Chapter 8 explores how the atomic dimension of the Cold War reshaped global politics and international law. The Cuban Missile Crisis serves as a focal point, illustrating the juridical patterning of the Amero-Soviet Cold War and the integration of nuclear weapons into geopolitical strategies. The chapter traces the evolution of anti-nuclear movements, from initial peace initiatives to the emergence of non-proliferation policies. It examines how the threat of nuclear annihilation created a new global consciousness, transcending traditional notions of sovereignty and national interests. The development of satellite surveillance systems is highlighted as a key factor in producing new forms of ‘planetary’ knowledge, contributing to advancements in earth sciences and environmental awareness. The chapter also discusses the paradoxical split between ‘peaceful’ and ‘aggressive’ uses of nuclear technology, as exemplified by the Non-Proliferation Treaty and the International Atomic Energy Agency. Ultimately, the atomic dimension of the Cold War is shown to have globalised the conflict, creating a "global civil war" that eroded distinctions between combatants and civilians. This new reality challenged existing legal frameworks and fostered the emergence of new global subjects, knowledge systems, and technologies that would shape the post–Cold War world.

The British Army evolved from being a large citizen army reliant on conscripts to being a small, all-professional army consisting of volunteers. This was accompanied by its transition from being a force primarily composed of young, unmarried men to one mainly comprising married soldiers. As the Army shrank and the nature and dynamics of Army life evolved, a growing gulf emerged (or re-emerged) between civilian society and Britain’s small professional Army. British society underwent a cultural and religious transformation. In the early 1950s, it was governed by conservative Christian values and norms, and the great majority of Britons identified as Christian. By the early 2020s, this was no longer true, and the salient characteristics of British ‘Christendom’ had largely disappeared. While Britain became an increasingly secular and multi-religious society from the 1960s, the legacy of two world wars and the threat of nuclear Armageddon propelled mainstream Christian opinion towards a position of ‘functional pacifism’. This chapter highlights the implications of these developments for religion in the Army and considers the sources on which a study of this kind can be based.

The institutional terrain in which chaplains operated shifted in moral terms. Until the twenty-first century, the Army was overwhelmingly white, male, heterosexual, Christian and resistant to change. The RAChD did little to challenge that status quo or to combat the racism, sexism and homophobia that arose from it. If, with the same complaisance, it went on to adhere to an externally driven equality and diversity agenda, it had a lot more to say about the ethics of war. Significantly, its Journal aired debates over nuclear weapons and issues of war and peace with surprising freedom. Evidently, killing still raised strong ethical concerns in a professional culture informed by Christian morality and by the just war tradition, with its problematics exacerbated by a growing tangle of legal expectations and constraints. Despite imputations to the contrary, and especially in the complex and controversial counter-insurgency campaigns of the later twentieth century, there is scant evidence to justify the suspicion that unit chaplains, as military pastors, were simply predisposed to connive in the misconduct of soldiers and some clear indications that their influence was one of restraint.

This chapter explores the different forms strategy can take in practice. This involves, in the first instance, looking at offence, defence, deterrence, compellence, offence, and the miscellaneous uses of force. From this conceptual basis, the chapter ends with an examination of strategy in the contemporary setting. This includes a synopsis of the current state of the strategic landscape, identifying the most important trends and challenges extant in strategy. The four areas covered are the Ukraine War, technology (cyber power and unmanned systems/AI), nuclear weapons and strategic ethics.

In 1957 the Europeans created the European Economic Community, which is the basis for today’s European Union. Despite its name, this Community has not been able to promote communitarianism in the sense used in this book, namely a policy seeking to bolster the group. Creating a European organisation based on community capitalism has involved grappling with complex questions: who is a partner and who is a foe? Should Europeans companies be favoured or not? Should Europeans be capable of defending themselves independently, or through the US alliance? This chapter will show first that during the Cold War (1947–1991) defence and diplomacy were largely coordinated on a North Atlantic scale through NATO, despite numerous attempts to create a ‘European power’ (including with a nuclear arsenal). Second, some form of European protectionism nevertheless thrived in specific areas, such as agriculture and aeronautics, but surprisingly not in energy. Third, the ubiquity of national industrial policies led European institutions to counterbalance these policies through free-market rules rather than the creation of Europe-wide industrial policy.

The introduction opens the book, it offers its argument in short, situates the work in the existing scholarship, and offers a chapter-by-chapter overview of the book.

This chapter introduces the theoretical framework of the book. It begins by engaging with long-standing critiques of nuclear sharing as an undemocratic practice, highlighting how such critiques have evolved over time. The chapter then draws on Peter Mair’s conceptual distinction between responsiveness and responsibility as dual modes of democratic control. Nuclear sharing is presented as a paradigmatic technocratic policy, wherein its perceived democratic deficit is not a flaw but a defining feature. Building on this, the chapter develops the theory of technocratic responsiveness, illustrating how technocrats are influenced by a range of societal stakeholders – including voters, political parties, and civil society actors – and how they remain accountable not only to domestic publics but also to foreign allies within the nuclear-sharing framework.

This chapter examines the positions of European political parties on nuclear sharing across the five NATO host nations. It begins by outlining the theoretical and conceptual foundations for why political parties are important actors in shaping foreign and security policy. The chapter then compares the stances of far-left, centre-left, centre-right, and far-right parties using party manifesto data from the Comparative Manifesto Project’s Manifesto Corpus. In the second half, it analyses parliamentary activity in four of the five countries (excluding Turkey, where no such activity exists), focusing on voting patterns related to motions critical of nuclear sharing. This analysis draws on novel data covering all parliamentary votes on nuclear weapons in the selected countries.

The conclusion offers a broader look into the role of emotions in alliances and the similarities and differences between Sino-North Korean friendship and other Cold War alliances. It shows how the idea of Sino-North Korean friendship limited emotional freedom in China and North Korea.

Instead of ushering in an era of enduring peace and partnership, the end of the Cold War was followed by a decade of turmoil, with wars in the Persian Gulf, the Balkans, and Chechnya, political violence in Moscow, and controversy over the eastward expansion of NATO. The disappointments and turbulence stemmed in part from the personalities and political choices of top leaders, including the erratic and increasingly autocratic Boris Yeltsin, the skeptical and stingy responses of George H. W. Bush to the reform and collapse of the Soviet Union, and the way Bill Clinton unreservedly embraced Yeltsin while also antagonizing him by deciding to enlarge NATO and wage war against Serbia. As this chapter shows, though, American–Russian relations in the 1990s were also roiled by widely shared popular attitudes, including American triumphalist mythology about how the Cold War ended, unrealistic Russian expectations of massive US aid and respect despite Russian corruption, mismanagement, and weakness. The bright promise of the end of the Cold War was marred both by arrogant American unilateralism and by a Russian slide into depression and authoritarianism.

During the era of détente, Soviet and US leaders pursued common interests in controlling the spread of nuclear weapons, limiting the cost of the arms race, and expanding trade. Summit meetings brought agreements on nuclear non-proliferation, arms limitation, and space exploration. Yet, after a high point of friendly negotiation in the early 1970s, friction and competition overshadowed cooperation. While the unraveling of détente has often been blamed on Soviet adventurism in the “Third World,” this chapter presents a more balanced explanation. It notes that the United States too intervened around the world, argues that geopolitical competition was not the sole cause of tension, and highlights how domestic political dynamics disrupted relations between the superpowers. After the divisive and destructive US war in Vietnam, many Americans yearned to recover faith in their moral superiority. Denunciations of Soviet human rights violations, including restrictions on Jewish emigration and repression of dissidents, contributed to a revival of confidence in American virtues while irritating Soviet leaders. Long before the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, acrimony eclipsed partnership.

This chapter dissects the challenges posed by weapons of mass destruction. It starts by exploring the weapon that changed the fundamentals of security and warfare – the atomic bomb with a brief look at how nuclear weapons work. Then it examines three cases focused on nuclear weapons: nuclear weapons in the Cold War, nuclear-weapon states in the twenty-first century, and non-state actors and the nuclear dilemma. The chapter rounds out with a look at the role chemical and biological weapons play in the contemporary world, offering some concluding thoughts on weapons of mass destruction and contemporary international security.