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Hugh Gaitskell was leader of the Labour Party between 1955-63. The Cold War was at a critical level and bi-partisanship in international affairs was expected. With Gaitskell's accession this appeared to end, marked in particular by the disputes over Suez, the independent nuclear deterrent and Britain's application to join the European Economic Community. Simultaneously, he was challenged by the Left over nearly every aspect of Labour's foreign and defence policy. Despite these major controversies, Gaitskell's influence over international affairs remains a neglected area of research, and he is remembered more for the domestic controversies over nationalisation, his ill-fated attempt to revise Clause IV and defeat at the 1960 Scarborough conference. This thesis addresses that imbalance by examining Gaitskell's contribution to foreign affairs and the following inter-related areas: bi-partisanship; policy formulation; internal divisions and the power struggle between Left and Right. In addition, it also considers how the structure of the Labour Party benefited the leadership during this turbulent period. The conclusions revise Gaitskell's reputation as a figure of unyielding principle, and demonstrates that his leadership was marked by a mixture of finesse and blunder. His responsibility for the end of bi-partisanship can be discounted, as Labour remained firmly committed to the policies laid down and followed since 1945. Yet, the personal control over policy that he exercised, allied to his determination to mould the Labour Party in his own image, needlessly accelerated the internal struggles for power. While the Scarborough defeat illustrates the limitations of his authority, Suez and Europe display his acute political awareness of the requirements needed to balance national interests, electoral prospects and maintain party unity.

The subject of this research is “South Africa’s Voluntary Relinquishment of its Nuclear Arsenal and Accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons in Terms of International Law”. The research found that international law considerations did indeed play an important role in guiding South Africa’s relinquishment of its nuclear arsenal, and in accession to the NPT. The dissertation was conducted by interviewing an expert sample of the key persons who were actually involved with, and led, South Africa’s relinquishment of its nuclear arsenal and accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. The decision to interview the expert respondents was followed in order to understand the respondents’ animus or state of mind, and the logos of the decision to relinquish the nuclear weapons and accede to the NPT. The study sample included: • Mr FW de Klerk, former President of South Africa, who instructed that the nuclear arsenal should be relinquished, and that South Africa should accede to the NPT; • Professor Wynand Mouton, whom Mr de Klerk appointed as the Oversight Auditor of South Africa’s nuclear relinquishment and its accession to the NPT; • Professor Waldo Stumpf, who successfully project-managed the nuclear relinquishment process, and brought accession to the NPT into reality; • Mr Pik Botha, who was South Africa’s longest-serving Minister of Foreign Affairs, and who later held the portfolio of Minister of Energy. Mr Botha was personally involved in leading many important international negotiations that pertained to South Africa’s nuclear status over some decades; and • Dr Neil Barnard, who was Director of South Africa’s National Intelligence Service at the time. An important and new research finding was that all of the respondents indicated that the reason the nuclear weapons were relinquished and South Africa acceded to the NPT was that the relinquishment of these weapons and the accession to the NPT were symbiotically interconnected with the constitutional settlement in South Africa. For the respondents, it was a causa sine qua non of the international acceptance and recognition of South Africa’s non-racial constitutional settlement. The respondents were ad idem that it would have been well-nigh impossible to have achieved a peaceful constitutional settlement which was internationally 5 legitimate without relinquishing these weapons and acceding to the NPT prior to the conclusion of the constitutional negotiations. Had South Africa held onto this nuclear arsenal, it would have created international mistrust, because it would have begged the question (petitio principii): “What is the purpose of their retention?” The perpetuation of the nuclear weapons programme would have created international doubt as to the sincerity of the constitutional transition and contributed to the continued recognition of South Africa as a pariah state. This finding has not been reported in the literature and is therefore a new contribution to knowledge about South Africa’s constitutional transition. Although not publicly visible, the relinquishment of the nuclear arsenal and South Africa’s accession to the NPT were purposively linked, and indeed synchronised, with the constantly changing status of the constitutional negotiations – ratione temporis. The link between the relinquishment of the nuclear arsenal and the accession to the NPT was purposefully kept secret. This was because it was reasoned that the matter of South Africa’s design of a nuclear arsenal, its possession of these weapons, its dismantlement of these weapons, and its accession to the NPT formed such a potentially contentious matter, both nationally and internationally, that it could easily have thrust the entire constitutional transition into jeopardy. For this reason it was decided (wisely, in the researcher’s view) to address the matter of relinquishment and accession to the NPT in camera. It was conducted in camera because the security of the state was at stake. The testimony of the respondents made it clear that this subject was sufficiently incendiary to have derailed the constitutional negotiations and settlement, and plunged the country into chaos. The research discovered that the reason the decision was reached to relinquish the nuclear arsenal and accede to the NPT was to ensure that South Africa was recognised as a constitutional democracy and a respected member of the international community of nations. The mission was conducted in order to achieve state succession in a stable framework of constitutional continuity. The research also discovered that a number of the countries that have relinquished their nuclear weapons and acceded to the Treaty on the Non- Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons did so because of the imperative to create a positive state recognition status amongst the international community. Had South Africa retained the nuclear arsenal during the constitutional negotiations, and afterwards, it would have tainted and jeopardised the state succession and the constitutional continuity of the country. It would have endowed the government-in-waiting with a poisoned chalice and undermined Mr Mandela’s stature as a leader. The decision was made by Mr de Klerk and conducted in good faith insofar as all stakeholders were concerned. Comity was displayed by the National Party towards the African National Congress – the regime-in-waiting – in order to endow it with the opportunity of becoming a successful government. The research found that Mr de Klerk, together with his team, carefully reconciled and harmonised South African municipal law with international law in order to obviate a conflict of laws. This harmonisation of law was important in establishing respectful relationships and comity with the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is an organ imbued with international legal personality under the United Nations Charter, and with the international inspectors, including those from inter alia the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, China and France. The expert respondents were all in consensus that South Africa could never have lawfully deployed the nuclear weapons in any conceivable military conflict, including in the case where the very existence of the South African State might have been at risk. They unanimously expressed the opinion that such usage would have constituted a mala in se and been contrary to natural law and peremptory norms of humanity. The principles of jus cogens and erga omnes permeated their assessment of the legality of any usage of nuclear weapons. The respondents were also in agreement that any actual use of these weapons would be disproportionate, indiscriminate, escalatory, and would not be able to discern friend from foe, and therefore would be contrary to international humanitarian law. The usage of a nuclear bomb would have been a threat to world peace in terms of the United Nations Charter, which might have justified a United Nations-sanctioned military invasion of South Africa to counteract such a threat to world peace, as was the case when Iraq invaded Kuwait. The interviewees were in consensus that if the nuclear weapons had been deployed, they would have escalated conflict, and created an international reprisal risk with potentially disastrous consequences for South Africa, the region, and indeed for the world at large. The research sample further indicated that any operational use of these nuclear weapons would have created disproportional consequences, which would, by deduction, have contravened inter alia: the Geneva Conventions, the Hague Regulations Conventions, the Kellogg–Briand Pact (1928), the Martens Clause, and therefore international humanitarian law. It would have raised the question of state responsibility for wrongful actions, which would also have included contraventions of international environmental law caused by trans-boundary nuclear pollution. Individuals committing wrongful actions could not have pleaded immunity from such wrongfulness by claiming immunity under South African municipal law. The respondents subscribed to a positive law interpretation of the legality of nuclear deterrence, which is the position that the Nuclear Weapons States have assumed. In its essence, this positive law view subscribes to the principle contained in the Lotus case, that what is not prohibited ispermitted. Natural law and positive law have oppositional reasoning as regards the legality of nuclear weapons, and this logical tension was evident in the research. The respondents revealed a difference of opinion as far as their understanding of the legality of the development, possession, testing and deterrence versus actual usage of nuclear weapons is concerned. They were of the view that any military usage or nuclear test would be illegal, but regarded the development, possession and deterrent usage of nuclear weapons as being lawful. The relinquishment process and accession to the NPT was conducted as a secret set of negotiations contiguous with the constitutional negotiations. It is a fact that the African National Congress was not informed about these negotiations until Mr de Klerk issued his formal announcement about the relinquishment and accession to the NPT on 23 March 1993. Mr Mandela was therefore presented with the reality of relinquishment and accession as a fait accompli. South Africa’s rollback is compared with the relinquishment process in Iraq in an attempt to discover whether insight and knowledge from the South African case might be transferred and applied to other countries that are contemplating the same actions. The provisional answer to this question is that partial aspects of the knowledge that was created in South Africa might possibly constitute elements of precedent. The application and transference of this knowledge would always need to be tailored to the unique context, facts and circumstances that might prevail in the transferee state in question. Most certainly all nuclear relinquishment and accession processes need to be conducted as extremely serious projects and in good faith.

This dissertation investigates the social construction and discursive emergence of US nuclear weapons policy against the backdrop of the nuclear taboo and its associated anti-nuclear discourse. The analysis is drawn from poststructuralism with a focus on the discourses that construct the social world and its attendant “common sense,” and makes possible certain policies and courses of action while foreclosing others. This methodology helps overcome the overdetermined nature of foreign policy, or its tendency to be driven simultaneously by the international strategic environment, the domestic political environment, and powerful domestic organizations, and while being shaped and delimited by the discourses associated with the nuclear taboo. I apply this method to three different cases of presidential administration policymaking: Eisenhower, Reagan, and George W. Bush. In each, the analysis illuminates the coherent discourses that emerged, crystallized, and either became policy, or were usurped by competing discourses and their associated policies. I follow the actions of key actors as they stitched together existing discourses in new ways to create meaning for nuclear weapons and the US arsenal, as well as to limit what could and should be done with that arsenal. The case studies reveal the content of the strategic international, domestic political, organizational, and normative bases of US nuclear weapons policy. These results suggest that most challenges to the nuclear policy status quo emerge from new presidents whose own discourse is built upon personal conviction and critiques of their predecessors. Upon taking office, these sources compete with discourses emerging from organizations, especially the nuclear weapons complex, and anti-nuclear forces including: activists, the scientific community, the international public, US allied governments, and the US public. It was this political conflict and confrontation that made possible the pattern of nuclear weapons policy that characterized each administration. This work points to the strength of the nuclear taboo, and the effort that must be expended for its associated discourses to impact presidential policymaking. This insight provides an opening for managing the nuclear threat posed by the Trump administration’s new nuclear weapons policy.

North Korea began opening an the path towards warmer international relations policy in early 2018, after making several threats against the United States and a series of missile test launches and nuclear tests. This paper argues that North Korea is warming relations because they identify as a nuclear state. If a country as openly hostile towards the United States as North Korea believes itself a nuclear power, then any diplomatic act is made with the knowledge that North Korea has the ability to attack the United States if anything goes wrong. North Korea knows that the United States would have more reasoning to deal diplomatically with the country instead of aggressively when these actions could risk mutually assured destruction. The paper explores the history of North Korea and their nuclear abilities to see if these actions could be predicted given their past behavior. Next the paper explores international relations on why states cooperate and how nuclear weapons have effected state behavior. Then a variety of case studies of U.S. interactions with new nuclear powers seek to predict how the United States will interact with North Korea as s new nuclear power based off of previous dealings with other emerging nuclear states. The paper concludes that North Korea has the right to claim themselves as a nuclear state and craft agreements under the pretense of nuclear brinkmanship. However, the United States will not likely give up their policy of nonproliferation or easily accept North Korea's status. As a result, in line with both North Korea's own cyclical history of hostility and diplomacy, and realist motivations behind policy, it is unlikely that the current rounds of warming tension between the United States and North Korea will continue.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies (Defense Decision-Making and Planning))--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2004. / Thesis advisor(s): Peter R. Lavoy. Includes bibliographical references (p. 77-83). Also available online.

Thesis (M.A. in Security Studies)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Peter R. Lavoy, Jeffrey W. Knopf. Includes bibliographical references. Also available online.

Thesis (M.A. in International Security and Civil-Military Relations)--Naval Postgraduate School, December 2002. / Thesis advisor(s): Peter R. Lavoy, Surinder Rana. Includes bibliographical references (p. 83-92). Also available online.

Thesis (LL. M.)--Judge Advocate General's School, United States Army, 1965. / "April 1965." Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-80). Also issued in microfiche.

Dissertation (Ph.D.)--Auburn University, 2006. / Abstract. Vita. Includes bibliographic references.