Masters of Commerce / Highly enriched uranium (HEU) is one of the most dangerous materials in the world, because it is a key ingredient in making a nuclear bomb. If a terrorist organisation can get HEU, it would be close to making a nuclear bomb. After South Africa disarmed its nuclear weapons, it kept HEU that was extracted from the nuclear bombs. The US tried to persuade South Africa to blend down its HEU into low enriched uranium (LEU) or give it up for safekeeping. However, South Africa refused to give it up. After a breach at Pelindaba, a national key point facility where South Africa stores its HEU, the US intensified its efforts to pressure South Africa to give its HEU up. It even promised incentives to South Africa should they agree to give it up, but South Africa refused. The US used the nuclear terrorism narrative to justify its initiative to eliminate vulnerable materials in the world. However, South Africa is yet to be swayed. This is odd since South Africa's refusal can negatively affect its credentials as a nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament champion and its image as a norm entrepreneur. The objective of the study was to understand the role played by HEU in South Africa's nuclear diplomacy. It was to explore HEU as a factor in the state's nuclear diplomacy and to understand the power of having HEU in nuclear negotiations, as well as what SA intends to do with its HEU. The study is framed theoretically by drawing on foreign policy theory, namely middle-power theory, and revisionism. It juxtaposed middle power, reformist, and revisionist positions with status quo foreign policy to analyse the role of HEU in South Africa's nuclear diplomacy. As a middle power with a moral high ground, South Africa hoped that it can affect change in the nuclear regime. However, when this did not occur its foreign policy shifted to a revisionist character that is discontent with the status quo in the nuclear regime. SA is dissatisfied with the current nuclear order and wants it revised towards liberal values such as equality and nondiscrimination. It views the current nuclear order as nuclear apartheid.

This thesis is a study of what is said to be at issue in the nuclear weapons debate and constitutes the beginning of an attempt to understand its nature and significance . The technique adopted has been to offer an initial presentation of rival rationales in order to introduce the main concepts and show something of the force of these developed, positions (Vol I pp 7-30) . The two rationales are then related point by point , to give the analytical framework used in the subsequent interviews (pp 31-9) . Each pair of points is expanded and commented upon , and detailed references are given to the books and articles from which the analysis was drawn (pp 40-214) . The next section relates all of this briefly to the main party platforms in Britain , as of June 1987 (pp Zt 1- zt ) Volume II is made up of complete sets of responses to the framework of questions generated in the earlier chapters . The advantages of this method are i that in each case the rationale is laid out verbatim 9 so that premises are explicitly stated and the dependence of subsequent upon prior arguments is clearly seen . This in itself is very rarely done which is why so many proposed policies are so often , and so widely misunderstood . that , because all those consulted have responded to the same set of questions , their alternative sets of answers can be compared with one another point by point . This is the crucial and unique advantage of the approach adopted here . It ensures that what is at issue can be precisely pinpointed. The results as recorded here are in themselves striking and illuminating More important still they open the door to detailed future investigation of a kind which can be done in no other way.

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The TPNW came into force in January 2021, marking a significant departure within the global disarmament regime by advocating for the complete abolition of nuclear weapons. Despite its ambitious goals, the treaty has faced criticism from nuclear weapons states, particularly regarding its suggested lack of international security dimensions. This thesis aims to examine the dual aspects of security and humanitarian concerns within the framework of the TPNW. Using a thematic analysis of documents from the TPNW framework, the research investigates how the treaty’s humanitarian and security-driven sides could contribute to fostering a security culture centered around human security. Drawing upon Mary Kaldor’s definition of the two security cultures liberal peace and geo-politics, the thesis explores how the TPNW could be part of shaping a security culture centered around human security and concludes that the Treaty has the potential to foster such international security culture.

The American system of nuclear weapons research and development was conceived and developed not as a result of technological determinism, but by a number of individual architects who promoted the growth of this large technologically-based complex. While some of the technological artifacts of this system, such as the fission weapons used in World War II, have been the subject of many historical studies, their technical successors -- fusion (or hydrogen) devices -- are representative of the largely unstudied highly secret realms of nuclear weapons science and engineering. In the postwar period a small number of Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory's staff and affiliates were responsible for theoretical work on fusion weapons, yet the program was subject to both the provisions and constraints of the U. S. Atomic Energy Commission, of which Los Alamos was a part. The Commission leadership's struggle to establish a mission for its network of laboratories, least of all to keep them operating, affected Los Alamos's leaders' decisions as to the course of weapons design and development projects. Adapting Thomas P. Hughes's "large technological systems" thesis, I focus on the technical, social, political, and human problems that nuclear weapons scientists faced while pursuing the thermonuclear project, demonstrating why the early American thermonuclear bomb project was an immensely complicated scientific and technological undertaking. I concentrate mainly on Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory's Theoretical, or T, Division, and its members' attempts to complete an accurate mathematical treatment of the "Super" -- the most difficult problem in physics in the postwar period -- and other fusion weapon theories. Although tackling a theoretical problem, theoreticians had to address technical and engineering issues as well. I demonstrate the relative value and importance of H-bomb research over time in the postwar era to scientific, politician, and military participants in this project. I analyze how and when participants in the H-bomb project recognized both blatant and subtle problems facing the project, how scientists solved them, and the relationship this process had to official nuclear weapons policies. Consequently, I show how the practice of nuclear weapons science in the postwar period became an extremely complex, technologically-based endeavor. / Ph. D.

This research is examines the nuclear arms race that dominated the 20th century, during which the United States manufactured and stockpiled a large number of strategic weapons. Using moral panic theory, the roles of the President of the United States and the media are examined in facilitating public interest in the manufacture of these weapons from 1955-1990. The project uses both time series and historical analyses to determine the extent to which the strategic nuclear weapons crisis was a moral panic created to insure public acceptance of such this massive defense sector expenditure. The time series analysis reveals that the President does have the ability to influence the public via the State of the Union Address, but that influence does not extend strongly to the media. However, what influence the President does have appears to be correlated to the use of substantive rhetoric, and the percentage of the speech dedicated to the issue. Finally, the historical analysis demonstrates that the moral panic moves through three phases. The first phase is characterized by grassroots concern over the technical gap represented by Sputnik 1's launch was utilized by interested actors to accomplish their goals. During the second phase, this concern transformed into an institutional technique utilized for deflecting institutional challenges when the moral panic moved into an interest group model. The final phase occurs during the rise of the "security state", when elites begin using the moral panic to achieve their own ends. / Ph. D.

This thesis examines the U.S. government’s perceptions of its primary and peer-level nuclear competitor, Russia, in the post-cold war era. Drawing on prior research on Russian signaling, and on (nuclear) deterrence in action – the thesis employs deterrence theory and ontological security to examine how U.S. administrations’ views have evolved from Clinton to Biden. The thesis concludes that publicly communicated views on Russian nuclear capabilities change from initial optimism to, after Russia’s attack on Ukraine 2014, suspicion and even to some extent hostility. Ontological security, combined with deterrence theory, explains how complex narratives are found to be central to understanding how the U.S. government views Russian nuclear postures and capabilities – and while traditional deterrence theory provides a useful foundation for interpreting these evolving views – ontological security allows a more comprehensive understanding of underlying rationality and perceptions.