Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons was adopted in 2017. A variety of countrieschose to join, take a position as observers or reject the treaty completely. In this study anexamination of two cases where the country chose to take a position as observers, which isSchweiz and Sweden. The empirical material is two consequence analysis documentspresented by each country. A purpose with this study is to analyze arguments for and againstthe treaty, which is found in the empirical material, to explain why Schweiz and Swedenchose not to join the treaty. This is done in relation to the aspects; humanitarian dimension,security, cooperation and the substantial content of the treaty. Further analysis is based on theinternational relations theories liberalism and realism, which are used as approaches topresent explanations as to why these countries chose to be observers instead of joining thetreaty. The study has shown that a majority of the argument against the treaty is found to bestronger than the argument for joining the treaty, with an exception for arguments about thehumanitarian dimension where the argument for the treaty is stronger. Explanations presentedwith the theoretical approaches result in security playing a big role in the decision, as well asfuture cooperation with other countries based on security and a better possibility to continuedisarmament of nuclear weapons.

Nuclear weapons pose a threat to humanity and a disaster waiting to happen; should tragedy occur the humanitarian sector will undoubtedly be among the first to respond to the needs of the victims. The scale and scope of a nuclear disaster is bound to be far beyond the capability and capacity of states to adequately address, let alone humanitarian organizations. The thesis therefore explores actions available to the humanitarian sector in the form of advocacy in favour of nuclear disarmament and seeking the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. To achieve this the present work suggests a collective statement supported by humanitarian organizations globally. It describes a novel concept in the form of a posture of peace as possible indicator or descriptor of any actor’s intention based on content of explicit or implicit behaviour. It finds that knowledge around nuclear weapons is well enough established that action, or lack thereof, comes from a lack of political will which here is seen as obstacle that may be addressed by a collective statement by the humanitarian sector. A collective statement is here seen as a course of action that may spur governing actors to abolish nuclear weapons without creating tensions that may lead to further conflicts as well as being one of the few ways the humanitarian sector can, in a sense, protest.

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Nuclear weapons are considered to be the most destructive military weapons in the modem era. The combination of extensive destruction and the fact that nuclear missiles cannot be stopped makes nuclear weapons a major game changer in international security. When a country manages to weaponize nuclear material and is also able to make a delivery system the balance of power in the region is shifted. The roots of deterrence theory and modem balance of power theory are based on nuclear weapons capabilities between countries. In Southwest Asia, nuclear proliferation is common and has an important influence on the balance of power in the region. The combination of a turbulent history and a threatening environment are suitable for countries to try and develop nuclear weapons in order to overcome a security dilemma. This paper will attempt to demonstrate that nuclear proliferation in Southwest Asia is used as a deterrent against neighboring enemies and not a means to achieve regional dominance. This paper will illustrate this phenomenon through three case studies- Israel, Pakistan, and Iran. Each case will look at the historical evolution, political development, and military/security condition of each country and how each has influenced the decision of its leaders to commit to nuclear proliferation.

This thesis presents a foreign policy decision-making analysis of Kazakhstan's foreign relations in the initial post-independence period. The study applies a neoclassical realist theoretical framework in order to provide the understanding of Kazakhstan's external behaviour. The thesis conceptually assumes that the integration of the presidential decision-making element in the analysis of the republic's foreign policy is essential to account for Kazakhstan's foreign strategies, which would otherwise appear to be anomalous from the deterministic perspective of the structural theories of international relations. The set objective of the work is to produce a theoretically informed historical narratives of Almaty's policymaking during three episodes in the republic's diplomatic history – the elaboration of a distinct balancing strategy; the relinquishment of the nuclear arsenal; and the Nagorno-Karabakh peace mission. The reconstruction of events behind the decisions made by president Nursultan Nazarbayev and his key advisors through the assessment of primary materials sourced from the archives of Kazakhstani foreign policy demonstrates that foreign decision-making process played a crucial role in the identification of national interests and development of appropriate policy responses in each of the episodes under examination. Chapter IV illustrates how the nation's policymakers developed a unique balancing strategy to ascertain the country's sovereignty and eliminate security risks under overwhelming geopolitical pressures that emanated from Russia and China. Chapter V discusses the episode when Nazarbayev was subjected to direct international pressure to surrender the inherited Soviet nuclear arsenal on the terms imposed by the USA, in response to which Nazarbayev devised a deliberately ambivalent and protracted strategy in regard to the republic's nuclear status. Chapter VI reveals the adaptability of the republic's policymaking to the changing international context as the regression of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace initiative demonstrates. The exposition of intricate policy planning and profound diplomatic endeavours reflected in archival documents reinforces the thesis's premise about the non-deterministic nature of Kazakhstan's foreign policy.

This thesis covers the individual work of Michael Chin as part of the sponsored research project funded by the U.S. State Department in support of a computational design of a "Mobile Pit Verification System" (MPVS), a mobile “drive by” passive radiation detection system to be applied in special nuclear materials (SNM) storage facilities for validation and compliance purposes. The MPVS system is intended to enable a comprehensive, rapid verification and validation of stored nuclear weapon core physics packages containing SNM, or so-called “weapon pits,” in weapon materials and stockpile storage facilities. The MPVS platform is designed to move at a constant speed and accumulate a signal for each stored weapon pit container. The gamma detector was selected to be a 4 × 4 × 8 cubic inch CsI detector while the neutron detector array designed for the “Transport Simulation and Validation of a Synthetic Aperture SNM Detection System (“T-SADS”) project was used in conjunction with this work; T-SADS was a 3 year project funded by DOE-NNSA which was completed on May 2013. The computational design effort for this project was completed in April 2013, and leveraged novel computational radiation transport methods, algorithms, and SNM identification methods, including a synthetic aperture collection approach, and a new gamma ratio methodology for distinguishing between naturally occurring radiation materials and weapon class SNM materials. Both forward and adjoint transport methods were utilized to characterize the adjoint reaction rate as a function of inter-source spacing, collimation thickness, linear and angular field of view, source age, source type, source geometry, and mobile platform speed. The integrated count was then compared with background radiation and the associated probabilities of detection and false alarm were then computed. Publications resulting from this research were published in PHYSOR 2012, presented at the 53rd annual Proceedings of the INMM, and at the Mathematics & Computation 2013 Conference.

Ukraine’s foreign policy has puzzled observers since the dissolution of the Soviet Union due to its unusual inconsistency. This inconsistency exhibited itself in contradictory decisions by the Ukrainian executive carried out within a short period of time, which signalled either greater cooperation with Russia and relative cooling of relations with the West, or integration into Western institutions and worsening of the relations with Moscow. This study aims to explain the inconsistency by examining the sources of Ukraine’s foreign policy through process-tracing in four policy cases: Ukraine’s renouncement of nuclear weapons (1991-1994), the status of the Black Sea Fleet (1991-1997), the Odesa-Brody pipeline (2002-2004), and the 2006-2009 gas disputes. Contrary to dominant interpretations of Ukraine’s foreign policy vacillation that emphasise the role of external influences, especially that of Russia and the West, this study concludes that Ukraine’s inconsistent foreign policy decisions are best explained by domestic factors – intra-executive divisions and the influence of vested interests on policy-making. The work relies on the use of primary sources including archival research, elite interviews, and Ukrainian and Russian newspaper reports.

The aim of this diploma thesis was "To Analyse the awareness of the population in the area of South Bohemia region in context of emergencies in case of using weapons of mass destruction". In the theoretical part of the thesis the issue of the weapons of mass destruction is described from the description of particular groups to some historical consequences, to their arrangement or detailed description of the main types of weapons, and their harmful effects on a human body. As the issue is really wide, the main text is focused on the basic specification for easier understanding. Not many details are presented, but the most important information and some sidelights were given the priority. The target of the thesis was not to prepare a detailed and broad description, but on the other hand the comprehensive view of the studied issue, so a reader can obtain clear and brief analysis of the topic. For the practical part of the thesis the quantitative research and the method of a survey for obtaining data were chosen and done from January to March 2019. The questionnaire consists of four parts. Each part is specifically orientated. In the introductory part of the questionnaire there are three initial questions given to divide the responders according to their gender, age and education. After that there is the part A, which consists of ten questions, and it is aimed at the public awareness about the issue of public safety. The other parts B, C and D have five questions each, and they are aimed at the particular weapons of mass destruction - chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The main goal of the survey was to find the level of the public awareness in South Bohemia region. The obtained data show that the correct answers reached approx. 55 %, but the range of all particular correct answers was from 30 % up to 83 %. These results show that there is potential room for improvement of the public awareness by simple and well-arranged brochures, by creating professional web-sides or groups for modern society that can use social network such as Facebook or Instagram. The diploma thesis can be also used as an educational material.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-03-21T12:11:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Raquel de Bessa Gontijo de Oliveira.pdf: 2010350 bytes, checksum: 3bb9fd16aab66146e3196022202d4a1c (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-03-21T12:11:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Raquel de Bessa Gontijo de Oliveira.pdf: 2010350 bytes, checksum: 3bb9fd16aab66146e3196022202d4a1c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-02-26 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / Nuclear weapons proliferation represents a yet unsolved problem in the international security agenda, and it is intimately related to ballistic missile proliferation. Specialized literature on this topic contains different hypotheses about what causes proliferation, which can be distinguished between those that refer to states’ demand for these weapons, and those that emphasize the role of supply, represented by states’ access to sensitive technology through international civil cooperation. In this research, we investigate the role that different factors play in influencing states’ decision to acquire or relinquish nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, and we contrapose forces related to demand and supply. Through a quantitative analysis, we identify some relevant correlations, among which the relevance of insecurity as a driving force of proliferation and the apparent irrelevance of access to technology through international cooperation are particularly noteworthy. From our statistical analysis, we select the case of Canadian non-acquisition to be the object of more detained investigation, through which we confirmed the importance of the security context and the marginal role of access to technology, besides identifying an influence of identity aspects on the non-acquisition policy. In light of this, we conclude that factors relating to demand have a far larger impact on proliferation than factors relating to supply / A proliferação de armamentos nucleares representa um problema ainda não solucionado na agenda de segurança internacional, e está intimamente relacionada à proliferação de mísseis balísticos. A literatura sobre este tópico contém diferentes hipóteses sobre o que causa a proliferação, as quais podem ser distinguidas entre aquelas que se referem à demanda que os Estados têm por esses armamentos e aquelas que enfatizam o papel da oferta, ou seja, da facilidade de acesso à tecnologia sensível através da cooperação civil internacional. Nesta pesquisa, investigamos o papel de diferentes elementos sobre as decisões dos Estados de adquirirem, ou não, armamentos nucleares e mísseis balísticos, contrapondo as forças relacionadas à demanda e à oferta. Através de uma análise quantitativa, identificamos algumas correlações relevantes, com destaque para a importância da insegurança como uma força motriz da proliferação e a aparente irrelevância do acesso à tecnologia através de acordos de cooperação internacional. A partir de nossa análise estatística, selecionamos o caso da não-aquisição canadense como objeto para uma investigação mais detida, em que confirmamos a importância do contexto de segurança e o papel marginal do acesso à tecnologia, além de identificarmos uma influência de aspectos identitários sobre a decisão de não-aquisição. Diante disso, concluímos que os fatores relativos à demanda têm impacto muito superior sobre a proliferação do que fatores relacionados à oferta