The Limits of Safety

The Limits of Safety PDF Author: Scott Douglas Sagan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691213062
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
Environmental tragedies such as Chernobyl and the Exxon Valdez remind us that catastrophic accidents are always possible in a world full of hazardous technologies. Yet, the apparently excellent safety record with nuclear weapons has led scholars, policy-makers, and the public alike to believe that nuclear arsenals can serve as a secure deterrent for the foreseeable future. In this provocative book, Scott Sagan challenges such optimism. Sagan's research into formerly classified archives penetrates the veil of safety that has surrounded U.S. nuclear weapons and reveals a hidden history of frightening "close calls" to disaster.

The Limits of Safety

The Limits of Safety PDF Author: Scott Douglas Sagan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0691213062
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book

Book Description
Environmental tragedies such as Chernobyl and the Exxon Valdez remind us that catastrophic accidents are always possible in a world full of hazardous technologies. Yet, the apparently excellent safety record with nuclear weapons has led scholars, policy-makers, and the public alike to believe that nuclear arsenals can serve as a secure deterrent for the foreseeable future. In this provocative book, Scott Sagan challenges such optimism. Sagan's research into formerly classified archives penetrates the veil of safety that has surrounded U.S. nuclear weapons and reveals a hidden history of frightening "close calls" to disaster.

The Fragile Balance of Terror

The Fragile Balance of Terror PDF Author: Vipin Narang
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501767038
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 270

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Book Description
In The Fragile Balance of Terror, the foremost experts on nuclear policy and strategy offer insight into an era rife with more nuclear powers. Some of these new powers suffer domestic instability, others are led by pathological personalist dictators, and many are situated in highly unstable regions of the world—a volatile mix of variables. The increasing fragility of deterrence in the twenty-first century is created by a confluence of forces: military technologies that create vulnerable arsenals, a novel information ecosystem that rapidly transmits both information and misinformation, nuclear rivalries that include three or more nuclear powers, and dictatorial decision making that encourages rash choices. The nuclear threats posed by India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea are thus fraught with danger. The Fragile Balance of Terror, edited by Vipin Narang and Scott D. Sagan, brings together a diverse collection of rigorous and creative scholars who analyze how the nuclear landscape is changing for the worse. Scholars, pundits, and policymakers who think that the spread of nuclear weapons can create stable forms of nuclear deterrence in the future will be forced to think again. Contributors: Giles David Arceneaux, Mark S. Bell, Christopher Clary, Peter D. Feaver, Jeffrey Lewis, Rose McDermott, Nicholas L. Miller, Vipin Narang, Ankit Panda, Scott D. Sagan, Caitlin Talmadge, Heather Williams, Amy Zegart

Normal Accidents

Normal Accidents PDF Author: Charles Perrow
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9781400828494
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 464

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Book Description
Normal Accidents analyzes the social side of technological risk. Charles Perrow argues that the conventional engineering approach to ensuring safety--building in more warnings and safeguards--fails because systems complexity makes failures inevitable. He asserts that typical precautions, by adding to complexity, may help create new categories of accidents. (At Chernobyl, tests of a new safety system helped produce the meltdown and subsequent fire.) By recognizing two dimensions of risk--complex versus linear interactions, and tight versus loose coupling--this book provides a powerful framework for analyzing risks and the organizations that insist we run them. The first edition fulfilled one reviewer's prediction that it "may mark the beginning of accident research." In the new afterword to this edition Perrow reviews the extensive work on the major accidents of the last fifteen years, including Bhopal, Chernobyl, and the Challenger disaster. The new postscript probes what the author considers to be the "quintessential 'Normal Accident'" of our time: the Y2K computer problem.

Nuclear Safety

Nuclear Safety PDF Author: Gianni Petrangeli
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 008046078X
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 448

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Book Description
Nuclear Safety provides the methods and data needed to evaluate and manage the safety of nuclear facilities and related processes using risk-based safety analysis, and provides readers with the techniques to assess the consequences of radioactive releases. The book covers relevant international and regional safety criteria (US, IAEA, EUR, PUN, URD, INI). The contents deal with each of the critical components of a nuclear plant, and provide an analysis of the risks arising from a variety of sources, including earthquakes, tornadoes, external impact and human factors. It also deals with the safety of underground nuclear testing and the handling of radioactive waste. Covers all plant components and potential sources of risk including human, technical and natural factors. Brings together information on nuclear safety for which the reader would previously have to consult many different and expensive sources. Provides international design and safety criteria and an overview of regulatory regimes.

Learning from a Disaster

Learning from a Disaster PDF Author: Scott D. Sagan
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804797366
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 232

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Book Description
This book—the culmination of a truly collaborative international and highly interdisciplinary effort—brings together Japanese and American political scientists, nuclear engineers, historians, and physicists to examine the Fukushima accident from a new and broad perspective. It explains the complex interactions between nuclear safety risks (the causes and consequences of accidents) and nuclear security risks (the causes and consequences of sabotage or terrorist attacks), exposing the possible vulnerabilities all countries may have if they fail to learn from this accident. The book further analyzes the lessons of Fukushima in comparative perspective, focusing on the politics of safety and emergency preparedness. It first compares the different policies and procedures adopted by various nuclear facilities in Japan and then discusses the lessons learned—and not learned—after major nuclear accidents and incidents in other countries in the past. The book's editors conclude that learning lessons across nations has proven to be very difficult, and they propose new policies to improve global learning after nuclear accidents or attacks.

Nuclear Reactions

Nuclear Reactions PDF Author: Mark S. Bell
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 1501754173
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Nuclear Reactions analyzes how nuclear weapons change the calculations states make in their foreign policies, why they do so, and why nuclear weapons have such different effects on the foreign policies of different countries. Mark S. Bell argues that nuclear weapons are useful for more than deterrence. They are leveraged to pursue a wide range of goals in international politics, and the nations that acquire them significantly change their foreign policies as a result. Closely examining how these effects vary and what those variations have meant in the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Africa, Bell shows that countries are not generically "emboldened"—they change their foreign policies in different ways based on their priorities. This has huge policy implications: What would Iran do if it were to acquire nuclear weapons? Would Japanese policy toward the United States change if Japan were to obtain nuclear weapons? And what does the looming threat of nuclear weapons mean for the future of foreign policy? Far from being a relic of the Cold War, Bell argues, nuclear weapons are as important in international politics today as they ever were. Thanks to generous funding from the University of Minnesota and its participation in TOME, the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes, available from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.

Moving Targets

Moving Targets PDF Author: Scott Douglas Sagan
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 9780691023267
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Shows how targeting decisions have reflected the judgments of various American administrations on what will and won't deter a nuclear attack.

Inside Nuclear South Asia

Inside Nuclear South Asia PDF Author: Scott D. Sagan
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 080477241X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
Nuclear-armed adversaries India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their creation as sovereign states in 1947. They went to the brink of a fourth in 2001 following an attack on the Indian parliament, which the Indian government blamed on the Pakistan-backed Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist organizations. Despite some attempts at rapprochement in the intervening years, a new standoff between the two countries was precipitated when India accused Lashkar-e-Taiba of being behind the Mumbai attacks late last year. The relentlessness of the confrontations between these two nations makes Inside Nuclear South Asia a must read for anyone wishing to gain a thorough understanding of the spread of nuclear weapons in South Asia and the potential consequences of nuclear proliferation on the subcontinent. The book begins with an analysis of the factors that led to India's decision to cross the nuclear threshold in 1998, with Pakistan close behind: factors such as the broad political support for a nuclear weapons program within India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the intense rivalry between the two countries, the normative and prestige factors that influenced their behaviors, and ultimately the perceived threat to their respective national security. The second half of the book analyzes the consequences of nuclear proliferation on the subcontinent. These chapters show that the presence of nuclear weapons in South Asia has increased the frequency and propensity of low-level violence, further destabilizing the region. Additionally, nuclear weapons in India and Pakistan have led to serious political changes that also challenge the ability of the two states to produce stable nuclear détente. Thus, this book provides both new insights into the domestic politics behind specific nuclear policy choices in South Asia, a critique of narrow realist views of nuclear proliferation, and the dangers of nuclear proliferation in South Asia.

The Limits of Expertise

The Limits of Expertise PDF Author: Dr Loukia D Loukopoulos
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 140948498X
Category : Transportation
Languages : en
Pages : 413

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Book Description
The Limits of Expertise reports a study of the 19 major U.S. airline accidents from 1991-2000 in which the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found crew error to be a causal factor. Each accident is reported in a separate chapter that examines events and crew actions and explores the cognitive processes in play at each step.

Space Safety and Human Performance

Space Safety and Human Performance PDF Author: Barbara G. Kanki
Publisher: Butterworth-Heinemann
ISBN: 0081018703
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 944

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Book Description
Space Safety and Human Performance provides a comprehensive reference for engineers and technical managers within aerospace and high technology companies, space agencies, operators, and consulting firms. The book draws upon the expertise of the world’s leading experts in the field and focuses primarily on humans in spaceflight, but also covers operators of control centers on the ground and behavior aspects of complex organizations, thus addressing the entire spectrum of space actors. During spaceflight, human performance can be deeply affected by physical, psychological and psychosocial stressors. Strict selection, intensive training and adequate operational rules are used to fight performance degradation and prepare individuals and teams to effectively manage systems failures and challenging emergencies. The book is endorsed by the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS). Provides information on critical aspects of human performance in space missions Addresses the issue of human performance, from physical and psychosocial stressors that can degrade performance, to selection and training principles and techniques to enhance performance Brings together essential material on: cognition and human error; advanced analysis methods such as human reliability analysis; environmental challenges and human performance in space missions; critical human factors and man/machine interfaces in space systems design; crew selection and training; and organizational behavior and safety culture Includes an endorsement by the International Association for the Advancement of Space Safety (IAASS)