricted Data (RD), as in the title of the book. [Extracted from the article]

To a degree perhaps unseen since the "golden age" of nuclear strategising in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Kroenig maintains - bravely, it must be said - that all nuclear wars are not the same, and that the United States could meaningfully survive a general nuclear exchange with any of its rivals, including Russia. The logic of American nuclear strategy: Why strategic superiority matters: by Matthew Kroenig, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2018, 280 pp., £23.49, (HB), ISBN 9780190849184 Matthew Kroenig's I The Logic of American Nuclear Strategy i endeavours to demonstrate that the United States derives substantial advantages from deploying a large, war-winning nuclear arsenal. [Extracted from the article]

At the nuclear level, although Pakistan has introduced tactical nuclear weapons since the 2010s with the goal of achieving full-fledged deterrence against India, the prevailing position in Pakistan has always been that nuclear war is impossible even in a limited form. According to media reports, the Indian side threatened to launch missiles against Pakistan, while Pakistan took a stance to prepare resisting India's threats. India and Pakistan have been at odds with each other since their founding in 1947. [Extracted from the article]

A scarifying, play-by-play exercise in gaming an apocalyptic war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The CounterText Review: Mapping a Post-Literary Geography - Orford Ness, Non-Human Agency, and More-Than-Human Writing The most recent addition to the literary landscape of Orford Ness is a collaboration between writer Robert Macfarlane and artist Stanley Donwood entitled I Ness i (2019), which explores these questions through a dialogue between word and image in a novella-length volume. I Ness i radically breaks the boundaries of form when it demands to be engaged with through the performance of Macfarlane's sensory words as well as the perusal of Donwood's haunting landscapes, weaving various genres together and creating a text as dynamic as the geography of the Ness. 7 Macfarlane, Robert (2012), "Robert Macfarlane's Untrue Island: the Voices of Orford Ness", The Guardian, 8 July [last accessed 20 December 2019]. [Extracted from the article]

In Myers' debut novel, a man uncovers a hidden past, the possible existence of aliens, and the threat of nuclear war. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a review of the book "Whole World on Fire: Organizations, Knowledge, and Nuclear Weapons Devastation," by Lynn Eden.

Features various symbolism accorded to the `Doomsday Clock,' the symbol of the nuclear age, featured in the periodical `The Bulletin.' Using the clock as a metaphor for the general madness of the Nuclear Age; Clock as the creation of Chicago, Illinois-based artist Martyl Langsdorf; Implications of the Soviet atomic explosion in 1953; Soviets' building nuclear weapons at a rapid pace in the 1960s.

Reviews the book "Nuclear Strategy and National Style," by Colin Gray.

Reviews the book "Loyalties," by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.

Reviews the book "The Fate of the Earth," by Jonathan Schell.

Reviews the book "The Fate of the Earth," by Jonathan Schell.

Moody, Simon J., Imagining Nuclear War in the British Army, 1945-1989, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2020; vi + 237 pp.; £65.00 hbk; ISBN 9780198846994 In his first monograph, I Imagining Nuclear War in the British Army, 1945-1989 i , Simon Moody explores how the British Army conceptualized and prepared for nuclear war in the second half of the twentieth century. I Imagining Nuclear War in the British Army i offers a thorough and ambitious evaluation of the British Army's mission to conceptualize and prepare for a war often deemed to be "devoid of any military or political utility" (p. v). In Chapters 1 and 2, Moody explores British military thinking about tactical nuclear weapons and their significance in NATO strategy. [Extracted from the article]

The article reviews the books "On Thermonuclear War," by Herman Kahn and "Arms Control."

Chapter One considers definitions of war, particularly the Clausewitzian notion of war ([1] [1832]), to explore and connect concepts of "old" wars to "new" wars. In Chapter Four, the coverage of war violence pertaining to genocide, one of the "worst crimes conceivable under the rubric of war" (p. 61), is examined. The authors critique criminology's focus on specific wars and conflicts and neglect of others, for example, wars in the Global South. [Extracted from the article]